They haven't been on since early June... I was thinking of getting their 3.5" d/s but now I don't see any new info and their sticky is gone. Did I miss something?

 

Probably were asked to leave for trashing everyone else's driveshaft but their's.

 

They don't list a 3.5" Mustang D/S on their site anymore.

 

David and I recently made the decision to discontinue our advertising on this forum and the sales of our '05 and up Mustang driveshafts. We have had a fair amount of sales but we feel that our time would be better spent on other product lines. We have tried from day one to offer the Mustang owner a worry free dependable driveshaft that was unique from the crowd. In our time on these Mustangs forums we have for the most part dealt with a great group of people and we wish them all well.
Robert

 

At the risk of the usual violent reaction from those who are true believers in one-piece driveshafts, it is obvious that Ford had a reason for engineering and installing those complex 2-piece driveshafts in the S197s. Clearly, it would have been cheaper for Ford to go with a one-piece shaft. Cavaet emptor.

 

???????

 

Engineers have many reason for doing what they do but that doesn't mean it is necessarily better or the only way. The Lincoln Mark VII used a double U-joint in their driveshafts and many of us who have hot rodded those cars changed to a driveshaft using a standard U-joint with ZERO problems. The reason for that joint had to do with NVH and the fact it was a Lincoln although there were no changes I or anyone else could see in the NVH levels....I personally converted MANY cars from that system.

However, keep in mind what you are implying.....I'd have to say that when a company stands behind their product with a guarantee and many obviously happy buyers then it is not fair to tell people to beware (which is spelled Caveat btw).

If you have personal experience and want to share based on FIRST HAND experience then by all means do so but don't spread half truth assumptions based on something you MIGHT have heard from Rhonda's sisters cousin or what you might "think" is correct without having that opinion based on fact. You wouldn't appreciate it if you were on the other end so try to refrain from such assumptions and implications.

Shaftmasters discontinued advertising and that was it......sometimes that has a negative effect for a mfg because people are used to seeing their ads so they always assume the worst....but in reality sometimes people stop advertising because the sales aren't there or they find it's not in their best interest from a business perspective or they just plain shift their marketing guidelines....but that doesn't mean they have a bad or faulty product.

 

Well said Paul.

There are many reasons why a business does what it does and to assume that someone does A because of B is a fallacy of logic. It is inferrence or specualtion. It is post hoc ergo proctor hoc reasoning.

 

In order to stop any speculation as to why we chose to discontinue our sales of these driveshafts I'll list them:
1. Low profit margin for the work involved per unit
2. NVH attributed to but not usually caused by aluminum driveshaft when used with various rear suspension upgrades and to a limited degree pinion angle being improperly adjusted.
3. The amount of flake that we have received from a select few individuals who have taken pleasure in bad-mouthing and falsely accusing us of being everything short of the Atlanta olympic bomber, who by the way was also falsely accused.(Richard Jewell). These are people who have never bought or used any of our products.

 

Ya lost me on the last sentence....

 

It's just something my sophmore economics professor taught us. 'Post hoc ergo proctor hoc' line of reasoning says that "after this, therefore because of this". So when sombody says that shaftmasters quit selling Mustang shafts because they couldn't make them right, they are saying that because they stopped making them well it must be because they can't make them right. Which is obviously wrong. Thats like saying a pit bull killed a baby, therefore all dogs are killers. Or my cousin is lazy, therefore all teenagers are lazy. Thats all. I guess it the same as don't assume because you know what assume does, it makes an a$$ out of u and me. The other thing he taught me was oppurtunity cost which is a great principle, but unfortunately in this case it seems that the potential for profit on the 1 piece aluminum driveshaft was not high enough when compared to the cost of doing business and the negative comments of forum posters, dissatisfied customers without proper expectation of the product and overall negative public opinion whether justified or not.

 

Well said. All together between V-6 and GT driveshafts, both 3.5 and 4.0 inch diameter aluminum driveshafts we sold approximately 175 units. We offered an 10 day unconditional money back guarantee on these shafts after which time our normal guarantee kicks in. We ended up having five requests on our money back guarantee which we honored with no problem. All five of these customers had done significant rear suspension mods. Whether they were done correctly or adjusted pinion angle properly who knows? these are factors out of our control and with the amount these mods increasing we decided it wasn't worth it to us any longer.

 

Crap! Wish I'd bought my Shaftmaster when I had the chance. I heard some great things about the product and the company.

 

I wasn't implying any dishonesty or anything like that with respect to Shaftmasters. In fact, I was thinking of a prior thread where Shaftmasters forthrightly admitted that the driveshafts were not compatible with certain suspension setups. Shaftmasters admitted that was the case. I have not seen any other driveshaft maker marketing one-piece shafts to S197 owners give a warning along those lines. That is what I was referring to by including the caveat emptor comment.

I repeat -- Ford could have very cheaply equipped these cars with a one-piece shaft but chose to design a complex two-piece. Combine that fact with Shaftmasters forthright admission of potential issues and I think anyone buying one of these driveshafts for $500 to $1000 has to appreciate that there might be problems.

And any such problems may not be a big deal -- hopefully you could just swap back in the original driveshaft with no ill effects. However, there has been a kind of mania on these forums about one-piece driveshafts being a must-do modification, and it seems there are all kinds of folks buying these things without appreciating the potential issues.

Shaftmasters stepped up and in effect admitted that this mod is not for everyone. I haven't seen anyone else do that.

 

I can completely understand why Shaftmasters decided to leave this market. These cars are prone to vibration issues which the stock 2 piece shaft does a good job of covering up. The 1 piece shafts are not the problem they just dont hide the problem. In my case my vibration was 95% fixed by replacing the pinion flange my car came with with another stock factory flange ( I am using a coast shaft). It appears that the factory rear end parts tolerances are rather loose and this contributes to the wide amount of problems people are having with 1 piece shafts.

 

I have spoken with Coast and Dynotech and they both said that it is all in the setup. You will need a udjustable UCA expecially if your car is lowered. I know some guys have gotten lucky and the pinion angle just happened to be right when they put the one piece shaft on. Another potential problem is if you had your gears swapped and they did a lousy job. The two piece will cover it up somewhat.
I think I'm going to go with the Coast one soon. I've been told by a few teams in the mustang challenge that they are probably going to use the Coast shaft in all their cars next year. I'm also going to get an adj. UCA right off the bat and have my installer who I trust get my pinion angle right.
The bottom line is if you go with a good driveshaft company it's probably not the shaft that's the problem, it's the install.

 

sad to see shaftmasters leave... That was going to be my next mod. Can anyone recomend a simular solution? 3.5 shaft with adapter? I am all into that Pinion adjustment! Will be corrected with shaft install....

 

Dynotech has a nice 3.5 with adapter. Brenspeed sells them. They must be really proud of those things because they are about $730.

 

yes ryan I have seen that one... I hope the price drops soon....

 

I've been told not to get my hopes up on a price drop. Dynotech makes driveshafts for nhra and nascar so all their shafts are overpriced. They are also rated at 900 hp. They really are nice though, maybe they're worth the extra cash.