Carrier bearing question.

I just felt like when I pushed the gas it didn’t put the power straight to my rear wheels with the 2 piece drive shaft. And sometimes when I really needed to accelerate it felt like I could snap the driveshaft. With the Tom woods it seems like the power is transferred much quicker. Imo

 

When you go to replace it, put some washers on the bolts between the carrier and mount. This will lower it and take some of the angle off of the rear u-joint.

 

My truck runs butter smooth with the stock driveshaft and 35s.

I would assume the CB actually protects the shaft from rock impacts offtoad too. I've witnessed shafts get destroyed from rock ledges.

 

The two piece driveshaft increases breakover angles slightly by keeping the driveshaft higher under the center of the truck for a longer distance before it angles down to the rear diff.

Very strictly speaking, a one piece driveshaft will be more efficient because technically the CB and the intermediate U-joints on the two piece have some amount of flex/play/slop/friction, but I would be shocked if it was anything that could be detected even by a really good modern dyno.

Some people report positive seat-of-the-pants results from a one piece shaft just as they do with various other modifications, and I'm happy to let people be happy with the way their truck feels to them without belaboring the point above.

If you don't offroad, a one piece will, as mentioned in this thread, remove some points of mechanical failure aka future maintenance (carrier bearing, intermediate U-joint), and you could probably sell your stock DS to offset some fraction of the cost.

 

This is exactly my take on reports on it feeling "more responsive" or "more powerful". It's purely a "butt-dyno" feeling, not a real improvement in performance.

If it gets rid of vibe, that's a plus for sure, but I doubt there is any real change in performance. I assume that a single piece driveshaft has a slightly lower moment of intertia compared to the stock driveshaft but that it has a negligible effect on performance, especially considering the amount of rotational mass in the rest of the drivetrain as a whole.

That being said, of the people I know personally that have swapped over to single piece driveshafts (including myself, on a different vehicle), none of them have regretted the purchase. At the end of the day, it's your truck, do what you want, just don't expect any tangible change in performance.

 

Well... I already bought the Spicer. I'm not to worried about trying to gain performance on this pickup. If I truly want to do that I'll get a supercharger kit and exhaust.