When assembling a new rearend,...
When assembling a new rearend, try to get as much put together with the rearend on a pair of jackstands before hanging the entire assembly underneath the car. This will make your life a lot easier.
Welcome to Part 2 of our look into maximizing your driveline efficiency in order to get more power from your engine to the rear wheels. Now that more and more racers are involved in classes that require crate motors, spec motors, or just horsepower-choking two-barrel carburetors, there has lately been a greatly increased emphasis from race teams on eliminating as much driveline resistance as possible. And we're definitely on board with that.
In last month's Circle Track, we ripped apart Bulldog Rearend's new CT-1 closed tube rearend for stock car racing. Previously known for its excellent live-axle rearends for Sprint Car racing, Bulldog's new CT-1 quick-change rear has several features designed to reduce rolling resistance. But during our teardown and inspection we also found several well-thought-out design upgrades that should provide for lots of trouble-free racing. We've also outfitted the rear with a pair of Bulldog 31-spline axles that are polished and gun drilled which should make for both strength and a lowered moment of inertia.
For our braking package we’re...
For our braking package we’re using Wilwood’s forged Superlite calipers along with its excellent rotors and pads. Wilwood offers a even lighter Dynalite caliper, but driver Chris Hargett feels most comfortable racing this caliper/pad/rotor combination and has a lot of confidence that it gives him a consistent braking feel lap after lap, so we went with it.
Along with the rearend, we also took a close look at a pair of new billet aluminum wide-five hubs from Joe's Racing Products in the last issue. These billet hubs are stronger than the traditional cast units, and the idea is in the event of a hard hit the hubs will absorb more of the energy from the impact instead of breaking and allowing more of the energy to be transmitted to other components. In addition, these hubs are designed to allow you to choose between packing your bearings with grease or filling the hubs with lightweight oil to reduce rolling resistance. We'll take a closer look at that in this article.
Finally, we'll complete our buildup with a set of rotors, calipers, and pads from Wilwood to provide a little "whoa" to all that "go." We'll also get everything mounted up in the car with a J-bar from Joe's, birdcages speced out for our chassis by Stuckey Racing Enterprises, and a few other odds and ends. So settle in as we get a rearend installed with a minimum of hassle or aggravation and get ready to go racing. Even though we're working on a Mastersbilt by Stuckey Dirt Late Model chassis, many of these same tips will work no matter what brand of chassis you are working on.
For our braking package we’re...
For our braking package we’re using Wilwood’s forged Superlite calipers along with its excellent rotors and pads. Wilwood offers a even lighter Dynalite caliper, but driver Chris Hargett feels most comfortable racing this caliper/pad/rotor combination and has a lot of confidence that it gives him a consistent braking feel lap after lap, so we went with it.
Neil Wilson slides on the...
Neil Wilson slides on the TWR birdcages spec’ed out by Stuckey Enterprises for use with this chassis. The birdcages should slide right on, but you may want to use a little antisieze to help keep them rotating smoothly.
After the birdcages, Chris...
After the birdcages, Chris Hargett slides on the hub assembly with the brake rotor already bolted and torqued in place. We’re working toward getting the brake caliper brackets installed, but they are easier to properly locate on the axle tubes once everything else is already in place.
The Joe’s Racing hub spacer...
The Joe’s Racing hub spacer slides between the inner and outer hub bearings. Notice the threaded collar on the end. You can spin the collar to either shorten or lengthen the spacer to set the proper preload. Once it’s right, you can lock it down by tightening the set screw. Then, every time you tear the hub down for maintenance you can be confident the preload will be correct on reassembly.
Once the spacer is properly...
Once the spacer is properly adjusted, slide the outer bearing over the axle tube and into the race and then thread on the billet aluminum hub nut.
If you don’t use the spacer,...
If you don’t use the spacer, you can set your preload by tightening down on the hub nut until you get the right amount. This is all about feel, so unless you are experienced with this, it’s difficult to explain exactly how much the nut should be tightened to get the right amount of preload. A hub socket, like you see here, is definitely a great investment if you’re maintaining your equipment properly. You can try it by tightening the hub nut with a pair of channel locks, but the experience is almost certainly more trouble than it’s worth.