Aluminum Driveshaft

JTGrant

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Aug 2, 2005
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I am thinking of buying a lightweight driveshaft from JPC. From what I understand the shaft uses the factory pinoin yoke and it is a direct replacement. There are others on the market but they require disassembling the rearend to install a traditional pinoin yoke. I have heard nothing but positive remarks on this mod. I believe that the factory driveshaft is approx. 50 lbs. and the JPC shaft is 17 lbs. This is a loss of 33 lbs of weight, not to mention the loss in rotational mass.
 
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northwestgt...do you like the mod?can you feel a difference and if so how?does it rev quicker?can you feel a difference in accelleration?i would think that and an aluminum flywheel would be a great combo...
 
I think it was a good mod because it is half the weight of the OEM shaft. But, I have never had my car on a dyno so pretty much all I have is an SOTP feeling. The closest I can come to a quantitative number is that, completely stock the car would turn 0-60 on my wrist/stop watch at about 5.3 sec (it's an auto). With a CAI, an 87 octane tune via an SCT, and the aluminum driveshaft, it runs just a hair under 5.1 sec. I think that is a pretty good improvement. Don't know what that would translate into for 1/4 mile times.
 
NorthwestGT said:
I got mine from Powerhouse www.powerhouse411.com. No problems. Dropped right in, and they have them in stock. Tried ordering one from JPC, but got the run around for about a month.

You got the runaround for a month because the people that had automatics were having vibration problems so he stopped shipping them until the problem was resolved.
 
"You got the runaround for a month because the people that had automatics were having vibration problems so he stopped shipping them until the problem was resolved."

I heard quite a few reasons from Mr. JPC. You got your driveshaft from him and that's fine, I couldn't get one from him. And, you didn't hear the stuff he was telling me during that time. Lots of interesting stuff. And, as I said, Powerhouse had a non-vibrating driveshaft in stock that dropped into my car (auto) with no problems.

You like him, and that's fine. I have my opinion. I didn't get good service from him, and that's a fact.
 
He's a racer at heart, not a business man. Yes, you are right, I like the guy. He's hooked me up and not without problems, but that's ok. Maybe he didn't like you or maybe your attitude. I mean like I said, he's a racer at heart and I respect his accomplishments and will give him my business.
 
NorthwestGT said:
I think it was a good mod because it is half the weight of the OEM shaft. But, I have never had my car on a dyno so pretty much all I have is an SOTP feeling. The closest I can come to a quantitative number is that, completely stock the car would turn 0-60 on my wrist/stop watch at about 5.3 sec (it's an auto). With a CAI, an 87 octane tune via an SCT, and the aluminum driveshaft, it runs just a hair under 5.1 sec. I think that is a pretty good improvement. Don't know what that would translate into for 1/4 mile times.
I have heard that an aluminum ds on an S197 is worth about 18rwhp. Don't know if that is true but you're getting a 25-30lb weight shaving, in reciprocating weight. I mean the stock ds is the weight of a cast iron head. So needless to say I'll be including this mod in the future.

:nice:
 
Aluminum shaft

18 RWHP? I'd HAVE to see the dyno charts on that one. I have installed aluminum drive shafts on two cars, an '85 GT and a '00 GT 'vert. I installed both in order to correct a vibration following a gear change. It cured the problem in both cases, but I didn't feel any difference in power in either case.
I think the money would be better spent on other mods, but that's just my $.02 worth.
 
I suspect then that the fox and sn95 stock DS's weren't as heavy as what comes on the s197. I doubt an 18 hp gain as well but all the 05+ guys that have done the mod say they can feel it's there. As well there have been reports of .2 in the 1/4 from this mod alone. This is sourced from a few different boards.
 
no hp gain

well i seriously doubt there would be ANY hp gain because the driveshaft has nothing to do with adding any horses, its OFF the motor and deals with putting the power to the tires, it should add some torque but no hp.
 
well i seriously doubt there would be ANY hp gain because the driveshaft has nothing to do with adding any horses, its OFF the motor and deals with putting the power to the tires, it should add some torque but no hp.

Like Shadow said, an aluminum driveshaft would not MAKE more hp, it would simply free up some hp that was otherwise lost through drivetrain loss, in this cause due to decreasing the rotational mass of the driveshaft. I believe a while back I heard that for each 10lbs of rotational mass taken off of the drivetrain is like losing ~100lbs of dead weight from the car. And with each 100lbs off the car is usually about a tenth faster in the 1/4 (so ive heard) a driveshaft that was about 30lbs lighter should in theory cause a decent drop (~.3) in the 1/4, thats just about the same as throwing a set of 4.10's in our cars.
 
I've read on many forums that they are worth 2/10's in the 1/4 mile, but I haven't gotten one because I've also read that people have had alot of issues with them vibrating. Most people don't but with my luck, I would have the problem.