So, everybody knows real race cars have sequential transmissions. And I'm talking car sized, not "stick a bike engine in it and pray that the tiny little gearbox lives" solutions. None of that robotic, dual clutch, SMG blah blah either.
How would you do it? A proper sequential is like $10-20k new, but if I shop across the pond I can dig up the occasional deal like this used Drenth box for considerably less. So far that's the best I can come up with.
In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :
Buy a Seinz it has the dog ring gears needed and comes with sequential. Plus the gears slide in and out of the back of the case like a quick change rear end. So if you find yourself geared wrong for a particular corner it's a quick job to install a different set of ratios for whatever gear/gears you need to change.
I believe some one built a shifter to work with vintage beetle trans to convert to sequential with no trans modes. It was all taken care of in the shifter. I had seen it on a BookFace group for kit cars. Fibercassics,. kit car buy swap, or one of the specific ones for Kelmarks or Mantas. It was a year or two ago.
lrrs said:I believe some one built a shifter to work with vintage beetle trans to convert to sequential with no trans modes. It was all taken care of in the shifter. I had seen it on a BookFace group for kit cars. Fibercassics,. kit car buy swap, or one of the specific ones for Kelmarks or Mantas. It was a year or two ago.
please post if you find a link for the VW gearbox.....THANKS
UPDATE: the one I found was almost $1500 OUCH
Whats wrong with the "blah blah" dual clutch option? Is this strictly for the enjoyment of rowing your own gears because sequential gearboxes are not going to be the fastest, cheapest, or most fun solution so seems like paying a lot more for compromises versus sticking with what you have or jumping into a dual clutch box with a DIY mount/harness solution.
I have seen H-pattern to sequential conversions. One of the MINI aftermarket companies sold one for the R53 back in the mid-late '00s. The mechanism was mounted in the rear battery compartment with cables going to the transmission (but the MINI has a cable-shifter anyway). A very quick bit of googling shows some conversion kits, but I haven't seen anything for a transmission like the 86 has.
In reply to Olemiss540 :
Rules say "no electronic gear change" otherwise one of the various dual clutch things might be the answer.
You can get shifters that convert a T56 to sequential - like this.
Get the gears faced and it will basically shift like a proper sequential with just a slight lift of the throttle. A coworker has one in his Miata.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
By the time you get a T56, gearset, and fancy shifter you're at the cost of the used Drenth I linked above so I'm not sure it's worth it unless you need to handle a lot of torque. An interesting option for sure, though.
1. Put a clutch on the input shaft of an auto box.
2. Run external line pressure pump, somehow.
3. Build electronic shifter (but if you can't do that)
4. Make your shifter actuate hydraulic switches.
If I was doing it for the challenge I'd just skip everything except step 3.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:In reply to Keith Tanner :
By the time you get a T56, gearset, and fancy shifter you're at the cost of the used Drenth I linked above so I'm not sure it's worth it unless you need to handle a lot of torque. An interesting option for sure, though.
Hmm... given the popularity of the FRS/BRZ, I wonder if that company has any plans to offer one of these shifters. Could be worth an email.
In your case - because you have the skills and perseverance to actually make it happen, perhaps look for a used example? One you can take apart, reverse-engineer and copy for your car?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:And I'm talking car sized, not "stick a bike engine in it and pray that the tiny little gearbox lives" solutions. None of that robotic, dual clutch, SMG blah blah either.
You didn't actually rule out a proper torque converter automatic build with manual valve body, lockup converter, etc...there are worse ideas. Though this would still be a several $k transmission and probably only 4 gears.
In reply to RedGT :
I did not. Convince me? Most of the options in that world that I know about are only 3 gears.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:In reply to RedGT :
I did not. Convince me? Most of the options in that world that I know about are only 3 gears.
what car and engine? chances are there is a factory engineered auto that is widely available cheap and already bolts up... that's a pretty big plus right there, and if they are semi-recent, they should have 6-10 gears, which is another plus.
Recent ones would be electronic controlled, so the easiest way to get 'manual function' would be something like a megashift controller, but I bet it's possible to build a fully manual valve body if necessary.
In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :
Let's assume you can adapt it to whatever engine and it fits in whatever car. Longitudinal though. I was under the impression all of the newer autos are electronically controlled and therefore against the rules/probably obscenely prohibitively complex and expensive to make "dumb" manual controls for.
a quick search shows that companies can take the valve body for the 48RE (4speed behind dodge truck cummins) which is ECU shifted stock, and turn it into a fully manual valve body.
So, I'd guess that a similar modification is possible for just about any auto? you'd just need to know what the heck you were doing (sounds easy right??)
Do you need more than 4 gears? I bet the 4l80 (th400?) has similar full manual options off the shelf.
In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :
So poking around, a manual converted 4l80e would be about 80lbs heavier and some unknown amount more rotating mass for two less gears and probably $1k cheaper than a used box from overseas. Might make sense if it were going behind an LS though...
A Ford AOD drag trans build, basically, with a lower RPM converter. Instant, manually controlled shifts with a sequential shifter.
I'm not sure I have any more useful information than "look into it", that part of life was like 15 yrs ago now and it's all very fuzzy. Evidently folks are building the 4L60E and 6L80E similarly , which gets you 6 gears, that one didn't even exist yet when I stopped running autos. But that has some electronic controls involved which it sounds like you need to avoid? Reach out to ATIracing.com or TCIauto.com ?
I've discussed this with my machinist fabricator friend on several occasions and we simply determined that fabricating an external shift drum (like in a bike trans) that worked the existing shift mechanism, would be fairly straight forward (I didn't say easy).
Of course this always comes down to what does one hope to accomplish from all this effort?
Technically a Powerglide is a sequential transmission at all times.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:In reply to Keith Tanner :
By the time you get a T56, gearset, and fancy shifter you're at the cost of the used Drenth I linked above so I'm not sure it's worth it unless you need to handle a lot of torque. An interesting option for sure, though.
Well, you'd have a bombproof new transmission instead of the cheapest used race part you could find that would also need intercontinental shipping :) And you could put the fancy shifter on a bone stock T56 to forgo the powershifting capability which gets rid of the cost of rebuilding the trans or having the gears faced.
But really, it's an example of how to turn a normal trans into a sequential. Like Tom1200's idea, it's just a mechanism.
"considerably less" usually means you are using as much engineering time figuring it out as buying it, not counting the parts.
As mentioned to actually have it shift fast enough for the mechanism to work you need faced gears. Chepast option there for most transmissions is Liberty faceplating at ~1500 min per set and they don't last forever and may not even do a one off, as we got quoted 2500 each an a min of two for VW 02A transmissions. That doesn't even address the gear strength which you may or may not need.
On top of that you need to design a pretty slick mechanism and this is transmission dependent and based on how the selector on the trans moves, and how the seq shifter can/can't move in push/pull mode to operate it. Someone smarter with cam design can probably figure this out though
You then still need a straingauge or other ignition cut on the shifter unless you plan to lift throttle and/or clutch it which defeats the purpose of it as well. At least the fast shifting part. You're looking at a few hundred to thousands in electronics depending on what hardware you already have or have to upgrade to.
Dual clutch trans is the easy button.
Paul_VR6 (Forum Supporter) said:
Dual clutch trans is the easy button.
I wouldn't go so far as to say "easy button." You should see everything it took for someone to drop one in their Miata.
It's all relative, but the adapter plate, flywheel, driveshaft seems way easier.
Mine bolted right up but I cheated by using an engine that can.
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