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Aluminum Driveshaft on 2011 GT500


Ezareth

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My first peformance mod is going to be an aluminum driveshaft, something I think should be standard on the GT500.

 

I've heard a few people saying they get some vibrations and sounds after doing this mod. Is there anyone who has done it yet to their 2011 and have no negative consequences? If so which one did you buy and how easy was the install?

 

Thanks for any info.

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Just curious...why do you want an aluminum driveshaft as your first mod? Usually guys get them if they are making crazy amounts of power that the stock DS won't handle. Are you planning on doing some major performance upgrades? I don't have one but from most of the posts I've read there is a certain amount of vibration with one-piece drivshafts. There is a reason why ford uses a 2-piece as OEM. IMO the trade off in drivability will not be beneficial in your case, unless of course you have a Whipple of KB in your future. Just my .02..

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Just curious...why do you want an aluminum driveshaft as your first mod? Usually guys get them if they are making crazy amounts of power that the stock DS won't handle. Are you planning on doing some major performance upgrades? I don't have one but from most of the posts I've read there is a certain amount of vibration with one-piece drivshafts. There is a reason why ford uses a 2-piece as OEM. IMO the trade off in drivability will not be beneficial in your case, unless of course you have a Whipple of KB in your future. Just my .02..

 

 

Even though it sounds rediculous I can tell the difference between the Aluminum Driveshaft and the Iron piece of garbage that comes standard on mustang when accelerating. It doesn't pull harder but it somehow "feels" less bogged down, and the RPMs would appear to climb faster.

 

You also drop another 20-30 lbs off the unsprung weight of the car which is always good for ET and handling, and it won't void my warranty if I get it install right. I plan on modding the car lightly at first, mainly cosmetic and handling improvements, and then after the 3 year warranty kicks out look at a supercharger upgrade.

 

As far as the one piece versus the two piece, well that's why I'm asking. My 99 was a 1 piece I'm pretty sure, so I don't really know anything about the 2 pieces.

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I have installed over 100 Dynotech Racing 1 piece aluminum driveshafts in 05-11 Mustangs, SGT's and GT500's and have never had a vibration issue when installed correctly. Less reciprocating mass, more rear wheel HP, plus it is stronger than the 2 piece.

 

Alex

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Which one did you buy? Did you swap it yourself or have someone do it?

 

You haven't had any noticable vibrations or noises?

 

 

Bought it and had it installed through Evolution Performance. Not sure of the brand. Here is the link:

 

http://www.evoperform.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=128_137&products_id=605

 

No vibration, noise or other issue at all. I do have dome drone with my mufflers at about 2,000 RPM, but that's a whole different issue.

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I have installed over 100 Dynotech Racing 1 piece aluminum driveshafts in 05-11 Mustangs, SGT's and GT500's and have never had a vibration issue when installed correctly. Less reciprocating mass, more rear wheel HP, plus it is stronger than the 2 piece.Alex

 

 

 

Bought it and had it installed through Evolution Performance. Not sure of the brand. Here is the link:http://www.evoperform.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=128_137&products_id=605No vibration, noise or other issue at all. I do have dome drone with my mufflers at about 2,000 RPM, but that's a whole different issue.

 

 

Thanks guys, appreciate the input.

 

I do wish I knew the reason ford uses the 2 piece though.

 

Do you guys recommend going with the driveshaft loop? I don't plan on going over 700HP at any point in the future.

 

What about self-installing? Don't feel like driving 7 hours through PA to Evolution.

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Guys am I missing something? I have looked under my 2011 and it does have an aluminum driveshaft. It is two piece but how much weight savings would a one piece make?

 

 

Why would Ford switch to an Aluminum Driveshaft and not let ANYONE know about it? If true (sadly I haven't looked under mine) that could explain some of the additional weight savings, but I highly doubt what you are mistaking for an aluminum driveshaft really is aluminum.

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Maybe someone with a 2011 could crawl under there or if they have a magnetic extendable tool retriever check to see if the drive-shaft is ferrous or not.

 

Like Ezareth mentioned I hadn't read anything from Ford about the switch to aluminium.

Someone checked their 2011 a while back (can't remember where they posted.) It's NOT aluminum.

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Maybe someone with a 2011 could crawl under there or if they have a magnetic extendable tool retriever check to see if the drive-shaft is ferrous or not.

 

Like Ezareth mentioned I hadn't read anything from Ford about the switch to aluminium.

 

 

 

Fellas,

If it helps, I just went outside and put a tool retriever magnet on my driveline and guess what ? It stuck. Sorry, its not aluminum. At least *MY* 2011 isn't. My is stock and has the SVT PP.

Hope that helps,

HAWKBARR

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I had installed a Dynotech to my car. One thing I noticed was the original DS has beefier u-joints. I did end up reinstalling the original two piece. I have read that Ford uses the two piece DS to increase safety in the event of a rear end collision and the newer mustangs (S197) are prone to more vibration with use of a single piece over a two piece drive shaft.

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I have installed over 100 Dynotech Racing 1 piece aluminum driveshafts in 05-11 Mustangs, SGT's and GT500's and have never had a vibration issue when installed correctly. Less reciprocating mass, more rear wheel HP, plus it is stronger than the 2 piece.

 

Alex

 

 

 

I wonder how much "more rear wheel HP" you would realize from making this switch? Particularly with a 2010 GT 500 with a TVS 2.3L...All other variables equal, would it yield a lower 1/4 mile time?

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I had installed a Dynotech to my car. One thing I noticed was the original DS has beefier u-joints. I did end up reinstalling the original two piece. I have read that Ford uses the two piece DS to increase safety in the event of a rear end collision and the newer mustangs (S197) are prone to more vibration with use of a single piece over a two piece drive shaft.

