I could have swore it was made out of aluminum but to make sure I started to weld on it with steel wire feed. I thought it would break right off but it stuck hard as hell. Stock driveshaft made of steel?? There goes my plan for making my driveshaft today

 

My good friend had put a custom aluminum drive shaft in his Cobra, because he put in a six speed tranny, and it only cost him only $350. So what the hell, I should get one too. Well I went to a good friend of his who made the shaft, Danny Banh big Mustang guy, to get an estimate. He checked it out and told me it was not worth the cost because the FD driveshaft is very short, and the rear end gear ratio is very low so it won't help with vibration at high end. I asked him how much it would cost anyways and he replied around "$1700." The reason being that the shaft sits very high, above the cat and there was an additional joint. I didn't go under the car, but I believe him considering he was a good friend of a friend. If you can find it for cheaper, let me know.

 

Thats only $700 more than a carbon fiber one. =p

http://www.rx7.com/cgi-local/3catalog.cgi?cat=2&part=6

 

John, it's steel for sure.

On a different note, I have an f-body driveshaft lying around if you want to either scavenge the t56 yoke, or if you want to modify the f-body shaft with the RX-7 differential flange.

I went with Hinson's aluminum DS setup, which was a great deal at $395.

 

The stock shaft is steel.. an aluminum shaft shouldn't cost more than $450 or so. There is no "additional joint". It's just a regular old driveshaft. I won't comment on the $1700 quote

 

wingsfan, you doing an ls1 too? I'm building up my forged ls6 motor now... my car has been apart for almost a couple years

 

http://www.dennysdriveshaft.com/html/nitrous_ready.html

 

Yeah, my car's been apart for a month tomorrow. The ls1 goes in on saturday, and I finally hav e almost all the pieces in hand to finish up. I'm missing LS1 edit, a battery, hoses for heater and coolant, and exhaust to connect the headers to the midpipe. So just the small stuff

 

is it steel or aluminum? I need a steel so I can weld the stock FD shaft to it for now. I'll probably end up sending it to Hinson to make an exact fit.

 

It's steel (rusty as hell, but OK), but it's not the same diameter as the fd driveshaft, so you'd have a bit of trouble welding the two together.

It also needs to be balanced, so I wouldn't suggest doing the job yourself unless you really know what you're doing. Your best course of action would be to scavenge the yoke off of my driveshaft (or another f-body ds) and then have somone local modify your FD driveshaft length to fit. Find a transmission shop and have them do it for you. It should cost you around $100, and they ought to be able to turn it around in a few hours. Some places might even do it while you wait.

There'd be no reason to send your ds out to Hinson. He's not going to modify your shaft, he's just going to source it out to someone that's local to him. You should do the same. If you want, you can pick up the f-body driveshaft when you stop by to check out my progress.

Andrew

 

I was going to send him the ds for reference to build me a new one. I have had problems with him before with fitment as I told you and I just don't want to have a ds too short or too long. Maybe I'm being too carefull but I hate sending things back to people for a fix.

How much did you want for your driveshaft? Even though it isn't the same diameter I can have my friend expand the pipe so it can slip over the FD shaft

 

You can pretty much just have it. $10 for the yoke? I'll be surprised if you can expand the pipe to fit over the FD shaft. There's quite the disparity in size.