The effects of drive shaft angle

[MHeadling]

Just looking for some info on drive shaft angle and what effect it has on handling.

We are looking at the rear of a buggy.

What effect will a swept forward drive shaft have??

What effect with a straight drive shaft have (right angle to the chassis)??

What effect with a rearward swept drive shaft have??

I have checked out Elvo's tuning guide and couldn't see any info on this topic.

Drive shaft plunge is a term I'v read about with different types of driveshaft, UJ, CVD etc, but some info on this would be great too!

[mattr]

http://www.oople.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112244

There some stuff on there that might help, and a thread that's linked to from there as well. Not sure how well it covers forward and backward sweep, but should give you some pointers.

Enjoy!

[Origineelreclamebord]

As far as my knowledge goes... The greater the angle of a universal shaft, the more inconsistent it's rotation is (the speed with which the wheel axle rotates will move up and down a certain amount of times in every rotation, and the difference in speed increases with the angle of the universal shaft). This can be seen very clearly on the front end of some 4WDs on full steering and compressed suspension.

This varying speed should make for less forward traction and I can imagine your sideways grip on power will be lower as well.

[MHeadling]

Thanks for the info and links chaps, I'll have a read up on the info and apply this to my next project

[Welshy40]

I did a lot of testing in the 90's on this and found the best option was totally straight from drive cup to hub, having it further backwards or forwards increased wear and gave more slop. Also efficiency wasted then was small but using 1700mah cells was noticeable but doubt it would be noticed now with the batteries available.