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Hey all, I'm looking into replacing my drive shaft with a one piece unit. When looking at the shops (LindeysRacing, Driveshaft Shop) they state that it is for model years 2003-2008. I have a 2009 GTS. Is there a reason they don't list them for the 09-10 models? Is there something that changed for the last two years? Any insight/advice would be much appreciated.
Keep thinking about buying one...and putting it on the shelf until WHEN I need it. Original drive shaft replaced in late 2017 at 66k by previous owner...oem cost is more than the carbon one piece for Christ sake.
I just ordered the carbon fiber from Lindsey Racing, mine has never been replaced and it has 123K on it. There was vibration any time I got over 30 MPH.
Surprisingly my wife was okay with the expense! I think it's because the GTS is paid off and it's cheaper to fix than it would be to replace it.
I was all hot and bothered over a one-piece driveshaft... then I found that OEM driveshaft is made by GKN, PN 28054, and can be had for around $400. If the original driveshaft lasted over 100k miles, $400 for another 100k miles doesn't sound so bad. I also had concerns about the one piece shaft deleting the giubo. Tons of research yielded mixed opinions on giubo delete. Now I'm just confused and keep driving the original driveshaft now at 102k miles while knowing that the bearing support rubber already has cracks in it and can go at any moment.
You guys who are spending money on driveshafts know you can fix a center support bearing for $15 in parts and it will never fail in 300,000 more miles, right? Zero dollars for a driveshaft over the life of the vehicle... though you do need to use stainless zip ties to accomplish that. 50 or more of them were under $10 and you need a foot or so of the stiffest water hose they have at the parts store. I spent 2 hours doing it, but could have done it in 1 hour without distractions and beer. If you don't know about this it is in a lengthy thread called Jimi Fix after the mechanic that came up with the idea. If you use plastic zip ties, they get hard and brittle when exposed to weather, then they snap. Use stainless ties to avoid that.
I did the one piece aluminum drtiveshaft on my 09 957 TTS for 2 reasons.
I didn't want the failure to happen in the middle of a family vacation trip, even if the Jimi Fix repair would outlast the original center bearing support, and
I wanted a more direct gas pedal to acceleration feeling without having to go through the flexibly suspended driveshaft with the kink in the middle.
The aluminum driveshaft accomplished both of those for me and I sold my OEM 30k mile shaft for about half the cost of the 1-piece so I'll never have to worry about it again and get sportier vehicle driving dynamics for about $500 - seems OK to me.
I'm not sure the carbon fiber version will provide the same upgrade with respect to directness though. The CF version has less torsional rigidity than the aluminum one, which is what makes it smoother according to the guys at Driveshaft Shop. It essentially twists under rotational forces and then untwists when the input forces are less than the torsional rigidity index. I also wasn't sure how well the carbon fiber or the mating of that shaft material to the metal ends would hold up over 200,000 miles of high HP inputs and since objective #1 was to not worry about it again for the life of the car, went with aluminum. The aluminum one is also less expensive, which was an added bonus.
When ordering one, you'd be smart to take a measurement under the car and give them a dimensional range where the center bearing support resides and tell them they can't put any balance weights in that area. If that's where the weights need to go, tell them to put one weight outside that area and rebalance it, which should require another weight, which should also be outside that area. As you can see from the photo below, I didn't know this at the time, being on of the earlier adopters of this upgrade, and my weight ended up right where I didn't want it. Upon install, it was contacting the remaining bearing support bracket so we had to shift the engine cradle over a little bit to create the necessary clearance for the straight shot from the front to the back. You'll notice the shaft looks angled in the tunnel. It is - the reason why the OEM driveshaft has the center bearing in it is that the two connection points don't create a straight line (whoops Porsche Engineering) so they added the flex joint in the middle and the bearing support for it, rather than to redesign the mating components.
I love the driving dynamics and the piece of mind from this upgrade. It may not be worth it to others.
The "jimmi fix" does not always solve driveshaft issues. Sometimes the bearing itself goes out, sometimes the giubo goes out, sometimes the CV joint wears out. As they say, a cheap man pays twice, hence I prefer to make the repair one time and one time only. Replacing the whole driveshaft is a guarantee that I won't have to touch it for at least 60k miles, and that's gotta be worth something.
Originally Posted by 3.2 Targa
Here's an interesting comparison...... Talk about the Porsche tax.
The GKN parts actually xREF at 95542102015
Yep. And if you search on the GKN number directly, it's not hard to find it for less than $400.
To be fair though, Porsche PN is not always the most expensive - sometimes it's cheaper than equivalent VW or Audi PNs, even though the part is identical aside from the label on the box. I've heard that some shops that specialize in VAGs have a cross referenced list of VW-Audi-PAG PNs and just order whichever is cheaper regardless of which car they're putting it in, lol. One example off the top of my head if I remember right, the heater blower motor is cheaper as PAG PN than VW PN, same for some suspension bushings.
The "jimmi fix" does not always solve driveshaft issues. Sometimes the bearing itself goes out,
On my 957 GTS, the bearing failed and took the pillow suspension with it. I had two leftover bearings from my 955 and replaced the bearing. Breaking down the shaft wasn't too bad, re-assembly was a pain in the butt.
01-16-2020, 07:39 PM
One Piece Driveshaft for 2009 GTS
