{"id":8017,"date":"2014-09-19T09:32:46","date_gmt":"2014-09-19T16:32:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=8017"},"modified":"2016-11-30T12:00:23","modified_gmt":"2016-11-30T20:00:23","slug":"axle-essentials-for-racing-and-performance-part-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/axle-essentials-for-racing-and-performance-part-iii\/","title":{"rendered":"Axle Essentials for Racing and Performance, Part III"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"This<\/a>
This is the standard axle flange found on Mark Williams\u2019 Hi Torque axles. It\u2019s double drilled for conventional \u00bd-inch studs and drag race style Drive Studs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last time in our series on axles<\/a>, we took a long hard look at the axle splines along with the overall shape of the component.\u00a0 And before that, we looked at materials and tempering.\u00a0 This time around, we\u2019ll look at the flange, housing ends and lightweight options.<\/p>\n

The flange on an original equipment axle typically measures 0.375-inches in thickness. Wheel studs are of the press-in variety (with a knurled shank) and usually measure 7\/16-inch (small GM and select early Mopars) or \u00bd-inch (the rest).\u00a0 Later model cars will usually be fitted with metric studs, but again, they\u2019re of the press-in variety.\u00a0 An aftermarket axle will usually have a thicker flange. It will be (most often) drilled and tapped to accept \u00bd-inch diameter screw-in studs.\u00a0 Quality race axle will be setup for 5\/8-inch diameter drive studs (that\u2019s another story altogether).<\/p>\n

What type of axle retention is required?\u00a0 Mark Williams points out that the majority of race-sanctioning bodies require some form of positive axle retention. The original equipment C-clip (which fastens the axle on the inboard side at the very end of the spline) does not meet these requirements. Accordingly, MW offers a special bolt-in C-clip eliminator kit that provides the necessary retention. If, on the other hand, you plan on narrowing the housing, it\u2019s a good idea to change the housing ends.\u00a0 Weld-on aftermarket housing ends provide for a much larger (stronger) bearing, provide for positive retention by way of a hefty retainer and they can be mated to most popular brake applications (ranging from OEM drums to aftermarket disc brakes).<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a>
Photo: Mark Williams Enterprises
Compare the photo of the conventional axle flange with this flange. This is a photo of Williams\u2019 Superlite Axle. Note how the flange is heavily scalloped.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So far so good, but what housing end should you choose?\u00a0 It\u2019s best to match the housing end to the brake package you plan on using.\u00a0 If you\u2019re using aftermarket disc brakes, it\u2019s best to work with something like a symmetrical housing end. The reason is it allows you to use a high quality brake system (disc).\u00a0 Williams notes that he does not recommend the use of small Ford housing ends. The wheel bearing is too small and delicate.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a racer, the final consideration is weight. Here\u2019s why: <\/b>\u00a0A set of lightened axles from Mark Williams can reduce weight by at least 9-1\/2 pounds (depending upon the length of the axles and the type of rear end they’re going into).\u00a0 As an example, one standard M-W axle for a typical S\/S car weighs 17.3 pounds.\u00a0 The same axle in a M-W Super-Light configuration weighs 12.4 pounds.\u00a0 How is axle weight reduced?\u00a0 The first place is a “gun” drilled axle.\u00a0 Using Mark Williams’ pieces as an example, the core of the axle shaft is bored 11\/16-inch, to resemble a gun barrel.\u00a0 As you can well imagine, this requires special machine tools, but M-W takes an extra step in the process (which is seldom, if ever done by other companies):\u00a0 They precision hone the gun drill bore to remove tooling marks on axles produced from 300M steel.\u00a0 The gun drill found on the 4340 axles is actually smooth. Now, this might seem like a small step, but the honing process actually improves the strength of a gun-drilled axle.\u00a0 Whenever M-W gun drills an axle, they also include round lightening holes in the axle flange.\u00a0 These two steps reduce axle weight by 17% over a standard axle.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a>
Photo: Mark Williams Enterprises
In conjunction with the lightened flange, M-W also gun drills the center of the shaft. The size of the gun drill depends upon the axle spline.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you’re really serious about reducing rear end flab, then you can look at the \u201cSuper-Light\u201d 300M pieces available.\u00a0 In this case, the gun drill bore is increased to 7\/8-inch (and of course, honed).\u00a0 Additionally, the axle flanges are extensively milled.\u00a0 While you can’t see it on a complete axle, there’s also extensive machining behind the M-W nameplate at the end of the axle coupled with a revised axle profile.\u00a0\u00a0 These machining operations can result in a weight savings of 29% over a standard gun drilled axle.\u00a0 Typically, this machining is done to 35 spline axles for use on cars up to 1800 pounds and on 40 spline axles for cars over 1800 pounds.<\/p>\n

If you do some digging, you might find what seems to be a wee contradiction to those weight removal\u00a0 “rules.” \u00a0For example, we once had a set of 12 bolt axles \u201clightened\u201d for a legal NHRA Stocker.\u00a0 They were 35 spline models destined for use in a 3,000-pound car.\u00a0 These axles had what initially appeared to be “Super-Light” modifications.\u00a0 There’s a catch:\u00a0 For an application such as this, M-W uses the standard 11\/16″ diameter gun drill process matched with the extensive pocket milling on the flange.\u00a0 It doesn’t provide quite the ultimate weight savings of the Super-Light axle, but it’s very close.<\/p>\n

That wraps up our look at the mechanics of axles.\u00a0 In the next issue, we\u2019ll take a look at measuring a housing for aftermarket axles.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part III of this series on axles looks at at the flange, housing ends and lightweight options for better racing and peformance.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":8022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5011,3465,11,9],"tags":[1330,1277,1314,281,1331,461,321],"class_list":["post-8017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chassis-suspension","category-drag-racing","category-how-tos","category-tech-tips","tag-axle-flange","tag-axles","tag-axles-101","tag-how-to","tag-lightened-flange","tag-tech-tips-2","tag-wayne-scraba"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Axle-11Feature.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-25j","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8017"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33221,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8017\/revisions\/33221"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}