I like a big rear end! lol opinions needed 210 / r230 / 8.8 or 4hu (dana 44)

[Silver99E39]

before I get to "blathering on" there are two things that are important, Low buck, and as minimal custom made parts as possible. Also I want to use off the shelf cv shafts, so If I do snap one, a quick jaunt to the parts store will fix it. So here's what I got, building a single turbo lq4 6.0 backed by a 4l80e should be tickling the 500hp / tq mark. and I plan on beating the snot out of this thing. that being said, I know the poor 188mm diff in the back of my car wont live long, if at all at those power levels. so I have some options I've been looking at. and a few options inside each diff choice. I've focused most of my research on non bmw diffs, so if anything might work in bmw land, I'm all ears.

bmw 210 should be bolt in, but still on the smallish side, is there anything out there that's bigger than 210mm? drawback with this one, expensive limited slips, and still quite small

Nissan r230 armada front CV shafts, and Maxima hubs installed on BMW wheel bearings. This is a HUGE rear end, (over 9") drawbacks on this one, gear ratio changes are limited, and expensive, Maxima has a 5 on 4.5 bolt pattern, which means the entire rear brakes would have to be swapped, or somehow squeeze a bolt on pattern changer, under the brake rotor, also the armada front cv shafts aren't that thick. also the Maxima hubs are slightly smaller than the ID of the BMW bearing, and would have to be shimmed to press in.

ford 8.8 this one has developed into a few different varieties, also with unique challenges, first and foremost the 8.8 does not have stub axles, the cv splines directly into the pumpkin when found as installed, also stuck with the same wrong bolt pattern hubs in some of the configurations I've worked out. positives are its also a sizable rear, lots of limited slip and ring gear options.

I'll try to narrow the options down to the most probable

8.8 with early t-bird 28 spline carrier, with a chevy 28 spline stubs from the front of a 4x4 truck, I haven't got the specs on this stub shaft, but they are both 28 spline, so it should come down to where the snap ring grove is and if its in the right spot. from there I'd like to run a Chevy front cv, because of its shaft size, but the weakest link would be the stub axle, also it might need to modified to be the correct size for the axle bearing and seal, but that is also doable. then the task of finding or making a 33 spline wheel hub

the other option if the flanges work is turn an adapter that mates to the 100mm BMW cv pattern, or if I find a better combo, some other axle, and hub. there is also a set of stub axles available made for swapping the 8.8 into a supra, but there $450 so there a bit cost prohibitive.

the last and the one i think is going to be the easiest, but probably the 2nd strongest, is the Salisbury 4hu found in just about every jaguar since 1961. essentially the 4hu is a British Dana 44. the main difference, the early units use a weird stub axle bearing, and all units use a larger bolt to hold the ring gear on. however as I read, most if not all dana 44 carriers will work, so gear selections, and lsd options are plentiful, in stock trim there isn't much for lsd, and their not that great. the drawback is its only a 8.5" ring gear, but if its good enough for a viper, it should be good enough for me, I think the weakest link would be the BMW shafts.

to make this one work, I would take the stock jaguar stub shafts, and if space permits turn up an adapter that bolts to the flanges, and then lets the stock BMW shaft bolt to that, if there isn't enough room, I could turn the square flanges round, and weld on a ring that has the bmw bolt pattern,

now on most of these that would retain the BMW cv's it seems that most models from the 90s to the 00's share the same 100mm bolt pattern, and 27 spline wheel ends, it seems so far that running the M roadster shafts would leave an extra 1.3" for bigger diff and flange adapters, which may or may not be enough. still trying to work that out.

so, am I out of my mind? should I just go back to shoving square pegs in round holes? or do any of these combos seem like they could live behind 500 lbs of torque?

[lloydjoe]

Speaking about the Ford 8.8. It seems to be holding up in my car with my LS3 and hard shifts. From my experience the issue with larger diffs is the cv's. Where the CV axle pivots doesnt come close enough to where the control arms pivot, so when my shock is all the way extended it is starting to load up my CV axles and tries to pull them down and out of the diff.

Your easiest route and less custom would be the larger BMW option. Anything else will require custom axles, not cheap but if done right they won't be breaking and you won't be needing spares or replacements.

I have a feeling you never heard of the rule of 3's...
1. Cheap
2. Fast
3. Reliable...
You can only have two of the three.

