Dana for Handling/Protouring?

Is there any reason other than the extra weight (big reason I know...) and limited gear ratios not to run a Dana vs 8.75 on a pro-touring type build? I am looking at the Strange S60.

http://www.strangeengineering.net/high-p...ing-mounts.html

I completely went through the 8.75 in my Challenger, moser axles, Detroit trutrac, ect... and by the time your done, there isn't a huge price difference in just going Dana and picking up some strength to boot and all new bolt in and forget it parts.

I'd want to do it all ready to roll, with a brake kit if anyone has any recommendations on that front as well, I plan on running gen 3 Viper disks in the front.

This will be for my Charger big block, 4-speed, XV level 1 suspension.

Thanks for the help!

you don't need the holding capacity of the dana. the dana was used in drag racing because of slicks. you could probably stick a 7 1/4 in there for the turns and you'd be fine.

cons -

cost
weight
ratios
not easy to switch gears
less availability of parts

What housing ends and bearings would you use? I've been wanting to put one in my duster. I put Dana's in 2 other a bodies it they were street strip builds.

I know I am just thinking if I am going to dump 2k into redoing an 8.75 I minds well spend 3 and have a brand new bulletproof Dana with disks brakes, powdercoated, ready to rock n' roll. I am on the list for the Passon 5 speed, so i think that with 3.54's in the Dana would be a nice livable on the street choice. This car will be 95% messing around on the street and occasional open track day type deal. I also like the idea of being able to throw slicks/drag radials on it and doing drag racing too. It would be 1 less thing to worry about down the road if I add big power too.

I have already broken a side gear in the Spicer clutch diff in my 8 3/4. All it is is peppy 6.1 and a 6spd in my 72 Dart. The S60 housings are lighter than factory 60 housings. Im thinking a Dana is in my future with the big Ford ends for the big non adjustable bearing. Cornering is harder on stuff than you think. After this year I hope to find a buyer for my 8 3/4.

Are those new side gears or old factory original ones?

I have to agree with Jerry. My 742- 8¾" has been through a lot in the last 6 years with no failures. 3.23 gears and stock axles pushing almost 600HP. Now I have only had drag radials on the car once and it mostly track driven. There is a lot to making these last, oils, axle play, etc. I have a grand total of $350 into mine......

Broken originals, I got it used and it had a broken cross shaft but the gears looked good so I put in a new cross and new clutches. Now it has all new guts with the same fresh clutches. I am hard on her, I can do a real good Dick Landy impression minus the cigar. I am pretty sure it would grenade if it ever dead hooks. Car weighs 3700 with driver.

Thanks , seems to be a bit of problem lately with some 8 3/4's wrecking side gears, the ones that I know of happened in new centre sections.

Good to see you posting again Viol8r, how is the front end that you are testing working out?

Luckily that side gear and the one tooth off a pinion gear was all that was hurt.

I have no problems with an 8.75, the one in my Challenger has held up great. It's just by the time I do what I did with that one, I minds well just do the Dana and have nothing to worry about. My only concern is other than weight it might not be up to a handling application.

With strength comes weight, I doubt you would notice any difference from a handling perspective.

If you do want to spend that extra Grant, why not get an aluminium carrier-housing for the 8-3/4"?

I would just get a junkyard 60, have Dutchman narrow it and provide shafts, use the torino ends, explorer brake kit from a jeep place, find a set of true Spicer 3.54 gears, diff of your choice (prefer power lok) and put it together, should cost about $1200 plus your labor. Tim

I run an 8.75 behind a BB stroker with manual trans in a corner application. It has held up fine with 200 TW tires in HSAX which is standing start. If I switched to sticky 50 TW track tires I would probably break it on the standing start.

I think the D 60 would be good if ratios work for you. I would use the taper bearings or double taper non adjustable Ford style bearings. Not green bearings.

If the D60 ratios do not work, a beefed 9" is an option.

In my case I run (and need) 3.23 so I don't think a Dana 60 would work,

I like the Dr Diff 11.7" rear discs which should work with any of the axle choices.

I have considered this to, have one in the backyard, but those truck axles have 3/8" wall tube, or thicker, and after you buy ends $100, pay to have them put on $2-250, have it cleaned and painted $40? An S60 housing with billet side adjusters and choice of ends at $665 is pretty attractive.

