I recently put in a new rear end with GM Motive 4.10 gears. I am very pleased with everything except today when I went on the highway to see how everything was. The car vibrates like all hell. I am running the stock steel driveshaft and im thinking it needs to be balanced badly. How much will it cost and how effective will getting my stock driveshaft balanced be to smooth out highway speeds with the 4.10's?
P.S. I am going to be having new tires put on the rear soon also so if I have any vibes coming from them that will be fixed soon also.
Thanks a lot for any help.
James

 

Don't bother balancing it.I spent $200 balancing mine and it still vibrated.Then I spent $150 and bought an Ls1 alum DS and the vibration went away.The steel ones are junk.Any way the alum ones are lighter.

 

Wow $200 to balance a driveshaft?!?! Did you not think of upgrading to the LS1 alum at the time or what? I didnt expect the balancing to be that expensive geeez. I was told more like $50. The reason I wanted to see about balancing the stock steel one is because I am on a very tight budget with the car right now and thought balancing would be a lot cheaper than buying an all new Alum DS.
BTW, what times are you running in your 97 Z28? I havent had a chance to bring mine to the track yet with the gears so I would like to see what sorta improvements people are getting.
thanks

 

It is the increased driveshaft speed that makes you notice the unbalance of the shaft. $50 sounds like a good figure to get it balanced. The steel shaft will be stronger than the factory aluminum one. Note that it might be difficult to get the steel one perfectly balanced, though. That is where you might run into more or wasted money.
Because the aluminum shafts have less rotational mass, they don't feel unbalanced as easily. Less mass would also translate into a couple ponies.
Judgement call on your part. If you want to go factory aluminum, the 1LE is stronger than the LS1. Some say the LS1 is smoother.<shrug> Then, there are aftermarket aluminum and carbon fiber to consider.

 

shoebox, would an LS1 DS or 1LE DS handle 500+ HP 383 stroker???? And if I added NOS to that??

I need to replace mine but I dont know if the aluminum one would be strong enough.

 

I doubt a factory aluminum shaft would handle 500+ ponies - at least for long. Some good traction and all that hp would probably do it in. Aftermarket is where you would want to look.

 

an aftermarket aluminum one? or Steel one ?

I would prefer aluminum, but steel is stronger if they make aftermarket ones that are balanced.
do you know where I can get one and the price range I am going to be in ?

As for a carbon fiber DS ....i dont think so for $700

 

Got mine balanced for $30 stilla little vibration 100+ that is with a stock gear w/ the 4.10 it would come in a little sooner.

 

Go to a Mark Williams chromoly ~$375 or one of Denny's "nitrous" jobs. I ran a MW chromo piece for about 3 years worth of hard nitrous thrashing (723 hp on the spray) and never had it fail. The current owner has since rebuilt the motor but the driveshaft is 7 years old and going strong. Very well balanced too.

-Mindgame

 

FWIW Advanced Drive line here in Orlando quoted me $40 to rebalance a DS a few months back.

I would either rebalance the stock one or get a really nice one like Mindgame suggested. IMO $150-200 is alot to pay for a 1LE/LS1 DS that weaker than stock.

 

ya im leaning more towards having the stock one balanced cheap and see how much it helps. if it doesnt improve alot then ill spring for an aftermarket steel or chrome moly one.

 

Lingenfelter has been selling their 3.5" aluminum driveshaft for $300 that is supposedly stronger than either the 1LE or LS1 shaft.

 

when you talk about balanceing a ds you have to know how many rpms they are balancing it to. there is a place in waco tx. that spins them to 1500 rpms then theres a place in dallas that spins them to 2500 rpms becuase that what really matters

 

I had my stock shaft balanced for $50. I have 4.10 gear and the initial vibration is now taken care of. Save yourself the $100-300 unless you plan on running with insane HP in the future.

 

Sorry it took so long to reply.I payed $200 cdn to balance DS and install greasable spicer high performance u-joints.Good luck what ever you decide to do.