Sent from my SM-G935W8 using Tapatalk

[Silver99E39]

nope never heard of that rule of 3.. however I have heard this one.. good fast and cheap, pick any 2 lol. still researching this.. I think I've got a few solidish paths to take.. see whatcha'll think. Basically, it comes to power levels..

(1) appx 450 crank hp - roll it down to a Nissan r200 out of a Z, with shorter axles, stay with BMW rear bearings / hubs, and lil 27 spline output.

(2) what ever I can throw at it (500+) Ford 8.8 / Nissan r230 Modify outer suspension uprights to accept 09 and up corvette 33 spline hubs, and take my pick of 4x4 axle shafts from a GM 4x4 (with a side option of burly 4x4 ones as opposed to OE), cheapish option on the 8.8 steal gm front stub shafts, take a ford inner axle and weld them together (--properly-- abbreviating that process here)

and I actually have a spare rear subframe now, so don't actually have to pull mine to set this up. but I think the idea, would be to make sure the inner cv joint is as close to the inner suspension pivot line as possible, so its not pulling on the joint, just pivoting.. another side note on that, if the cv joint location isn't ideal, it could be compensated by using a plunging joint to keep the location better...

So what do y'all think on that? I agree this isn't a cheap adventure.. but I think "the devil's in the details" and the more research I do, the cheaper it will be

[Liquidity]

Why don't you just put a 540 dif in there? It's a 210 and will handle an automatic just fine.

[pbonsalb]

Many of us run old BMW 210 LSDs with 500-700 lbs rwtq. My turbo E36M3 is in that range and has made 1/4 miles passes on drag radials and several years of street driving. I twisted stock driveshafts in 2, broke 188mm diff output stubs, fused clutches and broke ZF320 transmissions. The 210 diff is fine.

[wanganstyle]

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[Silver99E39]

To clarify its not going to see much 1/4 mile boogies, combo is a hopped up lq4 6 liter chevy, and t56. mainly just a street car, but I plan to do some solocross with it, and its never cheap.. just trying to do it as inexpensively as possible.

[wanganstyle]

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[pbonsalb]

If the OP has a regular T56, then a 210 diff is fine. The T56 should break first. If the OP is a great fabricator and has plenty of time, he should adapt whatever he can buy cheapest. BMW stuff usually costs more than domestic and parts are harder to find.

4 years ago, I spent $250 on an 3.15 LSD from an E32 750il and $150 on an adapter plate, but those E32 LSD are rare and expensive now unless you get lucky in a junkyard. They are also 25 years old. Today, I’d look at other options. People want $600 for E32 LSDs. Also, a 3.15 is probably longer than the OP wants.

[wanganstyle]

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[Bluebimma]

I ran a 168 behind my lq4/t56 and swapped it out for a 4.10lsd 188mm because i got tired of the 3.45. I drag race, street, and cross country my 360ti on 285s.

[Liquidity]

Handling down the 1320 may be tricky with a solid axel though.

How do you figure that? A live axle is by far the best setup for drag racing.

[wanganstyle]

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[C10 LS1 1968]

Another option is the aftermarket IRS available for street rodders and such. I think Art Morrison has one along with Heidt. Don't know any of the details but might worth looking into.

[Liquidity]

obviously this is in regards to a bmw that was designed by the nazi engineers to have an IRS

if you are a legendary fabricator and can build anything then I suppose you could make an solid axel fit an IRS bmw chassis and handle straight.
if you don't get it perfect the car may end up not doing well;

There's nothing legendary about a 4-link and a panhard bar. It's one of the simplest suspensions out there besides leaf springs. You're way overthinking this.

[wanganstyle]

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[DarkSideofWill]

What's OP's chassis?

A 188 w/ LSD and 94mm output flanges & CV's will probably be fine at that power level.

If there's a bolt-in 210mm diff option, it'll be bullet proof at that power level. If OP breaks 94mm output flanges or CV's, he can step up to the 102mm units from E39 M5/E38 750.

[pbonsalb]

You won’t break the output stubs unless you are running R compounds and launching hard. I broke a few 188 M3 size stubs. Never broken a 210 stub (my E32 210 LSD has same stub flange diameter as 188 M3 stubs), but the larger 210 stub does not fit the smaller 188 diff. Again, unless you are running R compounds and launching hard you should be fine. I never broke an M3 188 stub on regular tires since they won’t hook up if you have big power.

[wanganstyle]

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