I know it's long but please bear with me...

I run an ITA '92 Integra - the only problem I'm having with the car is it keeps breaking driver side axles. I ran the first 4 events of the year (IRP, Grattan, Mid Ohio, & Mid Ohio) on just the axles that came with the 119K mile stock street car when I bought it last January. I had no problems with these at all in those four events. (I should probably note that the ride height has been constant at 5-5.25" at all corners (per IT rules) this whole year.)

Then I went to Road America in mid-August. I qualified Saturday morning, no problem. About 10 laps through Saturday's 14 lap race, the car started slightly vibrating and pulling to the left. It progressively got worse and worse until I had to slow down so much I lost my 40 second lead on the back stretch of the last lap. The car finished but the axle finally broke on the cool down lap. Went and got a re-man from the local Autozone, installed it, drove up and down the paddock twice, and the friggin thing breaks right there in the paddock. I take it back and get another re-man from another Autozone in another town, installed it, lasted for 5 laps in Sunday morning qualifying, broke again. Found yet another one at like an AdvancedAuto in yet another town, took back the old one, installed the new one, it lasted until turn 2 of lap 1 of Sunday's race before it broke. Needless to say it was one super shitty weekend!

So I was pissed, talked to some people, and called up raxles.com. They were really nice and sent me one of their "racing spec" driver side axles for my car. I installed it and went to Mid Ohio again. The car drove just fine on Saturday. Sunday's qualifying went great but then in Sunday's race, it started slowly pulling to the left and vibrating again. I thought "Oh great, here we go again!" Luckily it didn't progress as fast as the cheap autozone re-mans did and the car finished the race. Afterwards I found the outer boot torn on my new axle, all the grease flung out, and the outer knuckle all blue from excessive heat. I got in touch with raxles again, they had me send it to them, they inspected it, thought it was just a faulty boot, made me a new one, and sent it out to me. I installed the new one last Wednesday for another race at Mid Ohio last weekend. I also raised my ride height .5" at all corners just incase. I also replaced both steering rod ends cause they weren't great.

The car ran awesome all day Saturday. Sunday's race was 17 laps (was about 40 minutes) so it was a long one. After about 8-9 laps the car started pulling to the left again - but not really vibrating. On lap 10 we went full course yellow for 3 laps. At the slow pace, the driver side shaft would practically clunk at some points and then seem totally fine at other points - I had no idea what was going on so I just kept going. The race restarted on lap 13 and I kept my foot in it. I retook the lead on lap 15 and ran my fastest lap ever at Mid Ohio (1:44.982 - woohoo!). The axle held together on a hope and a prayer until the end. On the victory lap, I seriously didn't know if it would make it. I went to impound, got released, and headed back to my paddock spot with the axle clunking, banging, and grinding. Upon pulling into my spot, it finally popped and wouldn't move anymore.

So does anyone know just what the hell is happening? I'd like to run the ARRC this year but not if I can't keep an axle in it. I'm planning on replacing both wheel bearings and ball joints this week. I've wondered about the diff being bad but it just had a brand new OPM LSD installed in March. I'm still wondering about ride height but I haven't had a single problem with the passenger side one. Help!

 

when nick theroux first campaigned his ITA integra, he ran into a catostrophic tranny failure caused by the whole engine and tranny shifting laterally in turns. theres something in the diff between the axles that basically got slammed everytime was in a hard turn. his remedy was to create a engine brace on the drivers side engine mount to limit the sideways movement of the engine. totally legal under the one engine stayrod rule. it was just a dogbone heimjoint connected to two posts he welded to the chassis and engine mount. he said it was simply the extra weight of the integra engine and chassis that required it whereas his crx never did.

i would also check your engine mounts in general. when ppl consistently break axles, i usually hear that the engine mounts were the cause.

 

Kevin - if you figure it out do let us know. I can't keep a driver side axle in my GS-R here recently either.

 

I had some axle issues last year at Thill, Nick Theroux was there as well as Tyson. One of the suspect things was that the rear crossmember was loose. Once that was tightened up, the axle issue stopped. It was added to the checklist to check the torques on those bolts routinely.

 

Loose or worn out engine/transmission mounts, worn out suspension bushings, wheel bearings....