 

 

S197 Driveshafts

 

Good reads by some guys that appear to really know what they're talking about when it comes to driveshafts although someone mentioned 4300 lb GT500's that "all" do 10s at the track haha.

 

From the guy "Squidd" there:

 

What the Driveshaft problem really is:

 

First it should be defined as what it is. It is not a driveline “vibration” problem but a driveline harmonics issue.

 

There is no way of guaranteeing that you will not have harmonics issues. Contributing factors to driveline vibrations are:

Driveline angles

Driveshaft balance

Harmonics from the rear end which includes a change to the gear, diff, axles, bracing, cover, etc can all contribute to driveline harmonics.

The wheels and tires you are running can contribute to driveline harmonics.

The upper and lower control arms you are using can contribute to driveline harmonics.

The springs and shocks can affect it too.

Going with an aluminum shaft opposed to a steel shaft will affect harmonics even if they are the exact same design.

 

Pretty much anything can cause a driveline harmonics problems depending on the specific combination of parts. That’s why some people have no driveline harmonics issues and some do. There does seem to be a trend of the more aftermarket parts you have in your driveline the more likely you are to experience driveline harmonics issues though. That being said there are stone stock cars out there with harmonics problems.

 

The bottom line is that you can have perfectly balanced/round wheels and tires, perfectly set up rear end, perfect driveline angles, clutch centered perfectly, everything torqued to spec, etc and still have a driveline harmonics issue. In most cases you will not find that any one component is “out” and causing the harmonics issue. As stated above if all of the components that can affect driveline harmonics spec out perfectly on their own that does not guarantee you that when they are combined as a system you won’t have any harmonics issues.

 

I dug all my notes up that I took while mapping out the driveline angles in the chassis the other day and compiled them into something cohesive. The bottom line is Ford stuffed a huge motor with a very high crank centerline and a Trans with a relatively low output flange centerline into the front end of a car that they wanted a certain look from. Sacrifices were made. I know exactly how to solve the driveline angle issues in the car. On a basic level it’s easy. The problem is easy. The Trans output flange as delivered points at a point that is lower than the center of the pinion flange centerline even with the car not being lowered. It gets worse when the car is lowered. In a perfect world the Trans would point at a spot above the center of pinion flange. If it were set up like that you could get the driveshaft set up to be perfectly in phase (something like a DS angle of 1.5deg down coming off the trans and 1.5deg up coming off of the pinion). As delivered that can not be done because of where the Trans points.

 

It could be solved by shimming the Trans at the cross member till it pointed up a few more deg but there is not enough room between the Trans and the tunnel. Not even close. You can slam the Trans into the tunnel and you will only get .4deg out of it. You would have to move the tunnel to make it better. Obviously a lot of work.

 

Another way to solve it would be to lower the motor but even with the pan sitting on the steering rack I could only get .6deg out of it which was not enough. And obviously you can’t have the pan touching the rack anyway. And you can’t move the rack “down” because that would make the current bump steer issues even worse to borderline in-correctable. To compound the problem the back of the pan was quite a bit lower than the K-Frame which is just begging to get broken open. To get the motor low enough to even be in the ballpark you would need to dry sump it. Of course that would pay you back with a ton of performance advantages (lower C of G, more HP because of less windage, more HP because of the small vacuum placed on motor, oil stored in trunk which moves the weight to were you need it most, you could run a 10qt system if you wanted to and never have any oil issues, etc). Of course the downside is that it would be very custom, incredibly expensive, incredibly complex and nudge the car pretty far toward “race car”. I think at some point I will dry sump my car but that would be at least 2 more years and the car will be pretty far down the development phase by then and to a point where most people don’t want to take their cars.

 

If you combine shimming the Trans and lowering the motor as much as possible it’s still not even close to where you want it.

 

The last Idea I have to fix the situation, and one that would not be very expensive if done in a large enough quantity would be to remove the trans tail/flange and bolt on a custom mini “transfer case” that would simply raise the trans output flange up and therefore relocate the output flange higher. There is room in the tunnel for that because you wouldn’t be moving the large part of the Trans. And while designing it you could ditch the output flange in favor of a “normal” slip yoke so the driveshaft would not need to telescope like they do now which does not help the DS balance/whip/harmonics one little bit. I could make this part out of billet without much trouble and use some OEM 1:1 “transfer” gears of some sort so durability was already proven. The problem is making one would cost at least $3,000. If I could put them in production and make 1000 units I could probably do it for $500. I highly doubt I will find 1000 people ready to sign up for one though. It would be far less expensive for me to dry sump my motor and lower it in the chassis a ton.

 

So there ya go. It’s fixable to the point of having zero issues no matter what combination of parts you are running by setting the car up so you could obtain an ideal driveline layout but not one of them is very easy or cheap.

 

Next will come a ton of posts from people telling you if they do or do not have driveline harmonics issues and what driveshaft they are running. Unless you are planning on driving their car that information is useless to you. Unfortunately going with a 1pc aluminum driveshaft is a crap shoot.

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  • 3 years later...

I cant really speak for the Shelby as I am purchasing it in 2 days, but on my 13 GT I had 560hp, upper and lower control arms, lowered and an aluminum drive shaft, and even though there was a bit more whine out of the drive assembly, I was happy to trade. You can feel your car shave an extensive amount of weight when accelerating and decelerating. The car felt nimble, also after all my performance mods I was getting better FUEL mileage than advertised which was 26 highway, I was getting 28mpg going 60mph on cruise control. I also tracked my car 3 times a month so it was a must, Ford stock 2 piece tends to snap.

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