Reply to "Pantera Width!"

Stock halfshafts are more than strong enough for almost any modified Pantera engine, but stock outer stub-axles DO break under race conditions. Gumball tires will sometimes do it in a 3-hr enduro event while at least a few have broken with hard driving on big sticky street tires. Short-duration autocrosses will not. OEM '71-'76 OEM stub axles were made of a rather soft mild steel, and many were undersized from the factory so the ball bearing races fit loosely. Resizing the axles by various methods fixes the bearing-fit problem but not the weak metallurgy. New stub axles of EN-300 steel from Wilkinson or billet 4130-axles from Hall (and others) fixes both problems, at a slight cost in heavier unsprung weight (these stub-axles are no longer hollow). FWIW, stub axle breakage always occurs at the large chamfer between the horizontal axle shaft and the vertical wheel flange. I've seen OEM stub axles worn so badly under the outer ball bearing that there was a 1/2" wide x 0.180" deep 'wagon track' under the bearing race, and the axle had not (yet) broken.

Std disclaimer: I personally run welded and resized OEM stub axles and lighter weight Spicer aftermarket halfshafts. One stub-axle mounts std. ball bearings while the other runs my own tapered roller conversion for a long-term comparison. Since July of '98 (a 14-yr period and counting), there has been no detectable performance difference from either bearing type under any driving conditions. Theoretically, the roller bearing will run a bit hotter and soak up a little more power but in a street car, no one can tell them apart.
I've never tried CV joint halfshafts in a Pantera, but it seems there's always a weak spot in any design and with these, it's the rubber boots that MUST be intact to hold vital grease inside the joint. Indexing the axles and even denting the pipes to increase boot clearance near the hot exhaust pipes seems crucial.