Axle Breakage

[168glhs1986]

SDAC 25 drag races.

Ran a couple 11.9's and it wasn't running well. Swapped the spark plugs and did a little burnout to heat my drag radials. The SOUND of the engine was back and I knew it was going to be a great run.

Staged and go. 1st gear sounded great, shifted into second and nothing !

Had a 1.7x 60' and ran thru the traps at 24 mph for a 32 second 1/4 mile. I gently gave it gas after the traps (didn't want to be towed) and I had power but the RPM's spun to 3 grand and didn't go any faster.

Pulled back into the pits thinking it was a clutch. Surely if it was an axle I couldn't even move right? Wrong.

Broke BOTH axles at the welds but they held enough for me to drive back to the pits to be pushed onto the trailer.

So these are the 2nd and 3rd axles I have broken. Definitely the weak link to my car. Ill be using Johnny's axle guy in Oregon and will try again for the 10's.

[player1up]

fook! when you say "at the welds", you're talking about the welded center shaft? correct?

[168glhs1986]

fook! when you say "at the welds", you're talking about the welded center shaft? correct?

Yes, fine for road racing and autocross but while they were designing them they probably never considered the following:

Drag Racing
Drag Radials
400 HP
6 grand launches

[polopharm]

Bummer. But luckily could have been much worse.
Why was it running rich ? Or what was going on ?
What engine management are you using ?

[Johnny]

My axle guy said that would happen....with the welded part.
i just stopped there and dropped off my axles to get rebuilt.
Harold said he needed a longer axle on the passenger side.
mine seems to be the same on both sides by just looking at the
two. But he is checking today.

[Johnny]

I got mine rebuilt today.
INFO:
The caravan one is 15-3/8"
The GTP one is 15-3/4"

So looks like the Caravan one is too short after all.
He is checking on using something else to make these besides the welded shafts.
Something available that will work at a reasonable cost
He said he would let me know.

Other than than it would be $400 to $450 to make a special strong shaft.

- - - Updated - - -

Mine were $99 each to rebuild.

[polopharm]

Is there any reason to believe that all of the cars do NOT have the same axles ?
If they are all the same I may just have him make a set of the chromoly ones . It would be nice to not have to pull the old ones and send them in etc , if we can determine that they are all the same from car to car.

[168glhs1986]

I would imagine all the axles are the same. Good idea Andy. Let's have 2 sets made. Maybe a little discount that way.