has anyone tried making a brace for their rear end? or tried welding reinforcement to the axl tubes? i was thinking of either making a "girdle" connecting both tubes together possibly bracing against the diff cover (webbed TA style cover). or maybe just welding reinforcements on the tubes (either square or tube steel welded along the length of the axl tubes , front and rear) ? any ideas?

 

why? this sounds like it will not do anything

 

If you have enough traction and power to cause the rear end housing to flex to the point where reinforcement is nesscsary, then the housing itself is the least of your worries. You are going to need a stronger rear end, i.e. 12 bolt. Reinforcing the housing will not stop you from tearing up the ring gear or breaking an axle.

On the other hand, an aluminum cover with studs that preload the bearing caps is a good idea, but the axle tubes and the housing is more than strong enough.

 

under a hard launch , as the rear rotates, the tubes usually flex forward a bit which distorts the case and also helps you destroy the rearend. on earlier 10 and 12 bolts there are heavy duty rears with larger tubes that help correct this, usually out of HD trucks (also welding the tubes to the center section helps). but a swap is expensive on third gens . i've seen low 9 second cars with older 10 bolts that have some wacky mods done to them and they actually live. just wondering if anyone experimented with anything like that on a third gen seeing as the rears arent the best.

 

try JEGS; they show an aluminum cover w tubular brace set up. I've never seen it in person though, just in the catalog.

 

The support cover and brace kit from Jegs is made by LPW Racing Products and is called the "Ultimate Rear end Cover" It is a support/girdle cover simular to most others but with a couple of drilled threaded bosses outboard of the bearing cap support screws.
Their brace kit is basicaly a couple of tubes (one for each side) with rod ends for both ends of each tube, brackets to weld onto the axle tubes near their ends, bolts & nuts, and a small plate to tie the two rodends together on the back of the cover better. The system triagulates the rear end very well to prevent the ends from pulling forward.

If you just weld straight pieces of tubing (square or round) directly to and parralel with the axle tubes you will stiffen the axle tubes a little but triangulation like this system uses is what really stiffens them.

The cover is sold sepperately from the brace kit, so you can make your own braces for it if you want.

http://www.lpwracing.com/main.htm

 

Like I said - If you have enough power and traction to cause this, no amount of reinforcing is going to make up for the fact that the ring gear just is not big enough. And the flexing that is going to happen is extremely minimal, and it is contained to the outer part of the axle, and here is why: The force that drives the car in a forward direction is generated by the tires (of course) and it is transmitted to the body by the trailing arms (control arms). Inside of the trailing arms there is of course going to be some forces that are acting to bend the whole housing, but because the trailing arms are so close to the wheels these forces are minimized.

There is no way in hell that the rear end in your car would have a prayer at 9-second power and traction levels. These "older" cars have completely different rear ends in them than ThirdGens do. Just because they have 10 bolts on the cover does not mean they are the same. The "10 bolt" rear ends that came on second-gen camaros had 8.5" ring gears. ThirdGens have 7.5" or 7.625" ring gears. That is a BIG difference. 12-bolts are 8.75.

All these mods you are talking about do matter when you get into the 9-second range, but your rear end will never get you there. Sure there are lots of ThirdGens that are running 12s and even the odd one that dips into the 11s with a stock type rear end, but if a ThirdGen is running 12s with any kind of drag slick the rear end must be closely monitored, and its lifespan WILL be seriously shortened.

Bottom line with ThirdGen rear ends - they just aren't big enough. Period.

 

I do have to agree with Hunter Motorsports that 9s on a 7.5 aren't going to happen.
Most cars running 9s are running 60' times around 1.3x.
A normally prepped 7.5 rairly lives beyond 1.60 60's.
You can install aftermarket axles, gear set, solid pinion preload spacer, a better diff, & a girdle/cover & axle tube braces, maybe even billet bearing caps, but it will probably still not live a long time running 60's below 1.50 (at least not in a heavy car) even with all that. Even with a good gear set, the pinion tries to shove that small diameter ring gear and the diff it's bolted to out of the back of the housing, usually breaking the bearing caps(and/or bolts) in the process. The larger the ring gear diameter is the less the pinion tries to shove it backwards.

 

Does anyone sell matched gears instead of helicut for these rears? That would fix a lot of problems.