I'll keep my 8-3/4" until it dies, but I expect to replace it with a fabricated 9" housing when it does. For whatever that is worth. Good on unsprung weight, endless aftermarket support, nice brake options, and priced pretty reasonably.

I would do either a Torino bearing 9" or a 9" floating axle before a Dana for weight. The Dana is just a heavy beast and not really necessary.

I don't know why people seem to think a 9" is a good thing. Stock, they are weak. Spend a ton of money replacing all the stock parts and you still have an axle that is just as heavy as the Dana but not quite as strong.

Car Craft is a comparison between the 9", the S60 and the 12 bolt

http://www.hotrod.com/how-to/transmission-drivetrain/ccrp-0806-chevy-chevelle-rear-axle-swap/

If/when you decide to become real serious, ie - competition level - you'll want to lose all the weight possible... so, thumbs down on the Dana... too heavy. A well-built 8-3/4 will always get the job done. Dana's are awesome in strength and appearance, but they're overkill with the extra weight. Further, changing the center-sections on an 8-3/4 is quick and easy if you have different tracks that can justify different gear ratios... or even the simple chore of just trying different gears at different tracks.

Cause then I still have an 8.75, I don't want to worry with the 4 speed and sticky slicks or drag radials if I ever drag race the car. Buy once cry once...

If I had the skills and equipment and time I would go the home brew/junkyard route and by the time I paid someone to do it right I am back at the cost of a brand new improved Dana.

I would never put a Ford diff in my Mopar, sorry...might be stupid and bullheaded but my Mopars will stay all Mopar or at least oem style rear..

I appreciate all the input so far, thanks everyone!

I should have NEVER wasted my time & money on my 8 3/4 , another lesson learned.

Mine was 1/2" wall tube, a bare narrow housing was 68#, shipped by Dutchman in a cardboard box. Narrowing was $400 with the torino ends. The shafts are about the same price from most vendors. Brakes were $150 and I got the calipers from a salvage yard for $40. I also put in a 10.5" ring gear and a rebuilt power lock. I spent about 6 months collecting parts and building it. If you want instant gratification, do the strange, if you like to build...Tim

The truck housing are just heavy, I need to find out what an S60 housing weighs.

Ford 8.8 with factory rebuild able LSD and disk brakes is the way to go these days.

That is the rabbit hole I went down too, I am avoiding that again...

Care to elaborate? I thought the same thing about cost when building mine. After I did it, I was only a couple hundred dollars shy of having Dr Diff building me a Dana 60.

Exactly! by the time I got axles, tru-track, ect... I wasn't that far from a new Dana, and I still had an 8.75. I am talking about the 8.75 in my Challenger.

I run a Dana S60 from Cass with no regrets. Sold the stock 8 3/4 before I owned 2 of them.... by the time you buy all new parts I figured I might as well get the Dana and forget about it.

I'm now building an 60 with S-Trac, I built two 8.75's, spent money buying housings and centres, only to be very disappointed with the rattley Eaton TruTrac in both builds, Cass told me from the get go, just get a Dana.

rattley truetrac?

Google noisy TruTrac or
https://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/ubbt...tml#Post1975902

I've busted way to many 8 3/4 rears over the decades on the track and street on B and E body cars, they aren't worth the effort/expense, I'll trade the weight of the 8 3/4 for reliability/stoutness of the DANA

My Charger is running a Dana 60, 4 wheel disc, 7/8" rear bar, 4:10 gears, 440/6, Keisler TKO 600 .064 OD, and yes, Green Bearings going on 12+ years, 40K+ hard miles, many different tracks around the country, Power Tours, street driven, etc with no failures, I beat the piss out of my cars, and expect parts to take it

So you have done road coarse kind of stuff with the green bearings? I know they are fine on the street I have them in the Dana in my dart.

Weird. I couldn't get 6k miles out of a set of green bearings in my Dana to save my life. I used to keep a spare set so that if I was at an event I could put on a fresh set if I felt they were getting too loose. They became a regular, annoying service item. I ended up selling both my Danas for Nodular, full floating Ford 9" and Ford 8.8s. the 9" is unreal compared to any of them but the 8.8's are a step up from the Dana and 8.75.

