Driveshaft

[17GT350]

Has anyone had a vibration issue with a carbon fiber drive shaft? I do not have one yet but I will eventually get one. @honeybadger you mentioned a few times about not changing certain things in these cars because of the vibration. Have you had any experience with a aftermarket d/s?

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[galaxy]

I had a very slight vibration in my DSS carbon shaft. Sold it to a guy undamaged, in greet shape, about 5K miles on it and it was soo bad in his car he refused to drive it. DSS is very hit or miss and I’d stay away from my experience. Swapped the DSS out for a QA1 and it’s been amazing. Zero vibration or feedback and most certainly a seat of the pants improvement that you can feel. Zero regrets. Love it.

 

[eisenhauer01]

I am pretty certain it's a luck of the draw kind of thing on these cars.
When your luck is good, and the non concentric output flange, DS, and pinion flange all cancel out the harmonics and vibrations and out of balances of the others, it's all good.
When that doesn't happen, you can try clocking it, or adding a small amount of weight.
I went the hose clamp route and fixed mine. I have a post on here about it.
Was a Steeda aluminum DS. Vibration was horrid upon first install (lined up yellow marks). Hose clamp and 30min later smooth as glass.
I'm a believer that you can put a 100% perfectly balanced DS in these cars and it's just if you get lucky or not with vibrations out of the box due to the other rotating components.

 

[Inthehighdesert]

I’ve had Qa1’s as well. Great product. I had it checked(balance) before I installed it. Had a very slight vibration. Indexed it 180 degrees and it was completely gone. Indexing wasn’t unusual on steal drive shafts either.

 

[Booboo]

Nothing's worse than buying what you think will be the best and easiest plug n play mod that eliminates drivetrain slack, makes engine rev faster, makes car faster, less clunking noises, doesnt affect smog...than to have it vibrate (worse when cold) and you just wasted $2,000. So embarrassing with guests in the car and forget about passengers in the back seat cause it will rub, at least that was my experience. Never again for me....unless...this time it'll work perfectly!!! *slaps self* Nope never again.

 

[RNM]

Qa1 carbon fiber driveshaft is a quality piece, I highly recommend it.

 

[galaxy]

So embarrassing with guests in the car and forget about passengers in the back seat cause it will rub, at least that was my experience.

Soooo, that actually makes no sense, right?? The center section (where the driveshaft connects to) is fixed mounted to the subframe. The driveshaft doesn’t move up and down with rear axle articulation, nor suspensions movement, on a S550 like it does on say a S197 car, where the entire axle moves up and down (and thus the driveshaft) with such movement, to include weight in the car. The driveshaft in a 550 car is fixed between the tranny and center section. Suspensions moment (weight in the car) has no bearing, and so rubbing would not be a concern. You have a different problem somewhere.

 

[Booboo]

Soooo, that actually makes no sense, right?? The center section (where the driveshaft connects to) is fixed mounted to the subframe. The driveshaft doesn’t move up and down with rear axle articulation, nor suspensions movement, on a S550 like it does on say a S197 car, where the entire axle moves up and down (and thus the driveshaft) with such movement, to include weight in the car. The driveshaft in a 550 car is fixed between the tranny and center section. Suspensions moment (weight in the car) has no bearing, and so rubbing would not be a concern. You have a different problem somewhere.

Good catch, yes forgot to mention this was on my 05 gt!

 

[Codeblue009]

I have a QA 1 carbon fiber drive shaft and I have no Noise, Vibration and/or Harness (NVH).

 

[DougS550]

Has anyone had a vibration issue with a carbon fiber drive shaft? I do not have one yet but I will eventually get one. @honeybadger you mentioned a few times about not changing certain things in these cars because of the vibration. Have you had any experience with a aftermarket d/s?

I have a QA1, No Issues at all. Smooth as OEM

 

[honeybadger]

I ran the QA1 and had no issues at all. I recommended it to everyone without issues. Just don't change your clutch, harmonic balancer or mess with the transmission damper.

I've had two DSS shafts on my new build and my first one vibrated pretty bad. I prefer QA1, personally

 

[John S]

Ditto on Q1 making a quality driveshaft. I installed one on my son's 2022 GT but it didn't work out, the 10R80 transmission has unique balancing and vibration characteristics that affect the driveshaft system and we couldn't solve a high speed vibration issue. (That's why maintaining the factory clocking on the OEM two-piece shaft is critical.) A one-piece shaft is hit-or-miss on System harmonic vibration concerns with the 10R80 and re-clocking and system tuning with the crude hose clamp band-aid approach is sometimes necessary, even with a perfectly balanced drive shaft. CV joints on both ends of the one piece driveshaft would help with harmonic vibration concerns (I think that what's used on the GT500?) and QA1 was great about accepting the return.

It appears this is going on your GT350? There shouldn't be as much of a harmonic vibration concern as there is with the 10R80. Is the performance improvement from the lighter rotating mass measurable? I've been considering a QA1 carbon fiber driveshaft for my Mach 1 6-speed but I haven't seen any comparisons of how it's better than the two-piece design plus the two piece design seems to be holding up fine on the track.

 

[Optimum Performance]

Has anyone had a vibration issue with a carbon fiber drive shaft? I do not have one yet but I will eventually get one. @honeybadger you mentioned a few times about not changing certain things in these cars because of the vibration. Have you had any experience with a aftermarket d/s?

You should check out Gulf Coast Driveshaft in Florida. They make them in CF and Aluminum in house, they do not use CV joints as the others do. Gulf Coast uses direct bolt on slip-yokes and u-joints so you don't have all those adapters involved. You can let us know and we can quote you a driveshaft assembly. They do all models of S550, not all are on the website. They tailor it to Drag Racing, Road Racing etc. CF shafts should have less vibration than OEM, if they don't its either an application, installation or product issue. We have several Customers that run CF shafts hard on race tracks, no issues. They are far safer if they do fail. Managing heat in the tunnel is important, that's why Ford installs all that shielding.

Let us know if we can help!

 

[Deadly0ne]

I have a QA1 driveshaft and have had zero issues. Love it.

 

[17GT350]

You should check out Gulf Coast Driveshaft in Florida. They make them in CF and Aluminum in house, they do not use CV joints as the others do. Gulf Coast uses direct bolt on slip-yokes and u-joints so you don't have all those adapters involved. You can let us know and we can quote you a driveshaft assembly. They do all models of S550, not all are on the website. They tailor it to Drag Racing, Road Racing etc. CF shafts should have less vibration than OEM, if they don't its either an application, installation or product issue. We have several Customers that run CF shafts hard on race tracks, no issues. They are far safer if they do fail. Managing heat in the tunnel is important, that's why Ford installs all that shielding.

Let us know if we can help!

I will have to look at them. Thanks.

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