alky fc diffs

i am contemplating building another alky fc chassis to replace my old one. ive been looking for the best diff to run. lots of choises from mw modular to strange toploaders ,christmans,mike dennis billets, and others.a cruise around the pits has me wondering which is best because a lot of variations and everyone has had good luck with their stuff. snyder is said to have 350 runs on the original diff gears with his mw , an auto car,but still thats impressive.any thoughts on this,anyone? i know to stay clear of the older toploaders that are expensive and hard to maintanance ,expensive tool kits and hard to work on,etc .any info would be appreciated.thanks . nice wheelie in dallas!

 

Don't know alot about the funny car side of it but, all the heavy hitter Pro Mod guys have switched over to The Mark Williams Modular 11" rear. Everyone that I talk to that runs one absolutely loves them. Vaughn Smith ran one in his funny car a couple years ago and was said to have over 300 runs on the original gearset.

 

come on, one post out of all these racers? somebody has got to have more opinions on this!

 

I see you are in S.D.
Drop by for the answers, or call 619-440-7701

 

NITROBANDIT1,
From SD, Fontana power, funny car, mechanic. Could you be Dan C.?
If you go over to Meyers take a look at the 9 1/2 in my F/C. I just finished a complete R&R on our basket case top loader. I'm now an expert and have the home made tools to do it again. If you go that route I can be of help.
John

 

If I'm not mistaken the car and rearend that Snyder has is Von's Div. 2 Championship car. That means the rearend has been in there this whole time, I know they had good success out of the 11" and are the first ones to my knowledge to use one in a pro mod when Von drove Tommy Lipar's Ex-Roy Hill Mustang.

 

thanks jdrag and bobm . yes,it is dc on a quest for knowledge and skill,look like ive found the right place. ill stop by and check it out.thanks!

 

9 1/2

What about a Rear Gears 3rd Member case? That was the old Lenco case that Danny Miller bought the rites to then Modified and is currently manufacturing. The case is an awsome piece and the price tag is almost cheap compaired to the extravigant stuff the others make. Does not hurt to ask

Danny Millers rear gears (636)861-3900

 

John Russo has run an 11" MW in his Pro Mod for 3 seasons now. Hasn't any any trouble.

 

just a small question,but judging from the enormous size of the mw diff, it doesnt appear that you can just change rears to an existing car chassis. that thing is huge in comparison.

 

Mw 11"

If you are currently using a MW modular 9" housing the 11" rearend will bolt right in. The Hypod distance is the same as a 9" ford. The driveshaft will have to be shortened and the anti-rotation device will have to be modified. The distance between the housing flanges is 16"

I was told by MW that the ring and pinion gear in Snyders car is the original gear that was set up for Von Smith. Thats impressive to me.

EJ Johnston

 

rears

bobm thanks for the input. funny thing mark williams doesnt specify if there 11 inch is a floater axle or a live axle! strange doesnt list there widths on the 10.5 either. what gives?

 

MW 11" is floater axle the same as their 9" modular rearend. All the
componets from the 9" modular rearend will work on the 11".

 

rear ends

after a new trip to pamona a quick check of 24 alky fc reveals not 1 mw 11 inch diff. according to mw this is the best thing since internet porn, why havent all these rich alky guys gone out and spent 15k on this new revelation of mechanical genius? the big seller is long ringandpinion life,but is the 40 extra pounds that big of a deal?

 

Yea, 40 lbs. is a big deal, even with the new weight minimum. It is larger and takes more to turn but if it is lasting 200 runs it may be worth it to some. The way some guys are driving through shake it may be come standard soon.
Bill

 

I have a Strange 9.5 and we get 100+ runs out of a ring and pinion. That includes tireshakers and 5.50 passes. I usually change the ring and pinion at 100 just because it doesn't owe me anything after that many runs (of course I keep an eye on it). 40 pounds is a big deal.

I was considering switching in the new car we are preparing to build, but Mike Strausberg from B&J mentioned to me that for some reason the larger diameter units in some cases seem to cause tranny problems. Since we get great life out of the 9.5" (unless I'm missing something here) I won't change.

RG

 

Randy, nice work last weekend. Yea, if you get 100 runs out of the 9.5 why try and turn something heavier? I guess the change you made on the body angle (cage) was not a problem for performance judging by the numbers?
Bill

 

bmoore:

Thanks for the kudos.

