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I am sure there is a reason (s), it might be obvious, and I have read a number of posts but it doesn't seem to pop out.
Are they the easiest to install?
Are they the cheapest?
Are they the the best?
Are they the best design?
The most common available?
Strongest?
Easiest to repair?
Etc.
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jcc,
At this point I honestly don't know. However Day/Daze started this board as a Jag IRS board. Jag was the original Hot Rodders choice for conversion back in the day also. It's easier conversion may also be a part.
And welcome!
Ralphy
Last edited by Ralphy (8/22/2012 8:59 pm)
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jcc - Welcome aboard!
I too came to this site looking for "basic" IRS info/details in my quest.
Yep lots of JAG Cobnversions - but the site is open to all IRS mods.
You'll find some of the advantages you mentioned in the JAG IRS - but it also uses the half shaft as a loaded component of the IRS.
Not something you want to fail with high Torque -unfortunately.
There is a start or two on basic IRS design, software, parts, etc. And Ralphy has posted probably the single biggest collection of IRS - related videos.
I bet you'll find something of interest here! Along with a wide range of members - racers, builders, etc.
Cheers - Jim
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First - Welcome aboard.
Second - My best guess is JAG seems to be the most prevalent and abundant. I believe it has been manufactured the longest, late 50's I believe. Depending on the seller, they may be the cheapest to purchase. Most can be found for between 250 & 300. Sometimes, someone sells for under $200.
In spite of lots of JAG IRS usage, all IRS systems are open for discussing. Every system has it's strengths and weaknesses, it is just a matter of working with enough of those to meet your needs.
Out of curiosity, what vehicle are you looking to install to? Almost any vehicle with a frame is easy with any IRS. Unibody's just take a little more design.
Good luck!
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jcc,
Another note. Two of the three responses so far, came from Corvette guys. Maybe it would be beneficial if all the users had their IRS of choice shown on all their posts.
Ralphy
C3 Corvette IRS
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303Radar wrote:
First - Welcome aboard.
Second - My best guess is JAG seems to be the most prevalent and abundant. I believe it has been manufactured the longest, late 50's I believe. Depending on the seller, they may be the cheapest to purchase. Most can be found for between 250 & 300. Sometimes, someone sells for under $200.
In spite of lots of JAG IRS usage, all IRS systems are open for discussing. Every system has it's strengths and weaknesses, it is just a matter of working with enough of those to meet your needs.
Out of curiosity, what vehicle are you looking to install to? Almost any vehicle with a frame is easy with any IRS. Unibody's just take a little more design.
Good luck!
Thanks for asking, first I am a 60-70's mopar guy who thinks a 1/4 mile should be preceded by a turn. My first endeavor with IRs was when I picked up a pair of weather beaten C3 set-ups, but wasn't inspired to continue. i currently have acquired an early CTSv Getrag assembly fairly cheap and complete, I suspect it has a failed or ready to fail center section as they are known to be problematic. However it looks fine and I like the design, but I really am not qualified at this point to pass judgement. Part of the connecting the dots to my question in this post, was Ii found little or no CTS IRS comments on this forum, and am wondering am Ii proving new ground, or just heading down a dead end. There few aftermarket upgrades I found so far for CTS, mainly more robust arms to reduce wheel hop. I was pondering redesigning/replacing the LCA , removing OEM shock, and converting to a coilover set-up.
But the first problem is the rear, and I've seen some conversions to 8.8, but as a mopar guy that is always a hard choice ( some reason a CTS is not, go figure) I do have a partial assembled new 3.73 viper alum dana on the shelf as an option, and then there is my dream rear, a SCP IRS quickchange, just because. Doing all the needed fabbing and welding in house for above is no problem. CV adaptors, axles, etc machining has got to be farmed out, and I am on a cost/benefit budget.
Oh, the car is most likely a 72 Cuda or 62 Big Dart, stout SB, haven't decided, street and track day use.
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Why the Jag? It's been around fifty years, it's cheap and readily available, it packages into the same basic space as a stick axle, and the rod guys think they're purty if they're all polished up. It is an interesting artifact of 1960s engineering, chock-full of stuff that no one would do like that now.
First-gen CTSV suspension - driven a few, works well, don't know a lot about the suspension layout. GM's fix for wheel hop in the second-gen cars is asymmetrical halfshafts - one side is a typical solid bar, the other is fat and tubular, the result is that they wind-up at slightly different rates on launch and smooth the sharp spike of the forces being put into the mounts. Seems to work very well.