This is an ancient picture of my strange S 60 in my 1970 Dart. A great decision.

hmmm I was planning on the trutrac in my future dana, I love it in my 8.75. Is there a special bearing configuration I want or are the stock style bearings ok for side loads? What would be diff of choice?

Thanks for getting this back on track, I didn't want this to be a Dana vs. 8.75 argument.

I don't believe there is anything wrong with the 8.75, pending your HP and intended use they are fine, I loved the Trutrac operation in mine and would have stayed with the 8.75, but the noise was the issue, I can run either tapered or roller bearings in the Dana. I like tapered but might run roller as it's just a low mile street/strip car

Go with the Torino bearings, they are WAY more stout than anything that mopar put out back in the day. I would also do a powerlock. Tim

What did the Trans Am Cudas & Challengers run for rear ends?

8.75's

Iirc, they were floater rears. So different rear bearings. Should be two for each side.

NASCAR Mopars at the time used 8.75's but ran floaters. I'd have to look in the Petty catalog, but they should be completely different and larger bearings.

The basic 8.75 setup is Daytona proven to handle ?700 hp at speed behind a Hemi + MT. A hard standing start like HSAX with really sticky track tires and steeper gears is a different situation that could hurt it... as on a drag car.

when i first inquired about the axle bearings that were in the dana for my humpback panel truck, i thought they had already been trashed because they were not a sealed bearing [open on the inboard side]. these came installed on the axles from strange, and the rear had never been run as it was a new , narrowed unit. the ends were the "big ford" bearing ends, i believe the od. is 3.150". anyway, i supplied the good doc with the part # on the bearings and several pics, and he told me those were for a 57 olds and they were the best a guy could get because they were open on the back side for using diff lube. however, they are not made any more or are very hard to obtain, i forget which. he told me at the time, which was at least 10 years or so ago. so, . i'll go with what he says and not worry about it. but my use is far from a serious cornering application.

I'm seriously considering an Aluminum D-44 from a 98 Grand Cherokee. The Aluminum center section uses the same HD ring and Pinion that the Viper uses, and they seem to hold up well behind turbo'd and Supercharged V-10s. If it doesn't work I'll only be out the 100$ that Pull a part gets for the axle and my labor.

I would think the D44, like the 8.75, would hold up fine in a cornering application until you combine lots of HP, really sticky tires, a manual transmission and hard launches.

I don't know about fit, and impact on the driveshaft and angles... but you could get disk brakes for low cost that way. Otherwise, I would (and did) stick with the 8.75. It serves me well with ~590 HP and ~680 ft lb torque and manual transmission... with 200 TW tires. I'm just concerned If I switch to 50 TW tires, it will let go on hard launch.

My understanding, the D44's used in Vipers were heavily beefed with special alloy parts and much stronger than the SUV version. With 50 TW track tires or slicks, I would guess a hard launch would break a Viper D44 also. That's probably why Viper drag racers switch to a D60.

You could just go with a Mag Dana 60.

FWIW, a rather rare MW Alum 8.75, shown first with 3.55 R&P and billet yoke, changed out to a lighter 2.76 and alum small Mopar yoke. Its a Auburn, not sure why 20? years ago i went that route. Notice the thickness of the mounting flange, caused a few issues installing. The weight on the scale is shown.

What's the weight of a regular castiron 3rd member? I'm guessing around 90 lbs somewhere?

The aluminum D44 from the ZJ Grand Cherokee uses the same internals as the Viper D-44. The only time Viper guys ever seem to go away from the D-44 is when they ditch the IFS. There are 1200 HP Vipers using the stock D-44 rear axle. As for fitment it has the same 5 on 4.5" pattern and is 59.5" wide WMS to WMS so it is a perfect fit for my 70 Bird clone

My 742 with power lock sure grip weighed 75lbs. I am guessing that the cone type grips are a couple pounds heavier than clutch, though no positive.

The AL 3rd members don't save much.

Why the threaded flange behind the yoke on the AL unit????

Not sure, my guess its either for a circle track J bar mount, or a flange for mounting a DS powered alternator or pump. The one pictured came out of a dragster.

Thought the Vipers ended up with a "Super 44"?

They did, and the Grand Cherokees did too.

The aluminum dana 44 flexes too much, lots of them were junked in grocery getters