The polishing of the gears is good for smoothing over flaws in the gears. lightening of the ring gear will always give you a gain in less rotational weight.

Leaning more towards just the REM polishing. Gear life and less drag. Have been told not much weight of higher gears like 3.90 thru 4.30 suff. Lower gears have thicker ring gear and allow more to be removed.

Agree with 434 olds on rotating mass reduction is always good. Just with such short radius and close to the center it is not as effective as other places like tire weight would.

Might be getting the micro blue bearing for cpl places in rear end assembly and work towards complete assembly being micro blue bearing with lot less drag. I know no need or reason for in bracket car which by the other state it that is not a race car where going fast is part of the fun.

I do not think polishing will hurt them but certainly doubt it will give any noticeable benefits at all and probably not worth the money. The gears will more or less polish themselves to each other fairly quickly so I think it is a waste of time and money.

Even if you get a set that is polished they will still have to get mating surfaces of the gears worn to each other.

Now as for lightening the gear yes it could help right up until it starts to make it weaker. But those gains are once again so small you could probably never tell but if it is too light (Weak) it will get ugly. Same with a crankshaft, rods, pistons etc. The question is how light is too much and when will it break? Good design would make the parts as light as possible and still have enough strength where it is needed.

For lightening components like crank, rods and pistons from my limited experience it seems like the lighter assemblies sure seem to rap faster but not sure of any improvements on the track or even dyno. That is one thing hard to compare apples to apples but we do know there is a point where making it lighter makes it weaker. Especially at higher RPM the weight becomes more critical. Too heavy or too light.

my gear gets polished from running lol

quote:

my gear gets polished from running lol

FWIW, there is ET and Longivity in a professionally built, low drag unit. Yes, its 1000-2000 dollars MORE than an out of the box unit, but in my opinion, it was worth it.

329L,

I think with micro blue bearins it will be lot less.While they are not ceramic bearing they are close for quite a bit less. The rem polish only runs abot 175 to 200 at Neil and Paeks. I have not added all bearing yet. Might get surprised on pinion bearing/

Betting I will be using more caution when swapping gears and pressing bearing off pinion gear.LOL

Will be hard to convince me that rear end assembly that spins 10 or 12 rounds with one pull is not worth some et. Now the lightening of cpl pounds yea never see it alone but it all adds up.

Again et does not matter in bracket racing and that is why some guys are spending 30k on engines.LOL

quote:

Originally posted by Al Alguire:
Yes we do....See link for demo

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Pg2n06R79a4

Way too much backlash clearance.

That said, I got a "deburred and detailed" gear set once, and there was a HUGE difference in rotational / contact drag. FWIW

quote:

Originally posted by SpeierRacingHeads:
I had Scott Parks lighten one for me and REM coat it. Few pictures. Then I replaced all the bearings with coated, and the video is the result. Never run ceramic bearings in the 3rd member!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vtixXRyIVA

I've never seen a properly set up ceramic third member bearing fail. Conversely I have seen multiple improperly installed ceramic thirdmember bearings fail.

Mine are lightened, with crap tons of runs, it's an easy small gain that's fairly cheap in comparison. So to me it's worth while.

quote:

Originally posted by Will Harrison:
Mine are lightened, with crap tons of runs, it's an easy small gain that's fairly cheap in comparison. So to me it's worth while.

You said you have never seen properly set up ceramic bearings fail. What is properly set up for them? Anything different in setting up over standard bearings?

What is the gain? What is the cost?

I do think that those small gains could add up to a faster and more consistent car same as losing weight or better aerodynamics. Also if they are lightened properly it will not lose much if any strength. Question here is how much and is it worth it?

Curly,

Slight correction to your statement. Is it worth to you. Some things are worth lot more to one than the other.
I know that is foreign concept to some here, but not everyone has to do things one way. Old saying more than one way to skin a cat. Same result in the end most of the time.

quote:

I've never seen a properly set up ceramic third member bearing fail. Conversely I have seen multiple improperly installed ceramic thirdmember bearings fail.

I have seen properly set up's fail in heavy Comp and Super Stock cars. Like shattered.

quote:

Originally posted by Goob:

quote:

Originally posted by Al Alguire:
Yes we do....See link for demo

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Pg2n06R79a4

Way too much backlash clearance.

That said, I got a "deburred and detailed" gear set once, and there was a HUGE difference in rotational / contact drag. FWIW

Or not if you know you know.. Imagine most here cannot even identify the center section

quote:

Originally posted by SpeierRacingHeads:

quote:

I've never seen a properly set up ceramic third member bearing fail. Conversely I have seen multiple improperly installed ceramic thirdmember bearings fail.

I have seen properly set up's fail in heavy Comp and Super Stock cars. Like shattered.

Ditto...Seen MANY a properly set up ceramic pinion bearing fail. I know of a very large manufacture of manual transmissions who will not use ceramics at all anymore after so many failures. Seems to be a quality issue with some of the off shore materials.

quote:

Originally posted by Al Alguire:

quote:

Originally posted by SpeierRacingHeads:

quote:

I've never seen a properly set up ceramic third member bearing fail. Conversely I have seen multiple improperly installed ceramic thirdmember bearings fail.

I have seen properly set up's fail in heavy Comp and Super Stock cars. Like shattered.

Ditto...Seen MANY a properly set up ceramic pinion bearing fail. I know of a very large manufacture of manual transmissions who will not use ceramics at all anymore after so many failures. Seems to be a quality issue with some of the off shore materials.

For the price of the Micro Blue stuff, every car should have them. IMO, they are simply incredible!

Micro Blue's

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGMVNboaS2E

quote:

Originally posted by SpeierRacingHeads:
For the price of the Micro Blue stuff, every car should have them. IMO, they are simply incredible!

I agree, and the best part is they dont shatter....

I see you used Scott on your stuff. Great guy very knowledgeable especially for a guy in Burlingame

quote:

Originally posted by Curly1:

quote:

Originally posted by Will Harrison:
Mine are lightened, with crap tons of runs, it's an easy small gain that's fairly cheap in comparison. So to me it's worth while.

You said you have never seen properly set up ceramic bearings fail. What is properly set up for them? Anything different in setting up over standard bearings?

What is the gain? What is the cost?

I do think that those small gains could add up to a faster and more consistent car same as losing weight or better aerodynamics. Also if they are lightened properly it will not lose much if any strength. Question here is how much and is it worth it?

every failed one I've seen, the bearing races were in the housing crooked or nor all the way down in the bore because it was shearing aluminum off and it got trapped underneath the race.

Just FYI, I have nothing to do with ceramic bearing sales anymore. I just don't have the time anymore.