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by krbobcat &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Afterwards I found the outer boot torn on my new axle, all the grease flung out, and the outer knuckle all blue from excessive heat. I got in touch with raxles again, they had me send it to them, they inspected it, thought it was just a faulty boot, made me a new one, and sent it out to me. I installed the new one last Wednesday for another race at Mid Ohio last weekend. I also raised my ride height .5" at all corners just incase. I also replaced both steering rod ends cause they weren't great.
Help!</TD></TR></TABLE>

Your knuckle was blue from the heat? I would think you are having a wheel bearing problem. You might also have the axel going from the trans to the wheel at an angle. I would make sure your engine and your suspension are in there correct places. Then I would look at the wheel bearing.

 

I allready forgot how many Axles I have broken. PM me and well figure out what to do with this problem , Last time I almost rolled cuz the axle brok at 100MPH in the turn. DA front suspension i give an F- Its a CRX suspension which sucks on our cars..


Modified by ITAIntegraLS at 12:00 AM 10/5/2004

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Tyson &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
i would also check your engine mounts in general. when ppl consistently break axles, i usually hear that the engine mounts were the cause. </TD></TR></TABLE>

I think this is what happened to us at Buttonwillow when I lost an Axle in the last lap. Luckily I was able to coast to the finish...

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 95tegLSS &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> I would make sure your engine and your suspension are in there correct places. </TD></TR></TABLE>

I second that.


Like ITAIntegra is reffering to- a "grenade axle" would be a scary unsafe thing in the wrong corner at the wrong time...

Good Luck!

 

When I built the car last January-April, I did inspect the motor mounts and they looked fine at the time. I will certainly check them again though. Also, an entire brand new Energy Suspension bushing kit was put in at that time so I doubt the suspension bushings are worn out - they still look fine. Like I said, wheel bearings were never done. Although they feel alright to me, new ones were ordered today.

Usually before every event I put the car on the lift and inspect for loose bolts or anything. I will specifically go around and check the crossmembers and motor mounts though. I know all of the suspension bolts are tight cause I check those all the time.

I don't have any sort of an engine stayrod - I'll look into making on. Anyone have any pics of one they've made? I just think though that if the engine/tranny moving around is infact the problem, than why would only the driver side be breaking? Wouldn't the passenger side eventually break too?

Thank you all for your help.

 

Could be it can't flop around as much toward the driver's side as it can to the passenger's side, or vice versa.

 

On my Integra I had a problem for about 6 months where I was constantly breaking axles. I was working with a local drag race axle guy and he was trying all kinds on different boots and grease, etc.

I finally solved my problems by ONLY using OEM boots. Some of the boots I tired from the drag race axle guy were his best boots and they would last 1/2 hour and explode. Usually the boot would fail then within 5 mintes the joint would fail. Usually what will happen is the boot will expand due to rotation and heat, then break or pull off the cv axle.

You can also have whoever is building your axles just move the boot over to allow the boot to expand more. Other things to try include putting zip-ties around the boot to keep it from expanding as much. Also people have inserted a small (WD-40) stray under the boot and clamp to allow the boot to breath and not expand----you just have to make sure the grease does not leak out.

Either way checking your boots should be a pre-race checklist item and an at the track item to check.

One of my friends with a ITA integra kept breaking his axles and they finally discovered they had the wrong shock fork on the car and the fork was actually hitting the axle and breaking it.

Good luck.

Scott Seck
#38 ITS GS-R

 

WOW, I just had the same thing happen to me on my H1 car at Summit Point.

A few months ago I ripped a driver side boot on my OEM axle. So I replaced the factory axle with a Raxle axle. It worked great at VIR north, then a couple weeks ago during Sunday's race at Summit Point I started feeling some vibrations. As the race progressed it became difficult to keep the car straight, it kept pulling left and even jumped my tilt steering all the way up. By the cool down lap, the car's steering wheel was binding and pulling VERY hard left for every rotation of the wheels. When we got back to pit you could see that the driver boot was inflated and the axle discolored.

So, last week I pulled the axle and sent it out to Raxle's. They said they will rebuild the axle free of charge and would upgrade me to a heavier duty axle, he also mentioned that some people use Zip ties around the boot to try and keep it from inflating. People were telling me to check the wheel bearing but they seem fine. Oh well, I'll just give it another try, if It happens again I'll go back to OEM.

 

Yea, the raxles guys have been really cool to me too. I still have yet to see if they'll do anything for the latest break though. I want to at least send it to them since this one actually snapped and see if they can tell me anything. I haven't pulled it off yet so I'm not sure if the boot tore or whatnot.

