manual trans girdle

[wrench459]

With my new engine I should be getting close to splitting the trans case.
And I'm not very easy on transmissions in the first place.
After doing a search and coming up empty.
Has anyone tried a girdle for the case?
Or maybe a better idea to make the pan a structural part of the case.
Yes this is till I get a 5 speed.

[RallyBob]

Originally Posted by wrench459 With my new engine I should be getting close to splitting the trans case. And I'm not very easy on transmissions in the first place. After doing a search and coming up empty. Has anyone tried a girdle for the case? Or maybe a better idea to make the pan a structural part of the case. Yes this is till I get a 5 speed.

My rallycar uses a 4-speed case with Quaife guts. I built a higher capacity oil pan for it for two reasons.

One, more fluid takes longer to heat up, and Opel trannys get REAL hot under hard use. I know in road racing the biggest cause of Opel 4-speed failure is heat, not breakage from shock-loads.

And two, I also made the pan from some pretty heavy material...the flange is 3/16" thick and I believe the rest of the pan is 16 gauge steel. So it's way stiffer than the stock sheetmetal pan, and should let the case flex less than stock. I figured it couldn't hurt.

I thought about a wrap-around weld-on reinforcement, but the time spent would probably be ridiculous, and the case would probably warp anyway.

Bob

[wrench459]

Thanks Bob
That TURD thread needs to have a sticky on it "must read"
Lots of cool info in there.
Back to the pan cooling fins or some extra plumbing to an external cooler?
Most people complain about the noise from the stock trans..straight cut gears I'm game. How much and what kind of power will it take?
Never mind the dollar is not that strong..but the Quaife parts looks good

[RallyBob]

Originally Posted by wrench459 Back to the pan cooling fins or some extra plumbing to an external cooler?

I thought about adding a cooler too. For now I just added a fitting for a temp guage. If it runs really hot, I'll add a cooler later on. The word is, you can use a Facet 'pulse' type electric fuel pump as a gear oil pump. It'll pump hot (thin) gear oil apparently quite well. A friend of mine uses one of them on his Subaru for the rear axle (teeny 160 mm/6.3" ring gear).

Most people complain about the noise from the stock trans..straight cut gears I'm game. How much and what kind of power will it take?

Yea, the Quaife is not really a 'street' tranny. Very noisy. But I love it. Not sure on the ultimate power capabilities. The straight-cut gears are stronger, and the material is arguably better. But the physical dimensions are the same, and the case will ultimately fail causing the gears to fail. Probably 175-180 hp for road racing.

Never mind the dollar is not that strong..but the Quaife parts looks good

The exchange rate truly sucks for us right now. Doesn't help that right after Rod Quaife died, his siblings raised the prices across the board. Their stuff used to be a bargain, now it's priced in line with the rest of the world.

Bob