Rear end housings in funny car vs. top fuel (4 Viewers)

[Mike]

Speaking of rear ends and running short of 1320ft, it makes you wonder if someone will or has "covertly run" a 3.30 or 3.40 ratio.
RO

If they wanted to do that, they would have gone to a 2.90 gear. More MPH, less RPM. They don't need more torque, they need less RPM.

 

[Bross Hawg]

Thanx very much Bross!

Do pumps ever fail?
Are they easy to swap out?

After "x" amount of runs, do teams throw the components into the trash?

Do any components get X-rayed? (I might be confusing that process as "magnafluxing" ..... like with cranks)

Thanx again.

I have never seen a pump fail. It is a pretty simple gear type oil pump that is driven off of the pinion gear (has a female spline in end of gear that oil pump shaft slips into). The black "S" cover on rear of housing that is held on with 4 bolts is the oil pump cover. If you can see the front of the housing and it has small lines running to front pinion and then to outer bearings, it has a pump. As far as oil level, I just filled it until the oil covered the oil pump shaft, bout 1/3 full in housing. Usually save parts for recycling. We always replaced parts with new if they were iffy. I can tell you that the ring and pinion are made out of a material called "maraging" sp? That stuff is super hard, can't hardly drill it to put the set screws in that hold the pinion nut from backing off. That process was the worst in rebuilding the unit. Pretty simple other than that. Run between .011" and .013" backlash and check for mesh.

 

[dave]

I have a friend who worked on an Alcohol dragster, and when they had a 9.5 rear in it if it shook hard it would kill a ring and pinion. They changed to a big Strange rear they never hardly even looked at it. He said it was well worth the money in time and maintenance issues.