DANA 609

Hello everyone, Happy New Year! Got to ask, Is anyone familiar with the Dana 60/9-inch hybrid? Currently have a 60, but I miss my old 9-inch i had in my F-100. Easy gear changes and such. Have heard that the "609" is a good rearend for drag racing as it has the third member strength of a 9-inch and the full-floating axles of the Dana 60. Anyone have pro's + con's? thanks for any input.

That's Cool as Shit. Must Have Been Doing Micro Dot's For That One.

https://nas-row.com/index.php?threads/rear-609-axle-on-the-cheap.3556/

Looks Good to Me!

The other nice thing about the hybrid is that you can change your gears without ever jacking the vehicle. The axles come out without taking the tires off. This accomplishes another good thing as the Dana 60 full-floating rearend supports the weight of the vehicle through the axle housing, whereas the 9" carries the weigth at the axle hub bearings. This gives the axles a bending force between the 3rd member and the hub bearings, not good for drag racing. The 609 can be clutch-dumped, with the accompanying rear weight shift without putting a bending force on axles that are already trying to twist under launch. The other nice thing is that you can get 40-spline axles for a Dana 60 for pretty cheapp still.

^ That, and Most Dana 60's come stock with 35 Spline Axles, Where As Most 9"'s are 28 and 31 Spline the First Upgrade with Stock Axles.

I Could be Wrong but, I Believe the 40 Spine Dana 60 Detroit Lockers are a Fairly New Thing, I Just Started seeing them Lately. At Least the D60 Guys Have The Option Now, If I am Correct About That.

9" Chunks are So Much Nicer to Set up with the Backlash/Bearing Preload Carrier Spanners, Not to Mention the Pinion Depth and Preload Shims, And On The Bench To Boot.

I Think Some of The Truck Guys May Go For The 609 To.





^ Ford 9" 3.00/1 Ring Gear On Top of a Dana 60 4.10/1 Ring Gear.

Yeah, On top of setting them up on the bench, The "pumpkins" have the rear pinion bearing so there is no pinion gear "walk" up the ring gear under hard launch conditions. Do you know if the 8.8 has the same set-up? I've heard good things about them but don't know, really, anything about them.

No the 8.8's do not have the end pilot bearing like the 9" has.

The only other common differential with a 3rd pinon bearing, that I know of is the Big 10.5" or so GM 14 Bolt

8.8" Can be made very stout for Drag Racing, but, no 3rd pinon bearing.

I'm not positive but, I believe you can get larger 9" gears from the aftermarket. Maybe 9.25" or larger?

The 9 3/8" Lincoln's had them with a different carrier, and the regular 9" housing could be notched to fit the bigger gears and pumpkin.

supervel45 wrote: 
I'm not positive but, I believe you can get larger 9" gears from the aftermarket. Maybe 9.25" or larger?

 

Yes there are a few sources for bigger than 9" gears that would use regular 9" components.

Would need a aftermarket housing for the real big ones, a stock housing isn't deep enough and the ring gear would hit

Yes, you can. Aftermarket gears can go up to 10" from Strange and Moser, although those are mainly for Drag only cars i think. The old Lincoln rearends had 9.25" gears in them. My brothers highway gears were from a Lincoln, and the third member bolts right up to a 9" as well. Which kinda makes sense.

The end result sounds a lot like the old Eaton HO52/HO72 full floating axle housing with a drop out 3rd member, the third member kind of looks like an overgrown Pont/Olds 9.3 with the addition of a ring gear anti deflection preload bolt on the HO72 versions.