Boomer: as i suspected, the previous owner of my fttc3 dint shim the gear cases properly. he dint have the shim on the long end of the front & rear diffs plus he had one too many in the front input shaft. i looked up josh cyrul's advise in tech talk on shimming the gear cases and i think i did a pretty good job. the gears feel really free now and spin very smoothly. hopefully this solves the noisy drivetrian issue. will find out this weekend when i put the car on the track again. thanks!
RandyB: the MF option rear hubs for the xxxs come only in 0 deg. the xxxs comes with bulit in toe-in in the rear of 2 deg and trinity probably dint feel the need to make optional rear hubs (only God knows why....). ive got a xxxs myself and when i wanna play about with the rear toe, i have to use the composite/graphite hubs since they come in varying degrees.