Boy, this thread has gone all over the place. We all have our own personal preference. I believe a Dana belongs under a Mopar. I like the OP's idea. Find a truck Dana and put it together for his car. I want one of those magnesium Dana 60's like Ramchargers used to sell. If I can't find one of those, I want one of these. I know it's a 9" and I hate those but it's pretty and I can't resist that.

I put this aluminum Dana 60 in a friend's 71 Cuda a few years ago.

Who makes the aluminum case Dana 60?

That is probably one of those rare Mag case Dana 60 with the aluminum rear cover
Don Garlits had one of those in the back of one of his early(1975 maybe) black Dodge single wheel four door pickups at the Winternationals that year, I made a comment about that I would like to have one like that He no you don't , it is broken
Mopar had a batch of them made and gave them to a lot of their sponsored racers and then no more where made after that so it was probably due to the case not holding up in drag cars
Rickseeman, how much is one of those pretty racing rear ends like that one now ? Is that a Mark Williams racing rear end?
How about the racing 12 inch rear ends like that?
My new car has a cut down pickup 3/4 ton Dana 60 in it, hopefully it will hold up to what I throw at it

That billet 9" housing is sold by Tim McAmis for $9,000.

Strange and Chrisman make the 12" rears. But I don't think they have ratios that we could use.

And yes, Bigs used the mag Dana 60 rears. Bigs was super weight conscious.

The one that RUNCHARGER posted is a piece that Lee posted about a few years ago. I'm not sure it's from Australia or another offshore deal but it's a Dana style center with tubes that slide in and have like eight bolts holding them in.
Not the same style as the Ramchargers unit.
Gus

The Obvious,

Nothing looks as good as a dana under a street mope, period, end of story.


For a race car,,,,if you already have one, and you're a bracket racer, sure why not. tough, tough, tough, rear end. Starting from scratch,,,ehhh, a 9 makes so much more sense.

Reality is however, there are no fast cars on a dana.

All true. I would use a 60 in the right application. But on a fast car, big tire, narrow 4 link C-C, need for heavy duty, light weight aftermarket parts and gear ratio options, it's really not an option. There is so much stuff to be attached to the housing in a limited space, the one piece steel housing is almost a necessity.

Why not do that special pumpkin that fits a dana 60 gear set that fits into a 9" housing?

But I put dana 70 gears into a 60 housing...

To be real true fast cars don't have a 9" ford rear end. They have a drop out center section race axle.

Theres a twelve bolt Chevy center for a 9" Ford housing.

The 12 bolt design is a bit more efficient than the 9". Guys who use that are typically lightweight, not tons of power and willing to do whatever it takes for the last bit of performance. Think Comp.

Anybody ever seen a definitive/scientific test of rear end drag? Never heard of one. There was a magazine that did some tests, but as unscientific as it comes.

In fact, that took so much effort I am astounded that they did it when it all could have been done on a bench.

As such, this power robbing 9 inch story carries on and on, and will never end.


I find it amusing.

There have been tests & comparisons, but I don't have a link. The differences aren't a lot, but they are there. Most has to do with the pinion position relative to the ring gear. The closer to center the pinion is, the less contact surface the teeth have, thus less friction. Ford 9" also has an extra pinion bearing, I believe. The order I remember is : 12 bolt, Dana 60, 8 3/4, Ford 9". I don't recall any other rears, but the 10 bolt would probably be pretty efficient, if you didn't have a lot of torque/HP/weight.

I believe Jim Kinnet had a 12 bolt in his SS/AA cuda and a fast Stock class racer had a 8 1/4" rear in his car till durability issues and lack of ratios encouraged him to change to a Dana 60. This is also partially why many haven't seen a performance loss going from a 8 3/4 to a Dana 60. It may be bigger & heavier, similarly optioned, but the Dana is more efficient, especially if you take the weight difference out from elsewhere in the car.

It may have been Mark Williams who makes/made a 9" Ford center with 12 bolt innards!

There have been tests. The HP loss (or gain) is found in the gear ratio.

The lower the gear, the better the Dana is. Once you get lower than 4.88 the Dana gets better. IIRC, way back in the day the break even point was 4.10ish with anything taller than 4.10 and the 9 inch was better.


As for weigh, I've seen it published, but who did the test I don't recall. There wasn't 10 pounds difference between any of the rear axles when you build them to be raced with.

Put a rear on a bench, put a "load cell" on the pinion. Measure bearing preload and subtract that from end result.

Put a 3 foot bar (length not really a factor), and a weight on end of bar fasten to axle. Measure effort from 6 to 11 O'clock at cell. Graph it.

Repeat for all rears.

Would you use a "9" if you found it to be within .05% of other rears? How about 1%? What if its within .005%?

I know 3 people personally that traveled long distances to race, only to loose a Dana in time trials. About then they probably would have given 5% up just to race.


Can we talk a magazine into doing this kind of test? I know this all off topic, but somewhat relative anyway.

All parts fail. I've seen my share of 9's fail. 99.9999% of the time is user inflicted. So saying not to use an axle because someone drove somewhere and broke something is silly at best.



Why would anyone want (or even care what any magazine says) a magazine to do a test of anything? I've been reading car, dirt bike, gun and other magazines since I could read. I've never seen a single test I could conclude was done correct. Not one.

Those magazines exist to sell advertising. Period. The LAST entity I want testing anything is a magazine. That includes video magazines that are just as bad.

Only on Moparts can a rearend discussion turn into a lab experiment. Lol 😂

Well, ha ha, all correct above. Yeah, parts fail. Its just that I have yet to see an after market 9" fail. Stock, yeah.

Years ago when I was setting up my first aftermarket 9" I went to San Diego Gear and Axle to get a bearing. In talking with the owner, he said "I've got one of those in my Funny car, been there forever without problems."

Made me feel good about the money I had spent.

Carry on, good luck to all, no matter what kind of rear you like.