Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

I asked around locally and at the swap meet amongst those more knowldegeable than I, and no one has a definitive answer.  No one said absolutely yes, no one said absolutely not.  Some were pretty sure you could swap them, and some were pretty sure you couldn't.  So, does anyone know for sure if any of the brands of center sections are interchangeable and the internals can be put in a center section of a different brand?

.  

I have lightly tried to combine the pieces i have from a winters center to a Frankland axle, i quickly bolted the ring gear to the axle and slapped it in the center, the clearances on outer bearings are way off, im not sure if this can be corrected with shimming the bearings, im no professional on QC rearends, i simply have 3 franklands and one winters that had  destroyed the rear axle,(center was salvageable), i obviously had a loose spare frankland axle,  I havent spent the time to check into the piece to know if it is something that cant be interchanged.     good question.

If one goes to DMI's website and go to the "TECH DEPARTMENT" tab, I see there is an entire page there of DMI part numbers and Winters part numbers crossed for that same part.  So I'm assuming those parts are all interchangeable.  Hopefully I'll get a chance to call DMI and ask.  And keep looking at others.

.  

I do know the ring gear bolt pattern did line up correctly with the Frankland to Winters,the width -girth of the gears i havent compaired, I should have,  the side bell also matches, the major differeance ive seen with the frankland to winters is thier shifting mechanisums are much much different desighn, I like the idea of Franklands shifter access holes/lever are off the bottom of the rear, (a potential leak spot)or leak until empty mind you,  however I never had a prob with the winters leaking,I just seal it well and make sure everything was good and clean prior to reassembly,   my crew guys commonly lift the car on the rearend, again a poor spot for the shifter, but once noticed a crewman will proubly never lift there (shifter location) just keep a eye on someone new helping you,  I simply havent had the time to dig into my interchanging woes, but I will update if I find out anything new,  the axles almost looked identical, but I need to take a better look and see if im missing something, another point of the frankland is the inboard brake bracket is machined better, not a big deal, and to be honest,  ive had both brands loosen at one time or the other,,  its just routine to check those bolts regardless of brand anyhow,  heck,  they make a kit exactly for that problem, its proubly common on all of them,  vibration,heat ect ,  as far as internals i havent swiched from brand A to brand B much inside the case of the assembly... I havent owned a DMI (thats much too new ) for my pocket, a nice piece to my understanding tho.. and I believe thier shifter is much different also,

When DMI first started making rears, one of their selling points was that their parts were interchangeable with Winters.  So I know for a fact that the first generation Bulldog rears from DMI are interchangeable, however there have been changes to their XR-1 Bulldog rear since then. 

I have a rear that is a DMI center, a winters axle, and a new DMI ring and pinion.