Camburg's new 9-inch race...
Camburg's new 9-inch race style rearend housing.
Not too long ago, fancy race-style axle housings were only used by, well, race teams. Sure, a few deep-pocketed enthusiasts ponied up cash to have a custom rearend fabricated (or tackled the job themselves), but the vast majority of us built traditional axles, doing our best to prepare for the rigors of the particular type of 'wheeling that our vehicles would encounter. No longer, however, do we have to work within the constrains of an OEM-style housing. Thanks to companies like Camburg Engineering, we have options.
These days, a dizzying array of housing and internal options allow guys like us to choose components specifically designed for the driving environments that the vehicle will experience, and the wider production of such parts has helped to bring costs down below the lofty "custom" realm. Camburg Engineering has been building performance-based and long-travel suspensions - as well as full-scale race trucks - for more than a dozen years, and after using a number of the offerings available on the market today, they decided a better housing could be built, and set out to create it.
A number of housings available...
A number of housings available from other manufacturers utilize square tubing for truss construction, which can be more easily damaged by impact and pressure. Camburg integrated rounded one-piece truss sections into the housings to significantly improve their strength and durability.
The result was a production housing that is identical to the ones used in the desert race vehicles they build at their headquarters in Huntington Beach, California. However, as production ramps up for these housings and the components used within, manufacturing costs have been kept down. As such, the final pricing on these housings isn't much more than some of the "budget" race-style housings we've seen. By the time you read this, you should be able to purchase a base-model housing from Camburg for less than $1000, and you can add options as needed. This is a far cry from the outrageous prices we would have seen just a few years ago for a custom-fabricated housing with similar features.
 The axle tubes and center-section...  The axle tubes and center-section construction are equally impressive. 3 1/2-inch, 0.250 wall 4130 chromoly tubing surround the axleshaft cavities, and the center section is built from 3/16-inch plating and protected by a 3/8-inch face plate. These guys aren't messing around - they've seen giant rocks hit axle housings at race speeds, and they know what must be done to prevent damage. |  Camburg has offered hub kits...  Camburg has offered hub kits for a while now, and you can bet you'll be seeing these at the ends of the new housings. Made from billet aluminum and hard anodized in a matte black finish before being machined, no raw aluminum spots (that can corrode) remain. |  A view with hubs and rotors...  A view with hubs and rotors installed on the housing. Inside the housing, a conventional (and strong) 9-inch assembly can be used - nothing tricky here. Camburg tells us they can produce the housing to match pretty much any axle width. |
 The Camburg team is an experienced...  The Camburg team is an experienced group of racers and builders who have worked on everything from trophy trucks to customers' personal projects. Here, you can see their newly-installed hubs and suspension work on the Class 6 truck that would go on to carry Heidi Steele to the top of the SCORE points rankings. |  Some of the most interesting...  Some of the most interesting components of the hub kits are the bearings that Camburg utilizes. On the bottom are the 2.5-inch bearings that you'll often see other manufacturers use. Camburg uses the 2.25 bearing in the middle. You can see how much larger the rollers and rings are; as a result, this middle hub bearing has a load capacity that is 5,000 pounds greater than the common 2.5-incher on the bottom. Camburg tells us this leads to less bearing wear. The 2-inch bearing on the bottom is also available from Camburg for smaller applications. |  All the goodies shown here...  All the goodies shown here are available - including brakes, which can normally be difficult to find for quasi-custom applications such as this. We like the hub-centric caps also. |