A simple steel shaft wont be expensive.

I had Carolina Driveline make my first 2 piece, and they were very keenly priced. Was actually meant to get one for a friends Monaro a few years back, although only ended up with half as he never followed it up with final measurements.
I bought a GTO shaft and had it sent to them, although the 3 bolt flange made it a little awkward. We bought an adaptor to change it to 4 bolt, but never got around to fitting it or doing anything more.

My current 2 piece steel shaft was from IEDLS, which was just a bearing/centre joint upgrade vs the original Carolina shaft. It was fairly expensive though, probably more than it should have been but they offered what I wanted, when almost nobody else would even make me a 2 piece.

A 2 piece Alloy shaft would be nice though if it could be strong enough.

 

I still think your leaving alot on the table by not going E85, it's worth it IMO even if you only use it when going to the track or playing around. My truck made 640 on 11.5lb with low timing on E68 through a 80e. It is a ly6 6.0, but still impressive to me and made me a believer in ethanol.

 

 

The 2 piece shaft was $9xx alone to my house, but well worth it in my opinion.

 

 

The Nitto NT series need a ton of heat to grip properly. I once swapped back to them from my MT DRs on the way home from the 1/4 track. I almost went sideways on the interstate shifting from 3 to 4 because they were cold. They were, however, awesome at Road Atlanta after a couple of warmup laps.

 

 

No excuse not to replace that factory junk driveshaft then. You have a hell of a resume...head porter, trans builder, machinist, welder/fabricator and worked at Cam motion! I have none of those skills, but I can install parts and tune...LOL. Low 10's in a daily is actually not that difficult at all and with that background it should be even more of a walk in the park. I'll probably go with Cam motion to replace my 228r when I build my motor. I'm wanting to get aggressive on the cam, but still work well with the procharger. I'm looking to run mid 9's with no care for gas mileage. I don't like to spend money unnecessarily, but I'm not afraid to spend money on good parts either.

edit to add: I've noticed the mindset on here that all the cool kids build 8 second cars for $2000 with junk yard parts. When I got to the track I find it odd that people pull in with brand new trucks with nice enclosed trailers and roll out a junk yard fox body. This is an extreme case and isn't really directed at you, but a general observation of this site within the last couple years. I don't have a problem driving a beater truck every day while spending money on good parts for the car I'm going to race. I just don't understand the criticism people that put good parts in their car get around here anymore.

 

Then buy a steel shaft, it will be a lot cheaper than that alu/steel combo.

 

 

No...I'm a few thousand miles away in the UK.

But trying to get anything made here sucks.

 

gotcha, they’re 20min from me is why I ask. They built the one in my truck

 

 

They built the first 2 piece shaft I used on my own car, and I would only have great things to say about them.

Then as said, I got half way through getting a custom shaft made for a friends Monaro/GTO....but the front half and rear flange adapter is still sitting on the floor in his house...he just never got around to finishing it.
That must be near 10 years ago lol.

I would definitely give them a call if you need anything.

 

Not at all. It's good to know a persons experience/skill set. I wouldn't recommend fabricating a custom turbo kit for someone that has never welded for example. You've asked a lot of questions over the last several months about things that I would expect someone with your experience, connections, and skill set to already know. Just seemed odd and running low 10's is really pretty easy with a power adder of any type. So basically I'm saying don't stress it so much and go run the car to see what it does then go from there. You have the skills to make it happen just see what it runs and then if it doesn't run as expected trouble shoot it and fix it.

The other part of my rant about the people insisting on using junk yard parts and hating on people that spend money on good new parts wasn't directed at you. I haven't really seen that from you it just fit the topic of the driveshaft debate. You are building a back up motor which is great I'm still trying to decide how much $$$ I want to spend on a motor and what route to take as I want to get a motor ready as well. The issue is you have a good running motor currently so you have time and it may last a long time. My advice from years of being at the track and having a few different low 10 second cars now (I've never gone 9's so that is why I want a solid mid 9 second car this time) is start working on putting better parts in the driveline. That is my only disagreement with what you are doing...just my opinion, but over killing the driveline isn't hurting anything except a couple grand for piece of mind.

 

Driveline is important....a broken shaft can cause damage.

And of course breaking something like that at the track, leaves you stranded. Important for someone who actually drives the car.

In all the years I've been driving to/from tracks, and for me it's usually a 400+ mile each way and ferry crossing, only once have I had to be recovered and that was a catastrophic engine failure.
But I've never broken anything in the driveline that has prevented me getting home ( but I have broken various stuff in the driveline ). Securing at least that side of things does make sense. It takes a bit more to do real harm to the engine that would totally prevent you getting home, but takes very little with the driveline to render it undriveable.

 

100% this ^^^

I've always driven my cars to the track because they are street cars. I've had 3 low ten second cars now all driven to and from the track. I believe in building the driveline in any type of car, but over kill on the driveline is essential on a true daily street car. Safety, extra damage caused to other parts when one thing breaks, and getting home are all good reasons to overkill the driveline. If you break something and hurt something else you may have just cost yourself more money long term.

 

My closest call, and luckiest was when I had the original IRS in the car.

I brought spare shafts, spare CV's as I knew something was going to break.

But the ******* thing broke an inner CV joint....no problem, easily replaced. After replacing, still no drive, it had also broken the shaft at the outer joint !! ****

Took everything apart,, shaft had sheared at a bit of an angle where the outer splines started. Managed to get it all cleaned up, found a guy at the track with a MIG welder and I welded the shaft back together, then welded the shaft to the inner portion of the CV joint. And that was enough to let me drive home again.

Have broke various gearbox parts too, but I've always had drive to get home ( whether it was silly to drive a few hundred miles or not in that state )

 

I just checked the calendar. Track is open sunday the 13th for test and tune. I'm going to try my best to make it there and get some runs in. Found a nice boost leak this weekend too. my damn blowoff valve was leaking pretty badly.