Floater setup--yes or no

[DFRESH]

Originally Posted by 68protouring454

when I road race, i always re pack the bearings and clean the tubes after each race weekend, which is 4 -30 min sessions for practice and qual, and 2 35-45 min races. I always have some oil in the the tubes(with inner seals,which we silicon as well). Never had any bearing issues etc, we also ran our fluid level high but found it to get by the seals and start to wash the bearings out, in sprint races (under an hr) generally with a rear end cooler, you can keep 2.5-4 qts plenty cool.
A floater will absolutely stop knock back, HOWEVER, the rear end has to be straight, we do all our welding with a jig(and a certain procedure) and still get run out to .200-.300 thou, we then heat and squelch till we have under .008. Now once you have a straight housing, now you space your caliper correct and you will have NO knock back.
Most of the time complaints on caliper knock back with a full floater is, either axle run out, or a caliper not spaced properly on rotor.
Now when you get into hard track day, time trial etc use you will now get the rotors so hot the heat gets into the calipers and boils or starts to boil the fluid, which will give you a spongy knock back feeling pedal, now add cooling.
It all adds up to going fast, generally on a protouring car with a d.o.t tire you wont get the brakes hot enough to do this unless you have really cheap brake fluid or race compound pads.
we use gun drilled axles

the zr-1 set up looks nice.

Excellent--thanks Jake--that is great to know. There are more factors to consider that I had not heard about until you mentioned them here in your response.

D

[Cris@JCG]

One more thing I will throw in their Jake.. Caliper mounting brackets.. Speedway welds a gusset plate on the floater they build for Winston Cup.. If the mount is not fully supported & flexes.. it can make you feel something on the brake pedal..

Originally Posted by 68protouring454

when I road race, i always re pack the bearings and clean the tubes after each race weekend, which is 4 -30 min sessions for practice and qual, and 2 35-45 min races. I always have some oil in the the tubes(with inner seals,which we silicon as well). Never had any bearing issues etc, we also ran our fluid level high but found it to get by the seals and start to wash the bearings out, in sprint races (under an hr) generally with a rear end cooler, you can keep 2.5-4 qts plenty cool.
A floater will absolutely stop knock back, HOWEVER, the rear end has to be straight, we do all our welding with a jig(and a certain procedure) and still get run out to .200-.300 thou, we then heat and squelch till we have under .008. Now once you have a straight housing, now you space your caliper correct and you will have NO knock back.
Most of the time complaints on caliper knock back with a full floater is, either axle run out, or a caliper not spaced properly on rotor.
Now when you get into hard track day, time trial etc use you will now get the rotors so hot the heat gets into the calipers and boils or starts to boil the fluid, which will give you a spongy knock back feeling pedal, now add cooling.
It all adds up to going fast, generally on a protouring car with a d.o.t tire you wont get the brakes hot enough to do this unless you have really cheap brake fluid or race compound pads.
we use gun drilled axles

the zr-1 set up looks nice.

[Vegas69]

Originally Posted by GregWeld

Just thinking out loud here -- but wouldn't "what works in NASCAR" come with some caveats? --- as in --- don't you think they rework and inspect just about every aspect of these cars after every race? So while the seals might be "fine" for NASCAR -- 500 miles isn't that big of a deal if they're being replaced all the time...

I don't know if they do that - but just saying that what might work on a NASCAR might not be so "user friendly" for our PT cars.

Exactly what I was thinking. They rebuild those cars after every race. And for somebody to say that they have NEVER had a problem, is a LIE. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that line calling misc. vendors. An axle seal out towards the flange is the safest alternative.

[Vegas69]

Originally Posted by JSM

Sounds good, and I will be the first to respect that since I am the same way. I will be out and about soon, thanks for the kind invite and look forward to meeting you personally as we may be more alike then we would probably admit currently. Oh, and sorry about the banana seat comment!

I've got more respect for you saying what you think than being one of the herd. RTTC is a must. Great racing, party, and group of liars.

[ccracin]

Originally Posted by Vegas69

Exactly what I was thinking. They rebuild those cars after every race. And for somebody to say that they have NEVER had a problem, is a LIE. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that line calling misc. vendors. An axle seal out towards the flange is the safest alternative.

Even when I was just doing local short track stuff, we checked and packed the bearings on all four corners every couple weeks. With the sustained high g left turns, I would see a slight bit of wash in the floater hub bearings. I never had an external leak as long as I kept the o-ring seals in proper shape. I don't think you would have the bearing wash from rear end lube with normal street driving. When tracking or autocrossing, I consider that racing and therefore you should maintain the car as such. Ie. checking all the bearings, replacing and resetting pre-load. This will also help with knock-back. I agree with you on the " we have never seen that" comment. We agree also on the outer axle seal. At this point I will not run inner seals anymore. The other point I wanted to throw out is that floaters were not developed for racing. They were adapted. Originally they were supplied on heavy duty trucks. As racers always do, they saw the benefits these types of axles had and over the years developed them for racing. I'm sure most of you knew that, but for the folks reading that may not be involved in this conversation I just thought I would throw it out there.

