Seriously thanks for that, I ordered a copy I hope to see it this week and I scan it in and post whats there.
But before that I've got some bad news
I BROKE IT AGAIN!!!!
This time I killed the two bolts holding the dif plate into the car. They were grade 8 1/2" and they both snapped after 2-3 days of long hard burn outs on the Pilots playing with various rear shock settings. Then the next day, I'm leaving a parking lot and bam. The rear end is jumping up and down. With the front two bolts snapped the rear rigid mount I built as a replacement quickly with scrap from around the shop (during breakage #3 when I snapped the OE Corvette mount) this was the only thing holding the diff in the car and the CV's kept it centered so I could get stopped.
Now I'm sure everyone is wondering why there's a strap on the diff, that's how I got home, with a ratchet strap holding the diff down to the frame and X'd to keep it centered. I was about 20 miles from the shop and it was one of those days where everyone was gone along with my truck and trailer. So I had to drive it home, very, very slowly.
So on to the real fix now and what will hopefully be the production mount. I kept patching the old system and prototype adapter to just see what, and in what order, things would break when we take away the torque tube and transmission from the system. Obviously the first thing that needs to be addressed is the lack of support that would keep the differential from rotating around the rear axle center line. Just like the diff on a live axle car the IRS diff is forced up from the pinion yoke rotating backwards around the rear axle center line during positive acceleration. So instead of a rear lower mount (like a stock C5) I'm going to give the diff a mount up top so it will be pulling down against this new mount instead of trying to crush it. Then on the front I'm going to keep the two bolts and bushing into the adapter plate from the bottom for support during negative acceleration while the clutch is engaging the motor and the transmission is in gear. The diff at that point is hammered into the frame or in this case into a pair of rubber bushings. But I'm going to add two lateral bolts on top of the diff plate to give these two bolts more mechanical advantage over the differential case and keep the nose down under positive and negative acceleration. We will now have a grand total of 6 bolts (4x 1/2" and 5x 5/8's) holding the diff in place and set up in a way that different bolts will all be loaded a little differently and spread the force out. Take a look at the pretty picture soldworks made for me, lol you can also see the new lighter plate with a little Hot Rod Jim bling,
What’s this mean about the truck, she goes on the lift. The bed comes off, most of the rear suspension, gas tank, turbo’s, exhaust, several lines and more. And we get to play setup on the new diff mounts. I'm also going to fix up several other things that have been peeving me and add in some quick disconnects on the wiring so when I get the new frame banged out the body swap will be quick and painless. So let the fun begin.
-Russell