After raising the cage over the Winter, Pete said it was like driving a motorhome with a big screen windshield. I did an experiment which showed for every 2 inches the driver's head is raised, 6 more feet of horizon is exposed at 100 feet in front of the car. This means the visibilty over the injector sitting in the waterbox at Pomona went from just above the sand trap to asphalt at the 60' clocks. Huge for him. I think the higher body is hurting us, though. I had to add aluminum to the back bumper to pass body tech.

While it may be hard to believe, we never did get a picture perfect run last weekend. This is how it went:

Thursday's 5.69 it dropped an intake valve near the finish line on a pass that I had it set up pretty soft. It blew the panels out, trashed the dash and body burst panel and made a mess of one head and a piston. BA came over and "handled it". Donny, Jeremy and the guys grabbed the head and had it back at our trailer as good as new in less than 24 hours.

Friday's first session was the first full pass on a brand new set of BA6 heads. I jetted it 16 rich compared to normal just to keep it very safe and to give Pete something he could drive. I was figuring a low 5.70 something not trying to rotate the earth. I about fell over when it ran 5.65. The speed was poochy at 252 because it was so rich and that run stood as low et for the session. At that point I decided I would make no changes and just let him drive it the remainder of the weekend because of his long hiatus and his desire to get familiar with driving again with minimal issues.

We skipped the Friday night session because we were a little behind on some things we wanted to accomplish. I hate skipping sessions! We never skip sessons. Hate it. Don't skip a session.

First round against John Weaver on Saturday, Pete was feeling pretty good. Again, I elected to make no major tune-up changes other than adjusting for the conditions because I wanted him to enjoy a shake free weekend in a driveable car. I knew John could step up and I was tempted to get after it but elected not to. Pete left on John but made a small mistake that has cost him before. He had his thumb on the 1-2 shift button when he left the starting line which resulted in a 1-2 shift at exactly 1 second. That means the headers were at the 60' clocks when the button went down. The clutch hasn't been that hot in a very long time. Weaver had problems of his own which was a break for Pete, but John would have needed his best run of the weekend to get around the starting line advantage anyway since Pete ran a 5.77.

Second round we ran against Steve Gasparrelli and again I just left it alone. Pete had a .041 light and ran another 5.65 at only 251. The combination of the higher body and rich on the main gave us weak 1/8 and 1/4 mile speeds but speed doesn't win races (although I like speed). Looking back I'm glad I left it that way because Pete was struggling to find the finish line. He was shutting it off at about 6 seconds each run even though the et was in the 5.60's. The cylinder temps were cool and safe so there were no problems. I'm glad the chutes came out, though.

Third round against Jay, Pete was pretty ampted up. Pete and Jay prestaged together, staged together, but didn't leave together. Pete yanked his foot off the clutch and red lighted and Jay won with a 5.76. Some people said it didn't matter about the red light because we smoked the tires anyway, but what actually happened was Pete dumped the clutch, then a split second later hit the throttle. The clutch was locked with no wheel speed, then he floored it. With the throttle going down, something has got to break loose and it wasn't going to be the clutch...it was the tires.

Our goal for the weekend was to just go have some fun and let Pete have a stress free weekend with no expectations, along with doing an experiment with the frame and seat that seemed to work out well for him. Going in to the semi finals against Jay I started thinking we may have a chance of actually doing pretty good here. There was more left in the tune-up and Pete was catching some pretty good lights. I thought if we made it to the finals I'd put it (the tune-up) on wreck and let Pete give it a go. After he red lighted against Jay I embarassed myself by getting a little upset about it and making it known. But I quickly apologized to the guys and they pointed out that no matter how old I get I still have a lot of passion for the sport and that's not a bad thing. It's all about control, I guess.

When Jay's team and ours were ready to fire our cars behind the water box the official who gives us the signal to start looked at me and said "hurry up and wait." I said "I'd rather be waiting right here right now than waiting in line to go out the front gate." He said "Amen to that."

Lotsa fun.

 

Geez Randy, Will is going to have to pay you for articles like that! Great post, I know all the lurkers (and I) enjoyed it. A .77 with 2nd gear at 1.00 is awesome, were there any discs left? Or should I ask, what clutch are you running?
Bill

 

diffs

awesome reply. great insite into real world f.c. parts life. i guess rotating mass does equate into this as well.thanks