Experience with NVA Axles?
 

Anyone here have any experience with using the Nissan Value Advantage Axles? The boots on my OEM RR axle were torn recently and my local shop had an NVA axle which turned out to be cheaper than replacing the boots so we threw it in there. They had only ever had to replace a few of them and these NVA axles had never been a problem before so I tried...

I drove it home about 15 miles and then over to the Houston Raceway Park for Import Face-off the next weekend. On the second pass, the inner CV joint snapped. Mind you this is a stock block with just intakes, and full exhaust, and a OSG 1.5 Diff...pushing about 300-310 hp at the wheels when dynoed. I had made at least a few dozen passes on the original axles without ever having issues.

So did I just get a defect or are these things particularly weak? I don't have much experience with the NVA line of "OEM Equivalent" products and neither do most of the people I have talked to. Anyone here?

All beats are off at the drag strip. With a really good prepped track, chit breaks.

Well, you found your weak link in the drivetrain. Now you have to up grade. Welcome to racing. :driving:

The entire axle is cheaper than an OEM boot? The boot is only like $45 right?

That should have been your first red flag :eekdance:

I only have experience with NVA wheel hubs which have held up well.

150 bucks vs 600 bucks is certainly worth trying once (though I see the boot is just 45 bucks...), but I'd probably stick to OEM for the axle after such a quick failure.

Rephrase. Both boots and labor to rebuild was slightly higher than the $150ish price tag on the NVA axle. It was a bit of a red flag, but I was assured that they were good, they have installed them many times and never had one come back. This is a performance shop so I would think they have a pretty good idea but then they also said that they were not sure if those people were just sport daily drivers or more abusive like me. So thats why I was reaching out for anyone else that may have had experience with this specific axle.

Update: Just went outside and had a chance to open the NVA axle boot. It didn't actually break but instead the inner yoke rides inside the outer housing cup and attaches to the axle shaft via splines on that shaft. The whole race backed out of the cup and off the splines so the outer cup that attaches to the stub shaft could just spin freely. I was able to push it all back together and it is solid.

It just seems like a bad design. Nothing is there, like a retaining clip, to keep from backing out and the cup doesn't seem to have any angle to slots the yoke bearings slide into to help it keep the yoke seated as deep as possible. Definitely not how I would have designed the axle.