I was looking at my motormounts the best I could last night and they look fine. If I get the time today, I'm just going to go around every bolt with the torque wrench and check everything. Wheel bearings will be done next week. I started looking at how to mount an engine stay rod last night but haven't come up with anything great yet. I need to find a way to test this thing out before the ARRC though to see if I fixed it. Maybe a late October race at Nelson Ledges (uhhh, i hate that place).

I should probably note that the first axle I got from raxles did not have OEM boots on it. The second one did - apparently it didn't help.

 

I've got it on third or fourth hand information that the Mugen CV grease is THE STUFF to use. Apparently it's so good you can actually get horsepower out of it.

Like I said, third or fourth hand info. FWIW.

--Karl, who will try this zip tie and WD-40 straw trick next time he gets the GS-R off jackstands

 

Ok, go with me on this. I was just out looking at my car and thinking about how this would happen. Obviously the outer joint is building up heat and breaking itself. Could it be coming from another source like the brakes or the bearing itself? No, I don't think so. A sticking break sticks out like a sore thumb and would pull all the time. A bearings that's just that bad I think would also cause vibration all the time or at least you'd be able to wiggle the hub back and forth by hand. Plus the amount of heat one of those would have to generate to take down the half shaft with it would be insane. Ok, so lets assume the problems definately going on inside the outer joint to cause the heat.

Lets look at the engine & tranny moving laterally - it's definately a possibility. As previously said, this is essentially a EF Civic/CRX suspension with more power, more torque, more weight (powertrain & chassis), and probably the same ability to corner. Apparently the CRX's can handle their setup just fine but it's just too much for the Integra's to handle. So lets say the heavier tranny and engine are moving laterally in mid corner - maybe as little as 1/8". At the same time you have to think that the hub itself also moves a little bit under full cornering load. That would mean in a right hand corner, the powerplant is moving left and the hub would be moving right (vs. the chassis). Effectively, you'd be decreasing the distance between the tranny and the hub - or the distance the halfshaft needs to go.

We also know that lowering a car as much as an IT car requires will in fact move your hub and tranny closer together (i.e. decrease the distance the halfshaft has to go). So lets say by dropping my ride height to 5", I've effectively made the hub and tranny 1" closer together than at stock ride height. Now if you take a halfshaft and push and pull on its ends, you'll find that they have a range that they'll move laterally before bottoming out.

So is it possible that a combination of all of this is making my outer joint effectively bottom out on itself, cause excessive friction, and eventual faliure? If the geometry changed due to lowering the car took away 1" and then the hub and powertrain moving towards eachother in mid corner took maybe .5" - you will have shortened the length the halfshaft needs to be by 1.5" total. If you take a halfshaft and push in on its outer joint, you'll find that after about 1-1.5" is when it bottoms out on itself. Interesting theory, I know.

But lets think about WHEN they failed. I first started getting the problem at Road America. Now that I think about it, the first two shafts that went bad on track both started pulling and vibrating (i.e. failing) immediately after the carousel. For those who don't know, the carousel at Road America is about a 200 degree corner, fast, downhill, slightly banked, and I was exiting it at 100mph. That had to of been easily the most loading the front left had seen all year - and the most compression the driverside axle had seen. Then after the carousel the axles would actually snap everytime right after the next 1 or 2 right hand corners. The third axle that snapped only lasted through turn one before it broke - another hard and fast right hand corner. All of these were AutoZone reman axles.

The next two events and two axles were at Mid Ohio. Both of these were raxles racing axles. Both axles barely finished the race but were toasted. Both axles first started showing signs of checking out (pulling left and vibrating) immediatly after the keyhole turn and then down the back straight. Again, the keyhole at Mid Ohio is a tight, maybe 190 degree, downhill corner that severely loads the front left - it's only about a 50mph corner maybe though.

So what I'm getting at is what if I instituted a latitude engine stay rod and then had my new axle from raxles made about 1" shorter? It's the only thing I have right now that makes any sense to me. I looked at my engine mounts and they look good as new - the bolts are tight. I checked the subframe bolts - tight. I checked all of the suspension pieces to see if anything was rubbing or binding in any way and saw nothing. I tried wiggling the hubs aroung and they're tight as a drum. This theory is all I got.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by krbobcat &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">So what I'm getting at is what if I instituted a latitude engine stay rod and then had my new axle from raxles made about 1" shorter? It's the only thing I have right now that makes any sense to me.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Would shortened axles be legal in IT?

