Are half shaft spacers worth a try on 120K stock (never lowered) AP2 for vibration on acceleration?

How is the fitment, spacer quality, hardware quality for TruHeart vs. Megan Racing for half shaft spacers?

 

If you are having the 40 - 70mph vibration when accelerating, it may be the axle cups. You can use spacers or you can remove the axles and swap the cups side to side. On the spacers, main thing is to get the ones that are 2 pc as they are easier to install.

You can do spacers now. Then later if they pit and start vibrating again you can swap cups and remove spacers. If they do it again, you can put the spacers back in So you have 3 times you can do it.

I prefer swapping cups because then I can clean out all the grease and re-grease them with redline CV2.

It really has nothing to do with being lowered or not. If you have a high mileage car that is then lowered it can cause some vibration if there is enough wear pattern at the original height. But most times on Hondas with this style CV, they pit internally which causes it. Just kind of a weak point in the design. If the car has had a lot of very hard launches it can accelerate the issue some.

 

Thanks!

 

For some odd reason I remember you mentioning that you were having issues with pitting even with CV2. How long does CV2 last typically until you see pitting on your tracked car?

 

FWIW I have a used passenger axle cup on my driver side I packed it with CV2 grease and after 6 years and ~60k miles it's still vibration free.

 

Way back when I first pitted an axle, I swapped the cups and used CV2 grease. I was doing a lot more autocross and at some locations (like Lincoln) was launching the car pretty hard on 255s, so basically 5000 - 6000 rpm hard launches. I pitted one again during that time. At the time those were still I think 130,000 mile or so axles. I left it for a bit because I had solo nats coming up and the vibration was not very bad. At that event I snapped a CV joint (broke the tripod) so I ended up just replacing that axle with another higher mileage used one I had. When I did it, I just took both out, cleaned and repacked them both with fresh CV2. I have not had one pit or vibrate since then (That was in about 2017). Since that time I have not autocrossed the S2k much since I have been more focused on track events. And the autox I have done has been at lower grip sites and really no events where I was launching the car hard since most courses at those sites have typically not rewarded a crazy hard launch. The only axle issue I have had since then was a torn boot after I crashed on track, broke the rear suspension and over extended the boot. I fixed that and put fresh CV2 in it and still no issues.

I know some on here disagree but I still contend that hard launches like that is one of the big culprits. It is not the only way they fail since these and other Honda CV joints have been known to pit and vibrate with just street use. But I think my 2nd one was mostly due to beating the crap out of them

I have probably put about 35 - 40 track days on mine with CV2 grease in them without any pitting issues. Maybe 30,000 street miles. And a handful of autocrosses.

 

Man, I need to get axle spacers. I keep putting it off out of laziness. My obsession is waning at the moment lmao

 

One of the few things that are still cheap easy and effective on this car.

 

I always tell my guys to add an axle spacer to the left (drivers) side first, just to gain numbers and perspective.

I have done a lot of bucket swaps (left to right)

The drivers side has always been pitted, the passenger side was fine. 100% of the time.

 

I saw the same. Both times I have dealt with it was on the drivers side. Same for another owner I know. I suppose the different shaft lengths may play into that some