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What's always separated BMW couplings from Alfa couplings is the fiber wound into the mould of the BMW type when it's been injected . This makes the coupling infinitely stronger . Kind off like concrete without reinforcing - no good under tension or compression. My centre coupling (alfa original lasts four laps with my 3.7 while the fibre wounded injected moulded BMW type lasts so far three seasons of hard racing. Personally I think max's product must be the answer if your not running coupling cages like I do. ( reinforcing on the outside ). If price was in my league I would buy these as my cages are taking a beating and adds extra weight.
Edited : I later found out it was a fake alfa coupling I had that lasted 4 laps in the centre . So I would recommend a genuine alfa coupling for the centre

Hey Mikey boy, Mr. Big Viking and the rest of the gang check it out:

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER


The shaft's in the car. Sorry for the pics, its what you get from crawling under the car and using old mobile as a documentary tool:



Forward section view from enginebay.








Rear section.





And a lousy, but video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62Ph7d4UBNk

To sum up:

-everything fits perfectly, no clearance issues or whatsoever, actually the shaft looks quite like a factory layout
-there is no vibration, I've run the engine through entire rev range, many times so far so good.
-no clonking, resonance or other unsettling sounds (or maybe the zorst too loud lol)
-funny thing is this shaft is easier and quicker to install than the stock one

FINALLY !!

..congrats

looks a lot like what this swedisch guy did


http://www.alfabb.com/bb/forums/engine- ... irt-2.html

My old adversary Hans...

very nice.
this is just like what is in my car, except i have a universal in the middle and at the back.
mine has been flawless, smooth and reliable.
iv run mine now for over a year of hard racing with no issues.

Ben

Ben , good feedback . So you have basically a solid prop with no rubber . We have not been successful here with that set up . The two guys here that had issues kept their revs much higher than me ( between 5000 and 8000 ) and bouncing of kerbs . ( probably because they were real drivers - I just cheat and short shift at 6000 with the 3.7 )
Ben can you direct me to link that showed your thrust bearing set up .I'm looking at that .

I think if the misalignment is cured the guibos life would be extended. But i myself have been thinking about having 1 cv, maybe on the last section. The cv would work well with the misalignment.

Or maybe, 2 big bmw guibos at the 2 ends and a cv at the center. The rubber guibos will really save the gearbox. The worst I can think of is a solid shaft and an unsprung clutch.

Alfa guibos are now being manufactured by some low quality manufacturer and so many guibos have blown up within a few hundred miles, not to mention it is very expensive, probably 2x the price of a BMW unit.

For one of my Giuliettas i bought a ropshaft from a bmw 540i. I plan to use this with some minor modifications.

The car will have a v6. custom engine mounts which place the engine in a straight line in the car. rear bushing modified to help this. i plan to point the crank exactly at the gearbox flange or at least as straight as possible.

the front part of the prop will get the Alfa flange and use the bmw guibo on that. From there on the bmw shaft will be used complete with the hanger-bearing. so that gives me a UJ in the middel and a CV joint at the rear.

The only real downside i see in this set up is that there is no more room for the shifter mechanism... That will have to be moved a bit to make it fit. because the bmw axle is a bit thicker in diameter at that point...

Hope to make it work in the next few weeks, will update on the progress.

Just an idea
What about the new models from BMW? What dimensions are the latest dougnutGuibos?

Depends on model and engine... many different sizes.

If you look in the online BMW parts catalogues it states boltcircle-sizes. there is an "LK" size, that means Loch Kreis, that's the pcd of the boltholes.
http://bmwfans.info/parts/catalog/

This evening i finished my test drivshaft. This was welded from 3 pieces. it uses an Alfa V6 front coupling with guibo, then a bmw E46 325i middle section on which i placed the Alfa bearingunit and in the rear i used a CV-joint from a bmw 540i.

The clutch housing recieved a new flange, found a flange that holds the bmw CV-joint and had it modified to fit the axle ( they placed the splines from the original tripod-flange into the CV-joint flange).

Only issue i think i have now is the gearselector, there might be 1 cm to little room for it to clear the axle. Will have to look into that..

Next up is fitting it to the car and testing if it works... Then it's off to the balancer-guy.

piccies..





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Hey Remco, how do you pilot your rear end of the shaft? Just the bolts?

And i thought to share some experience with you guys...

What's wrong with this picture?: (except for shitty quality)



This happened to the front cv-joint. As you can see the splines are totally gone. Weirdest part is that it happened when entire drivetrain was NOT under load. I noticed something was wrong when i turned the engine off, and you could hear something heavy rotating few secs after the crankshaft stopped...
Dunno what to think about it, resonance, defective unit?
For the record this was a porsche cayenne s CVJ (Rated for 420/500Nm)
Now the joint is replaced by a CVJ from Touareg V10 (750Nm) which has longer, thicker splined section, while maintaining overall dimensions of the previous joint.

Hope this was just bad luck, and will work fine now (well it does on other cars?) If not, well I'll become that prodigal son, and start thinking of putting a guibo up front...

Just the bolts and the shape of the CV joint that falls into the flange....

PietereQ wrote:Hey Remco, how do you pilot your rear end of the shaft? Just the bolts?

And i thought to share some experience with you guys...

What's wrong with this picture?: (except for shitty quality)



This happened to the front cv-joint. As you can see the splines are totally gone. Weirdest part is that it happened when entire drivetrain was NOT under load. I noticed something was wrong when i turned the engine off, and you could hear something heavy rotating few secs after the crankshaft stopped...
Dunno what to think about it, resonance, defective unit?
For the record this was a porsche cayenne s CVJ (Rated for 420/500Nm)
Now the joint is replaced by a CVJ from Touareg V10 (750Nm) which has longer, thicker splined section, while maintaining overall dimensions of the previous joint.

Hope this was just bad luck, and will work fine now (well it does on other cars?) If not, well I'll become that prodigal son, and start thinking of putting a guibo up front...

That's engine torque right? There is a gearbox between the engine and prop= WAY higher propshaft torque, probably around 3 to 3.5 higher at the prop.
Must have been a material issue. Is it the spline in the joint that failed or stub?