Hot Rods Another pinion angle question

Looking down from the top the pinion to transmission is roughly 2 inches different. It's an Explorer 8.8 373 gears to a 4l80e. Is this going to harm anything? Or am I going to have to narrow the rear to center up. Just trying to get this right before I do anything else. Thanks

 

As long as the engine/transmission is at a 90 degree angle to the rear end, the 2" offset of the driveshaft will be fine.

 

Alright I appreciate it. Some people say it's gotta be centered. But I've read more that it can be off. Just wanted to gather as much info as I can.

 

Just as a note a stock 1951 ford has a hair over 1" offset right from the factory.

 

Use this....

Driveline Operating Angle Calculator | ****er Parts

 

I appreciate the help with this. I just didn't want the driveshaft to be in a bind and cause a ton of vibration.

 

True: provided the driveshaft isn't shorter than about 35"-40". With too short a driveshaft, the horizontal operating angle would eat up too much of the available vertical operating angle.

 

It's no different then when looking from the side, as long as both angles equal each other and not greater then 3 degrees or so, but as mentioned above, you wouldn't want a whole lot of up and down angle to go along with the side to side angle.

 

How does the current width of the rear end fit the car? Is it exactly the right width with the tires/wheels you plan to use? You may need to narrow it to fit the car properly. Other than that the rear offset is probably fine. The exception would be that if your car has an extremely short wheelbase, the angle of the offset will increase and could be a problem. Thats probably not the case here.

 

Short answer: no problem; ***uming your driveshaft is long enough and the vertical change is no excessive.

Think of it like this, we'll use a 50 inch driveshaft length to help make math easier: From pure side view there is some vertical offset, let's say 2 inches down. The math says the angle is (inverse sin) 2/50 = 2.29 degrees in this orientation. From pure overhead view there is some horizontal offset, let's say 2 inches. Math says same 2.29 degrees in this orientation. The total offset of the driveshaft would be an angle of 45 degrees [2 inches down and 2 inches over] which makes total offset 2.83 inches. The math then says this total angle of operation is 3.24 degrees [(inverse sin) 2.83/50].

3.24 degrees in my example is fine for U-joint life.

 

Don't listen to "some people", they are idiots

 

My 9 inch is like that. Doesn’t seem to be a problem.