Floaters: Mod-Lite, Strange Pro-Touring, Chassisworks Pro-Touring?

[Blown353]

After a 5 (or so?) year hiatus with my car sitting in the shop gathering dust and cobwebs I've started working on it again.

One of the good things about taking a break is that several products I was interested in 5 years ago that were in their infancy or not available are now mature... and have several competitors to choose from.

One of these things I'll be needing is a new rear end. Right now my car still has a 12 bolt in it. With the turbos and an estimated 1100hp / 900 ft-lb on high boost I really should sell the 12 bolt and go 9 inch. 5 years ago there wasn't many options in the floater game for street use and the best choice at the time was probably big torino bearing ends. Now there are several street friendly floater options out there.

The car is going to primarily be a street car running on 275/315 tires (probably NT05, R888 or similar.) Possibly a few autocross sessions, maybe a track day here and there. Motor may make 1100hp on high boost but chances are most of the time I'm going to be cruising around at low boost and about 750-800hp to keep things somewhat sane.

I see several options now:

1. Stick with the big torino bearing ends. Simple, inexpensive. Possible premature axle bearing wear from heavy cornering, not as safe as a floater in case of an axle failure. But since I won't be doing drag launches on drag slicks an axle failure is unlikely... but still possible. Convential axle & bearing setup might have a little axle flex and pad knockback which is now a concern since I'm also going to be switching to Wilwood FNSL4R radial mount calipers in the rear. Might have to change axle bearings every few years from cornering wear & tear depending on how hard I beat on the car.

2. One of the Mod-Lite floaters from Speedway that Ron likes. My only concern with this style of floater is the distance from the hub wheel mounting face to the back of the calipers seems gigantic. That will require a wide axle to keep the entire hub and brake assembly inside of the wheelwells to prevent the rear of the calipers from hitting the frame on suspension compression. It will also require wheels with lots of backspace because of that wide axle, but since I'll be ordering new wheels anyway I'm not too concerned about it.

3. A Strange Pro-Touring floater. Appearing as more of a "street" design than the taken from racing Mod Lite, based on the rotor hat appearance the overall width between the back of the caliper and the wheel mounting surface of the hub seems much narrower than the Mod-Lite which should ease any clearance concerns.

4. One of Chassisworks new Pro Touring floater setups. Looks similar to a C6 rear cartridge based setup, only much larger. Components are fairly expensive though and I'm worried about long term parts supply as the bearing cartridges and axles look like they might be proprietary. One of my buddies who is a Chassisworks dealer is going to speak with Chris regarding the long term availability of the hubs, maybe they're shared with another OEM application...

5. One of the Speed Tech Chicane C6 hub based setups, although I'm not sure they'll do one for a Chevelle. I like the idea of using OEM bearing and parking brake components for availability and ease of replacement in the future. Also makes it easy for brakes and rotors, just order for a C6 rear. I have read a little about some issues with the C6/C7 hubs under heavy use, but I haven't rear enough to make a educated decision yet.

I've ruled out the Baer floater... while it seems like a very nicely designed package it also appears to be designed around their brakes and I'm just not that happy with the selection of piston areas of their calipers for a stout manual braking setup.

Center section will probably be a Strange HD aluminum case, 3.50 gears, S-trac posi, but that's independent of housing and axles anyways.

Anways, I'd love to hear thoughts and recommendations. I'm just getting started checking out what's the latest and greatest on the market and refining my new shopping list (currently at a T56 Magnum, hydraulic clutch setup, new rear end, ditching the C6 PBR brakes and Hydroboost for a Wilwood Aero 6 / FNSL4R manual setup, CNC dual master cylinder & balance bar setup, and on, and on...)