It's interesting to note, though, that Ford did the same thing on the Thunderbird SC from '89-93. Only the manual transmission cars got the 'fat shaft'. I've got one sitting on my bench right now, as I try to figure out what to do for axle shafts on my MN12-suspended '64 Galaxie wagon.
The aftermarket likes brute-force solutions to wheel hop, in the CTSV, the '03-04 Mustang Cobra (in which, interestingly enough, Ford did NOT use asymmetrical shafts) - stiffer this, stronger that, harder everything else - I once drove a CTSV with a bunch of anti-wheel-hop stuff in it and it seemed to work but it really bodged the character of the car NVH-wise.
Last edited by JEM (8/23/2012 11:21 pm)
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JCC - Since I'm not familiar with the CTS IRS, I Googled it and the first page that come up was this one, selling a kit with a 9" center:
I completely understand hesitance/preference about cross parts/manufacturers.
With respect to preventing wheel hop, a Watts link/arm seems to be a good approach. Lots of posts here with pics and explanations/setups.
I don't remember who, but someone is putting an IRS into a 442. I putting a Jag IRS into a '59 El Camino.
Good luck with your project!
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I don't remember who, but someone is putting an IRS into a 442. I putting a Jag IRS into a '59 El Camino.
Good luck with your project!
That's me. I am putting a combination of Jag and C-4 Corvette parts in my '72 442.
Shiny Side Up!
Bill
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With respect to preventing wheel hop, a Watts link/arm seems to be a good approach. Lots of posts here with pics and explanations/setups.
Not really applicable with the CTSV multilink layout, I think.
Oh, and for what it's worth I just bought a pair of '03 Cobra shafts new from Tousley Ford at $325 apiece.
It's really a shame someone doesn't sell an OE-quality 31-spline inner driver and CV separately, since lots of folks either have good axles (SC, late Mark VIII) or wants to do something unusual. Asking prices on used '03 Cobra shafts seem to be witihin 10-15% of Tousley's price new, so it didn't seem to make sense to chase used ones.
If I get wheel hop with the Cobra shafts I'll tear the right one down, swap in the center bar of the 'Bird 'fat shaft' and see if that helps.
Last edited by JEM (8/24/2012 2:19 pm)
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The U-Pull it' Auto wrecking yards here in Oregon are loaded with all kinds of IRS equipped cars. From Toyota Supra's,to Datsun Z's as well as BMW;s of all types Ford T-bird's and Mustangs to name a few. The Jaguar's are thick as flea's on a dog and they go cheap. I paid $150.00 for my first complete Jag IRS with drive shaft and cage and $50 for my most resent. of all the suspensions I have mentioned the Jag unit is the most novice friendly to install. The Jag design is not a work of art nor is it perfect. But it works pretty well and is the easiest to simplify and install. Even some one with minimal experience can produce acceptable results installing a Jag unit. Not so easy to transplant a Mustang or a BMW IRS.
From my point of view, The popularity of the Jaguar IRS is due to simplicity of design and being available at a low enough price that any hot rodder can justify buying one to experiment with. When I got my first one I wasnt quite sold on the conversion idea. When I saw how easy building the cross member was going to be, I was bit by the IRS bug.
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The U-Pull it' Auto wrecking yards here in Oregon are loaded with all kinds of IRS equipped cars. From Toyota Supra's,to Datsun Z's as well as BMW;s of all types Ford T-bird's and Mustangs to name a few.
I chose to use the MN12 'Bird setup in my '64 Country Sedan largely because (a) it was the right width (b) it was Ford and (c) the Thunderbird underbody and subframe mounting arrangement appeared to be fairly compatible with the old Galaxie frame.
The downsides being that the subframe is bulky enough to push the gas tank out of its original location, it required a little surgery to get the front mounting legs where I needed them on the Galaxie frame rails (this was a case of six weeks to figure out what needed to be done and a day to do it...) and Ford being Ford a lot of parts are no longer available new from Ford. Fortunately, there's only a few things on the assembly that seem to wear particularly quickly, so I'm just making sure I collect three good used examples of everything for my spares inventory...
The only Mustangs that ever got IRS were the '98-04 Cobras, and mostly those get parted before ever hitting the junkyards; going rate for a complete '03-04 Cobra IRS is around $1000.