Doug,

Thanks for the mention in your response. I am glad you started this thread, because it has brought out a lot of tech that I will certainly also use in making future decisions. Heck I'm already rethinking what we have for the current project. I really need to stop that. We need to finish this thing and quit changing stuff!

[Blake Foster]

Originally Posted by Gonzo

One more thing I will throw in their Jake.. Caliper mounting brackets.. Speedway welds a gusset plate on the floater they build for Winston Cup.. If the mount is not fully supported & flexes.. it can make you feel something on the brake pedal..

the Caliper brackets are billet aluminum and bolt to the housing end as all Bare or Wilwood brake kits do.

[Blake Foster]

Originally Posted by Vegas69

Exactly what I was thinking. They rebuild those cars after every race. And for somebody to say that they have NEVER had a problem, is a LIE. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that line calling misc. vendors. An axle seal out towards the flange is the safest alternative.

I hate to come out and call anyone a liar, the fact that Speedway has been building these housings for some of the biggest NASCAR teams for over 20 year (and possibly longer that is the number i was told) and continue to do so would lead me to think that they have a product that is working. In the early days of running inner seals they had some issues apparently with oil moving past the seal, but like I said "since about 93-94 when they switched to a different seal design they have had no "issues" I will add "that they mentioned" and this was from the owner.

The housing DOES ALSO have a seal at the out board end of the tube and in discussions yesterday We have decided to make the inner seal an OPTION not a standard issue as they will require more "Checking" of the unit.

All these Opinoins and comments are good to make the product that much better.

[Blake Foster]

Originally Posted by GregWeld

Just thinking out loud here -- but wouldn't "what works in NASCAR" come with some caveats? --- as in --- don't you think they rework and inspect just about every aspect of these cars after every race? So while the seals might be "fine" for NASCAR -- 500 miles isn't that big of a deal if they're being replaced all the time...

I don't know if they do that - but just saying that what might work on a NASCAR might not be so "user friendly" for our PT cars.

NO DOUBT ABOUT IT.
and this is where some of the thought process has come from to use the ZR1 sealed hub... no maintance

[JasonElvisHeard]

The subject of Nascar in relation to products and parts being used is a little bit of a slippery slope. You will never see GMR components on any NASCAR chassis any time soon and possibly never. Believe me I have tried, the issue is more political then it is component biased. I really would love to see items stacked against each other side by side and let the teams decide but that is not the case. When it comes to Nascar is comes down to who is paying the most to have their products on the cars. I simply cant play that game, we are not large enough and that mentality does not sit well with my philosophy. I have personally seen failures in Nascar many times, its racing. This does not mean the parts are poor quality, it simply means that when you push the limits sometimes the limits push back. I have nothing but the up-most respect for the larger companies that I "compete" against. I would not be in this sport if it wasn't for these guys in the first place, the true originators who pushed the sport to progress well before my time. I feel as though our product line fits in a slightly different class then most, bottom line is Im making products with zero consideration to "how" I can make this cheaper, easier, or sell more of "X" unit. GMR will never reach the volume of the larger outfits, that is not my goal.

Now with that said I would like to address a point that seems to be brought up more often then not.

The issue of maintenance. I would love to tell you that our products are 100% maintenance free but then I would be lying. They are however, the easiest and lease maintenance when it comes to the floater market. I currently have guys that drive to autocross events, "bring - it" in several events, then drive home sometimes a few hundred miles each way. Here is one little reason why-



"The other often over looked element is the use of a precision machined crush sleeve. As you can see in the picture above there is a dark section of material between the bearings. This is a precision machined Chromoly sleeve that holds the bearing separation perfectly in line with the outer bearing races in the hub. This achieves three major things.

One – This sleeve locates the bearings in the optimal position for extended life, no more over tight bearings that fail prematurely.

Two – Allows for you to torque the snout nut up to 100 ft-lb (recommend 65 ft-lb) of torque, you will never crush the sleeve or the inner bearing race. They are simply too strong…

Three – Provides the ultimate in bearing strength, creates a solid structure on the snout that will provide more lateral strength because it locks the bearings perfectly in place." (thegmr.com)

[GregWeld]

I don't know anything about what you guys are talking about -- but it sure is interesting! Personally -- I love stuff like this and it's what makes LAT-G so rich. Rich, as in fulfilling - not money.