8 3/4 ?'s
i agree with both, as they are both saying the same thing in different words....
they both say that ideally, the engine/tranny centerline should be parallel to the pinion.....exactly true, and that is at normal load. The info Mark Williams gave stated that in that example, he was referring to something like a 4-link setup....AND
There is a general misunderstanding about "dropping the pinion down" several degrees. This is a practice that should
be applied only to leaf spring cars without any traction control devices where springs can wrap and change pinion angle.
as far as traction devices, the better the traction sontrol, the less pinion angle required.
I guess it's better to say that in a perfect world, the pinion and tranny centerlines would be parallel, with a slight height difference, which would provide a 1-2 degree angle in relation to the driveshaft (like said earlier, this promotes roller motion inside the u-joint)
BUT, it's not a perfect world, and the rear axle height and angle is always changing, so we say "at ride height and under normal load (for the application)"
the 3-5 degrees suggested for pinion angle is an estimation for a leaf sprung street car's normal loaded pinion rotation
ok...went and read again......
they ARE both saying the same thing, but the car-craft article is a bit more detailed in specifying that it depends all on the chassis setup and usage of the vehicle....the MW one is like a paraphrasing of the Car Craft article. not that it is, just like a paraphrase.....
the car craft article also has the opinions of a few people...the opinions are different because of their specialties....
Bickel's recommendations are based on racing (it says he's a pro-stock chassis guy)
What Currie says in the article about 1-3 degrees at the tranny and 1-3 degrees at the pinion is referring to at normal load, but it doesn't say it
again, both are right, and ideally, the engine/tranny and pinion are close to the same height and at the same angle, which puts the driveshaft in a straight line or at a small angle AT NORMAL HEIGHT/LOAD
wow...i keep talking....here's more....
take a truck, for example. let's say, like on my truck, the pinion and tranny aren't REAL far off height-wise.....i'd follow the above guidelines...
however, if i lifted the truck 6", i'm opening another can of worms.....
i had a 78 bronco lifted 6" (in the suspension, anyway).
If i followed the above guidelines, i may have the equal and opposite angles at each end of the driveshaft, but the height difference is so great that the u-joint angle would be larger than 1-3 degrees, which would eat the u-joint in short time....to solve this, we put in a double cardan shaft and rotate the pinion up so that (under load), the pinion and driveshaft are in a straight line, and the double cardan joint at the front handles the angle