A little junkyard snoopery hints that the '90s Toyota designs - including the MkIV Supra, but more commonly the Lexus GS and LS, which are dirt-common in the pick-n-pulls here now - are a straightforward but modern design, the total package is reasonably compact and mounting doesn't appear to be too troublesome. If I were going to do something else I might look at one of those.
The E38 and E39 BMWs ('95-01 7-series/97-03 5-series) are starting to show up in the cheap yards now, and while their rear suspension is a very good design it's also designed for an underbody shape not typically found in old Detroit iron.
The E21/E30 3-series, E12/E28/E34 5-series and E32 7-series all use various flavors of semi-trailing arm rear suspension, which might be adaptable but isn't really anything special dynamically.
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I have seen a few IRS mustangs come and go from the local Pick n pull. They dont stay long because the vultures strip them pretty fast. I have no idea what they get for the rear suspensions but I know they were pulled by someone before they went to the crusher. The only reason I noticed the mustangs was my need for strong 5-6 speed transmissions. T-5's dont last long in my GT350. I keep losing 3rd gear. There are many good designs of IRS cars out there but most of these rear suspensions are not going to fit in other vehicles with out major modifications. The more dificult conversions make up the dividing line between those who would like swap suspensions and those who do and can still align their car when they are done.
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I know why!! 
Day/Daze started this board as a Jag IRS board.
First of Ralphy I did not start this board as a Jaguar forum. From day one it has been for all makes all models, all types of IRS. The reason this board is predominantly Jag (besides the fact that it has long been the most common swap) is that that when I started it, it had no visibility on Google or any of the other search engines. With web sites, unless you pay big bucks it can take years to become highly visible on search engine. However my personal Mustang web site was already established highly visible on search engines (top of the page when you type in "mustang Jaguar IRS" or number two when you type in "Jaguar IRS") Sooooooo as people were looking for info on Jaguar rear ends my web site came up and people would go to my web page. On the top of said page is a link to this forum, also anytime some one contacted me with a question I would try to answer it but also direct them here. The result was a forum that was Jag heavy in the beginning and is still Jag heavy however the other types of IRS are getting more representation here all the time, and the forum is moving towards what I had originally envisioned which was a forum dedicated to all kinds of OEM IRS in cars other than what they were designed to go into.
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Day guess I'm wrong. Thought I remembered seeing an old header referring to Jag IRS.
Here's something I've seen.
Ralphy
Last edited by Ralphy (8/26/2012 2:15 am)
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It is all good this is the forum mission statemt "Forum dedicated to installing, rebuilding upgrading, tuning and/or racing of any IRS unit on any vehicle regardless of IRS type or vehicle make and model!" The only thing that has changed is it was a little more wordy and I trimmed it down.
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First-gen CTSV suspension - driven a few, works well, don't know a lot about the suspension layout. GM's fix for wheel hop in the second-gen cars is asymmetrical halfshafts - one side is a typical solid bar, the other is fat and tubular, the result is that they wind-up at slightly different rates on launch and smooth the sharp spike of the forces being put into the mounts. Seems to work very well.
It's interesting to note, though, that Ford did the same thing on the Thunderbird SC from '89-93. Only the manual transmission cars got the 'fat shaft'. I've got one sitting on my bench right now, as I try to figure out what to do for axle shafts on my MN12-suspended '64 Galaxie wagon.
That statement supports something that crossed my mind several weeks ago, with wheel hop in regard to a Jag. Reading many posts at Club Cobra discussing wheel hop. Several weeks ago I wondered about a IRS with solid halfshafts adding to a wrap up and release situation and the HS's being included in the symptom. This vs. a tube type HS. What type of material are Jag and CV type units made of?
Ralphy
Last edited by Ralphy (8/27/2012 10:03 pm)
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What type of material are Jag and CV type units made of?
Both the stock Jag and the first-gen CTS-V shafts are solid steel bars.
Tubular halfshafts are less common, in part because of their bulk - C3/C4 'Vettes used basically short driveshafts for their axle shafts, and this is sometimes done on the early Jag IRS as well.
Tubular shafts in the late-model context - that is to say on one side of the vehicle for wheel-hop control - are generally I think mated to a splined solid stub at each end that mates to the CV.
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No I know they are solid, but are they 1040/4140 heat treated? They must be high carbon heat treated.
Ralphy
Last edited by Ralphy (8/27/2012 11:24 pm)
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