The 5.29 Mega Thread!!

Not centered.....the clam has the pinion above center line. The rack and pinion would hit the underside of the clams nosecone if it was not a hi-pinion.
Ken

 

Your setup is VERY similar to mine. I'm also OVT'd. How usable is 6th gear on 4.88s?

EDIT, just seeing your next response.

 

So then what does the reverse cut do?

 

I use it all the time on the Hwy

 

It gives people the false sense of security thinking that the high pinion diffs are stronger than the low pinion ones. Then they break them and I sometimes get to do a rebuild

 

Sounds about right.

But for me as an out of the box clamshell, I need to normal cut? I am about to order my stuff and now you got me thinking. But my shit is hidden behind skid plates anyway so there would be no benefit to high pinion.

 

You can’t choose normal cut or reverse cut. Buy the right set of gears for your truck. If you put normal cut gears in a truck that should have reverse cut gears bad thing would happen. Gears and tires would spin the opposite direction of the rear end. I don’t even think it’s possible to do this. Someone else can elaborate.

 

So I'm finally apart of the 5.29 army. Truck is night and day different and I love it. It is so nice having available power without the gear dance. So far the only complaint that I have is that I think my truck is up shifting a little too much. Crazy thing about it though is it would just lug 5th or 6th around 45-50 mph anyway and I wouldn't really loose any speed with small hills. I'm pretty sure this is because I'm on OVtune 1.04 and not 1.04r or 1.05. I heard that the gear shifts are spaced out some more. This will be perfect once OVtune finally drops 1.05 for us auto guys. I didn't take many data points but so far what my numbers look like are:

6th @ 75mph - 2500 rpm
6th @ 70mph - 2200 rpm
6th @ 55mph - 1900 rpm
5th @ 45mph - 1800 rpm

I didn't pay much attention initially for anything 1-4 since I wasn't driving around in S mode today and the truck goes into 5th around 40mph but I'll see what I get for a comparison later on. Also my tires are 34/10.5/17 BFG Ko2's so the actual diameter is something like 33.5".

 

Right, I get this. I come from the straight axle world and you could swap a normal cut ring and pinion for a third member which is low pinion and swap in a high pinion third member and use reverse cut gears to make it spin the right way. I get the physics of the operation. That is why I was confused when I saw "reverse cut". I was wondering if there was an option that I didnt know about.

 

All clams are hi-pinion....so that means all are reverse cut. The ring gear teeth swirl to the left instead of the right. As long as you ordered gears for the front clam then you are good to go.
Ken

 

How’s the mileage now that you’ve had a little more time with it?

 

Well Vitalzone.....
Just dropped off both 529 ring/pinions for a professional cryo. I think I'll do a write-up on yours.

 

Thank you for taking care of the cryo Zuk. I ordered fresh output seals for the clam just because, and a rear diff gasket in preparation for install. Now I just need to order some Amsoil gear oil. Can’t wait to get this done. Looking forward to your write up as well. I’ve read through many you have up on your site now.

 

fyi - cryo voids nitro warranty.

 

I didn’t think to ask about that. I’m not seeing anything on Nitros site about cryogenics voiding the warranty. What about rem polishing? Wouldn’t be the first time I have voided a warranty, or portions of it anyway. @ZUK is this true?

 

Do you mind if I ask where you got the gears put in. I’ve been thinking about getting some and looking for a good shop in SoCal or Nevada.
Thanks.

 

Where does it say that?

Not to mention that cryo completes the heat cycle from the forging process, there is no way to tell if metal has been cryod except at the microscopic level. It changes the metal crystal structure. I doubt Nitro would bother with the effort even if it did.

Edit: Nitro warranty states “Abuse, overloading, improper lubrication, misuse, commercial or competition use voids warranty. Normal characteristics are not warrantable, such as Gear whine.

“In addition to the above conditions, see special notes for these products:
*Ring & Pinion – Warrantied against manufacturing defects. 2 years from date of purchase. Must provide set-up specs.”

 

Got some more numbers in for my set up.

1st @ 15mph - 3000 rpm
2nd @ 25mph - 3000 rpm
3rd @ 35mph - 3000 rpm
4th @ 40mph - 2000 rpm
4th @ 45mph - 2500 rpm

The gap on 4th to 5th is pretty big and I found that driving around town where speeds are usually less than 45 mph it was better to just put the truck in S mode 4th gear. Putting around town with the truck going into 5th starts to get me the trans dance and if it didn't shift I would be hopelessly out of the power range. I'm also getting delayed lurch kind of shifting right now in normal drive mode when giving the truck some gas, but I think that is from the tune I'm on. Still waiting patiently for 1.05 to drop.

 

I talked to Al from Nitro this week, He said Cryo voids their warranty, REM does not.

 

Well, nitro didn't even know what cryo was when I talked to them so I wouldn't take Al's word for it. They also tried telling me their oil is better than everyone elses oil. At the end of the day, paper beats words.

I would love to see Nitro pay for the laboratory tests to determine if it was cryo treated. If you notice the warranty only covers manufacturer defects so it's not like their warranty really covers anything anyway.

Nitro makes good gears, they should stick to what they know.