Steel Half Shafts

[sleepyhead]

In an earlier post, JT ZR-Won wrote "...It's an early car......#365 with the steel half shafts."

I hope this question isn't considered as too simple, but I was just wondering what exactly are 'steel half shafts'? And I'm assuming that the later cars for that year had half shafts made of something else???

Thanks for any insight you can offer! :s

-J.

 

[JT ZR-Won]

From my understanding, the early # ZR-1's from 1990 came with steel half shafts. These were later switched out to aluminum, but I'm not sure at what VIN# this started happening. Somebody can probably elaborate a little furthur on this........

Jay

 

[Rob]

The half-shaft was changed early in the 1990 model year starting with VIN # 800621.

 

[Rob]

I spoke with Jim Ingle recently who was a Corvette Powertrain Engineer and did a lot of the develoment testing on the ZR-1s. Most of the GM performance figures you see for the various years on the ZR-1 were established by him. I asked him about the use of steel half shafts and why the switch to aluminum. This is what he had to say:

"We had difficulties staying in the EPA weight class we needed to be in to avoid paying gas guzzler tax. Of course, this was prompted by crash and bumper standards that resulted in weight increases. The aluminum axles were part of the weight reductions used." -- Jim Ingle

 

[Steel Half-Shafts]

Rob,
Very interesting info on why they changed the half-shafts from steel to aluminum.
I always wondered WHY!!

-Gordy