Output shaft bearing

[mhiscott]

I have an FRS with 55,000 km on it. Trans oil has been Pentosin MTF2 or Motul 300 since 30,000 km, and OEM before that.

The car is turbocharged making ~ 280-300 rwhp.

I recently installed a driveshaftshop aluminum 1 piece shaft (1 week ago) and ran a track event since. I did 67 laps and I'm pretty hard on the car.

Since the lapping day, I noticed a smell of gearoil intermittantly. It isn't dripping, but an inspection of the output shaft seal showed it to be the culprit for the small amount of oil that's burning off on the exhaust and causing the smell.

At first I thought it was just the seal that needed replacement, but today I started to hear a bit of a strange noise when driving the car. It isn't by any means loud, but there's a faint noise that almost sounds like the sound of a card in bicycle spokes.

I just popped the car up in the air and sure enough, there is play at the output shaft. See video below:

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h95Zrro6ZSY"]August 8, 2016 - YouTube[/ame]

Skip to ~ 50 seconds in.

Soo......... Does this often happen with DSS 1 piece shafts? Or is the timing of this just coincidental with my D/S install? I'm surprised to see a bearing go at such a low mileage.

Has anyone swapped one of these before?

[FRS Justin]

DSS Drive shafts are garbage. Tape a quarter to it and throw it in the ditch. Replace with stock driveshaft...
PS
The reason you tape a quarter to the DSS is the next person who finds it in the ditch will at least have something worth 25 cents....
I had one they sent it to me with the yolk welded on crooked they welded it on straight and it was just as bad.... IT SUCKED!!!!

[humfrz]

Yep, I agree ...... I wouldn't run that driveshaft.

Replacing the output shaft bearing is a time consuming job (at least it was on other MT's I have worked on).

Now, I wonder why the OEM driveshaft is in two pieces .....


humfrz

[Ultramaroon]

It's already been said but I'll pile on. After you repair your trans, before you drive it, go back to an OEM driveshaft.

[RJasonKlein]

Seriously? I'm only days away from installing an Alxe-Exchange aluminum one-piece driveshaft on my FR-S - is this problem common to all one-piece driveshafts, or just those from the Driveshaft Shop? If the former, how did I miss this when doing my research?

[Ultramaroon]

Originally Posted by RJasonKlein

Seriously? I'm only days away from installing an Alxe-Exchange aluminum one-piece driveshaft on my FR-S - is this problem common to all one-piece driveshafts, or just those from the Driveshaft Shop? If the former, how did I miss this when doing my research?

All the one-piece driveshafts increase NVH. Those cyclic forces have to be dissipated somewhere.

All the extra hardware to make a two-piece driveshaft and hang it in an isolating pillow block is expensive.

[FRS Justin]

My experience with DSS
Axles blew the grease out of the boots in 50 miles (ALL 4 BOOTS) DSS sent me new boots and grease. So I rebuilt brand new axles and spent 2hrs cleaning grease off my car....
Installed drive shaft indexed it everyway known to man put it on a dyno and it sounded like I was killing a cat!!! Craziest noise I ever heard sent it back to DSS 3 weeks later and numerous calls I am told the flange was welded on crooked and they cut it off and rewelded it on and re balanced it..
they cut the rivets off holding the weights drilled new hole for the shit balance job and sent it back to me with 2 new holes left in the shaft...
So I TRIED IT AGAIN AND IT SUCKED JUST AS BAD!!!

[mhiscott]

Wow I hadn't heard of any of these issues before purchasing either. I had a pretty exhaustive search on google this am, and I can't find many others having this issue. The mustang guys seem to love these driveshafts, and so do the WRX crowd.

I hate to toss something I just paid $600 for. But I can't have my car having issues at the track either.

Perhaps I'll see if a local DS shop can see if the shaft is properly balanced. It doesn't sound like I'll get far with DSS customer support

[mhiscott]

Also, are there any known guys tracking their cars who aren't having any issues with these shafts? I wonder if mine is just causing trouble, or if they're all the same? Perhaps our output shaft bearings are less stout than some of the other cars which use DSS shafts on the regular (stangs etc)

[FRS Justin]

Originally Posted by mhiscott

Wow I hadn't heard of any of these issues before purchasing either. I had a pretty exhaustive search on google this am, and I can't find many others having this issue. The mustang guys seem to love these driveshafts, and so do the WRX crowd.

I hate to toss something I just paid $600 for. But I can't have my car having issues at the track either.

Perhaps I'll see if a local DS shop can see if the shaft is properly balanced. It doesn't sound like I'll get far with DSS customer support

All I can say is try it and if you have no vibration issue go for it. I would check my shaft end play after I installed it and make sure it stays the same.... Some people get lucky. But for 600 dollars I'm sure I could find a better performance upgrade.....

[mhiscott]

I didn't feel a vibration over how the car normally feels lol. It has heim suspension, cusco engine mounts and all poly everything else. It's not very...refined...shall we say.

I didn't notice any weirdness upon installing the shaft though. The driveline felt smooth.