 

dont you think it would make sense to just weld up an engine stayrod anyway. you know its an issue on its own, so just do it.

like i said, it was just two posts, one welded on the drivers side engine mount and the other directly outward on the chassis, linked together by a heim joint dogbone, loosely fitted. nick always had a spare set of axles, and always bought them from honda, but he seemed pretty smiley after explaining it all to me that he probably didnt run into any axle, tranny problems after he did this.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Crack Monkey &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Would shortened axles be legal in IT?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Good question...

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Tyson &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">dont you think it would make sense to just weld up an engine stayrod anyway. you know its an issue on its own, so just do it.
like i said, it was just two posts, one welded on the drivers side engine mount and the other directly outward on the chassis, linked together by a heim joint dogbone, loosely fitted.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I still am going to be fabricating an engine stayrod and replacing the front wheel bearing no matter what. I was just looking at doing something like what you described.

 

I think you are on the right track with your theory. I had the issues when running the b16 in the CRX. Now it is back to a D16, and my lap times can prove it.

 

What I don't understand is that all of a sudden, people who have been driving Hondas on track for literally *years* are popping driver side outer joints. It's obviously not just been me.

How did this just start happening all of a sudden? Or was I just lucky, and never heard people talk about it?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by krshultz &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">What I don't understand is that all of a sudden, people who have been driving Hondas on track for literally *years* are popping driver side outer joints. It's obviously not just been me.

How did this just start happening all of a sudden? Or was I just lucky, and never heard people talk about it?</TD></TR></TABLE>

The only reason I can think of why nothing happened at my first 4 events (IRP, Grattan, M-O, & M-O) is because of the combination of how good (or not) the car was, how hard cornering the track was, and how I was driving. I know I wasn't driving the car 100% in my first 4 times in it. Those tracks just didn't have the cornering forces as Road America and later at Mid Ohio. The 3rd time I raced at Mid Ohio this year was the first time it ate an axle there - just before that weekend I got my Koni's shortened & revalved, I was driving the car harder than the last time at Mid Ohio, and I took 1.5 seconds off my fastest time. Maybe now the combination of my driving and the cornering ability of the car has done enough to make the car eat an axle at Mid Ohio. I raced ITC Civic's since 2000 before this car and never had a problem with an axle.

 

Could it be your caster settings? Karl, I know you have switched the upper A-Arms, had you switched them back when you started breaking axels? I know you ran like that for years, but it seems that not too long after you go the new konis and springs rates you started puking axels, which is like an all new suspension and I have been woundering if it was a caster problem do to your switched axels?

 

I broke an Axle two years ago at Las Vegas, then we started Using Pro-Drive or Evolution Axles... Never had another problem. And I think I've taken more knocks than most?
However, Do check the alignmet of your Sub frame and Engine/G Box assembly and watch out for aftermarket CV Boots... They swell up and pop with the heat and pressure. Use only Genuine Honda boots. And also make sure that you vent the inside end of the boot with a small piece of plastic tube from a can of brake cleaner or WD-40. Fit the tube between the axle and the boot. It allows built up pressure to escape with little or no grease loss.

Kiwi

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by KIWI &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">also make sure that you vent the inside end of the boot with a small piece of plastic tube from a can of brake cleaner or WD-40. Fit the tube between the axle and the boot. It allows built up pressure to escape with little or no grease loss.

Kiwi</TD></TR></TABLE>

never heard this one before. how would it help "vent" if the tube always has grease in it... and if it did vent, then why wouldnt grease keep coming out...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by krbobcat &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
...So what I'm getting at is what if I instituted a latitude engine stay rod and then had my new axle from raxles made about 1" shorter? It's the only thing I have right now that makes any sense to me. I looked at my engine mounts and they look good as new - the bolts are tight. I checked the subframe bolts - tight. I checked all of the suspension pieces to see if anything was rubbing or binding in any way and saw nothing. I tried wiggling the hubs aroung and they're tight as a drum. This theory is all I got.</TD></TR></TABLE>

FWIW, I asked one of the DSM guys I work with about this - he is an experienced road racer - and he encountered the same problem a few times on the track. Shortening the axel fixed the issue.