Ford Performance 3.50-Inch Aluminum One-Piece Driveshaft (05-10 Mustang GT)Find parts that fit my vehicle

So I have done a lot of work to my S197, essentially from bumper to bumper, but I'm here to tell you today that if you're on the fence about swapping out your '05 to '09 GT's factory two-piece driveshaft, please do it. The Ford Performance One-Piece Aluminum Shaft is a huge upgrade in a few ways. First things first, it'll reduce all that driveline vibration, which the S197 is known for. It'll dramatically reduce the rotational weight of the factory shaft, which kills power to the wheels. And it'll take out all that slop and clunk in your drivetrain, especially if you drive a manual like me. Now, install is a bit of a squeeze and we wanna make sure this is done right because it is a main driveline component. So I'm gonna go ahead and give this a strong two out of three wrenches on my patented difficulty meter. And if you take your time, it should take you about three hours.Now, first things first, the Ford Performance shaft will definitely make a big difference in acceleration and pedal feel as some customers have stated and as I just mentioned, and that's because this driveshaft actually weighs about half as much as the factory one. With the carrier bearing, the bolts, the flange, the spacers, you're looking at anchor weight of about 46 pounds. Now, if you install the Ford shaft and you will find that that knocks it down to 23 pounds. Keep in mind that rotation amplifies weight, so you're actually reducing even more weight while you're rolling around. Now you're also removing that center joint, which is another torque damper. So you are getting more power transferred to your wheels.Now, the second thing I like about the Ford shaft is how tight and composed it is. Ford says that they use this two-piece setup with that carrier bearing and all sorts of vibration-reducing components. But once these things wear in, they tend to get loose. And with looseness comes that easy pinion angle change, and a changing pinion angle causes all sorts of vibrations when you're coasting and accelerating. Now, if you feel vibration and humming at highway speeds, it is most likely your factory shaft. Again, as customer reviews have said, this driveshaft really does help to fix all of that slop and vibration.Now, the last two reasons that I really like the Ford shaft are because of who it comes from and the price. Ford Racing is pretty much the gold standard. If you want something that works well and is guaranteed to work with the rest of your car's components, and honestly, a little over $600 is pretty tough to beat. At this price, the Ford shaft is actually one of the most affordable options available, and you are still getting a custom balanced shaft as you can see from the weights here. And you're also getting some very nice and much more capable Dana Spicer joints on either end.All right. Now that I've talked your ear off, let's get into the install. Like I said, my car's driveshaft joints are pretty much bust. I'm actually getting a lot of nasty sounds every time I change gears and put any torque through my driveline. So I'm gonna toss out that crappy two-piece and replace it with this nice Ford shaft. Again, this is a two outta three wrenches, but you can definitely tackle this at home because in the end, it is just a couple of bolts and nuts. So let's go ahead, get into the garage, and get started.To install your Ford Performance driveshaft, you will need the following tools: a torque wrench, a 3/8 drive ratchet, a 13-millimeter wrench, a 10-millimeter socket, a 12-millimeter 12-point socket, a 12-millimeter 12-point deep socket, a 13-millimeter socket, an extended Allen head socket, a long extension, a short extension, a swivel, locking compound, and optional but certainly helpful, some lubricating oil or penetrating oil, and an airgun. So we've got my car in the garage. We're gonna go ahead and throw it up on the lift. Before you get started, make sure your vehicle is in neutral and your parking brake is off. That way, you can rotate your factory driveshaft and get to all the bolts that you need to get to with your tools.All right. We're gonna start up here at the transmission flange. These are 12-point 12-millimeter bolts, so you're gonna wanna use the 12-point socket. All right. So we've pulled our transmission flange bolts out. You're gonna reuse those. So make sure you soak them in some PB B'laster or a little bit of lubricant, take any grime off of them. Now we're gonna tackle our pinion flange on the differential, and these are 10-millimeter head bolts. All right. The pinion flange on our differential is also unbolted now. The last step is unbolting the carrier bearing up here. That's gonna be two 13-millimeter head bolts.All right. We're gonna pull the last bolt holding the carrier bearing and thus the driveshaft to the vehicle. Take your time pulling this out. It's the last piece of hardware that's actually holding the driveshaft to the vehicle. Once you pull it out, let the driveshaft rest on your exhaust. All right. So with your driveshaft free, you can go ahead and maneuver out from underneath the vehicle. All right. Before we install our new driveshaft, we're gonna clean up the pinion flange and we're gonna clean up our transmission flange with a little bit of PB B'laster. Make sure we have a nice clean surface to mate our new driveshaft to.While you have the driveshaft out of the vehicle, this is also a good opportunity to check inside of the pinion flange, make sure you don't have any leaking gear oil. And you can also check your backlash, make sure you don't have any excessive play. All right. Now that both of our flanges are cleaned up, we're gonna go ahead and install our new driveshaft. You're gonna put the new one in the same way the old one came out. You're just gonna kind of put it up through the exhaust pipes, let it rest there while you bolt up the pinion flange first.All right. So with the driveshaft seated, you're gonna grab the two larger bolts provided in the kit, and you're gonna put them inside of the pinion flange end of the driveshaft before you seat it into the differential itself. Once you have everything lined up, you're gonna go ahead and hand-tighten these two bolts. Now that our new driveshaft is hand-tightened to the pinion flange in the rear, we're gonna go ahead and secure it to the transmission flange upfront. For this, you're gonna reuse those 12-point bolts you pulled out earlier. Before you reinstall those, make sure you apply some thread locker to the threads.Now that your transmission flange is hand-tightened and flush, we're gonna tighten these down, ensuring that the pinion side of our driveshaft is flush with the differential. For that, you're gonna need a 13-millimeter wrench. Now, once you have these tight enough, the whole driveshaft should turn. That lets you know you're in a good place, then we can go ahead and install the other four bolts in the kit. All right. With our driveshaft flush against our pinion flange, we're gonna go ahead and hand-tighten the other four Allen head bolts provided in the kit.All right. Once those are hand-tightened, we're gonna grab our Allen key and we're gonna go ahead and drive them home before we use our torque wrench. All right. With our driveshaft seated clearly in the pinion flange in the rear and everything hand-tightened, we're gonna go ahead and torque everything down to spec. Upfront on the transmission flange, you're gonna wanna tighten these four bolts down with 76 foot-pounds in a star pattern. And to make this easier on ourselves, we're gonna go ahead and use a small extension. That way, we can ensure we're clearing everything in here and we get a nice seat with our socket. To make this even easier on yourself, you wanna put your car in gear that way the transmission locks up the drivetrain. So your driveshaft isn't turning on you while you're trying to tighten all this stuff down.All right. Since our car is in gear, we weren't able to reach all of the bolts up front on the transmission flange. So what we're gonna do, we're gonna tackle the ones in the rear that we can reach. And those are gonna be tightened down to 41 pound-feet. Once we have those tackled, we're gonna put our car in neutral, rotate the driveshaft so we can finish up the front and the rear. All right. We're gonna go ahead and mark the ones that we've already tightened down with the marker. That way, once we rotate our driveshaft, we'll know which ones are left over. All right. So we unlocked our drivetrain, we rotated our driveshaft, and we're gonna go ahead and torque down this last unmarked bolt in the rear. Same deal with the front.All right. So with the last of those bolts tightened up on your pinion flange and your transmission flange, that should actually wrap up the install. That also wraps up my review of Ford's One-Piece Aluminum Driveshaft, fitting your '05 to '09 GT. I'm Travis, thanks for watching. And for all things Mustang, keep it right here at americanmuscle.com.