"V8-capable" transaxle sources

[Mandurath]

FFR GTM uses the 1990-98 Porsche G50 or variants (2wd 911) of that trans bolted to a 1997-04 C5 Vette engine. During my daydreaming a while back, these were selling for 2500 and up. Still much cheaper than most listed above. Also listed on the site of things that come with the kit (whether they would sell them separate or not, I dunno).
1990-1998 G50-LS1 Transaxle adapter kit
G50 adapter plate
Pilot bearing and fasteners
G-50 linkage arms and fasteners

But, from the levels some here are willing to take it to, an adapter would be a small step. Especially since its been shown it can be done.

[Miatav8,MstrASE,A&P,F]

I recognize the aesthetic appeal of a longitudinal crank. This requires a ring and pinion, which means more parasitic loss to the drivetrain. Transverse engine mounting eliminates that loss.

OEM manual transaxles have been adapted to aluminum v8 DOHC Northstar engines for use in fieros, which are around 2800 lbs so equipped.

I remember a late 80's, early 90's Honda that came with a longitudinal crank before they whent to transverse with the same chassis. I think it was a sterling or legend. I can find out the specifics if anybody is interested.

[horizenjob]

I looked up some more info on Corvair parts. Actually was just looking for lap times for the "Too Much" thread and this popped up. Google knows what your thinking...



These people sell Corvair parts, including transaxles etc.:

http://www.corvair.com/user-cgi/main

THey sell the transmission and posi diff for about $250 each. They each weigh about 75 pounds.

Here is one directly attached to a Rover V8:



A nice thing about these units for Locost use is that they have a bolt
on bell housing. So putting this in the rear of the car should not be a space issue.

I'm thinking the benefits would be: moving 75 pounds to the rear and a smaller drive tunnel.

Still thinking a Ford xflow with dry sump, small flywheel and clutch, 150-200 HP, maybe turbo for that. Small frame.

[Miatav8,MstrASE,A&P,F]

Corvairs turn counter-clockwise. I think simply bolting a engine with clockwise rotation to a corvair transaxle will result in greatly diminshed torque capacity. Maybe there is a different ring and pinion available for such swaps.

[SportsCarDesigner]

A little bit of "Transmission 101" about how the Corvair transaxle was made... pretty clever use of high-volume front-engine rear-wheel drive parts.

Take a look first at the conventional layout labeled "Nova" below. The same Saginaw 4-speed (or 3-speed) was used in this fashion in just about every car GM made in the '60s and '70s, even some Corvettes. I tore down and inspected several of these every week in QC after production was moved from Saginaw, MI to Muncie, IN. Never did put 'em back together... the parts went back to the assembly line despite having a a few hundred miles on them. Note the input gear (red), typical of most RWD transmissions... it drives the cluster gear (green) at a small reduction to get part of the reduction out of the way (this allows more reasonable gears at the next step). The cluster gear then drives whichever speed gear (1st, 2nd, or 3rd) is locked to the out shaft (blue). For 4th gear the input shaft (red) and output shaft (blue) are simply locked together.

For the 1961 Pontiac Tempest, the same gearbox was moved to the rear by splitting the input gear, extending it with the world's most expensive driveshaft (8660 steel, carefully heat treated and every one Magnafluxed). It was 3/4" diameter and flexed in a long curve (almost 4" dip) going through a couple of guide bearings. The only other change was the shorter output shaft with splines that engaged internal splines in the hollow pinion shaft in the attached differential housing. A swing axle rear suspension completed the deal. This whole layout was the brainchild of some guy named John DeLorean.

The Corvair used the same Saginaw gearbox and the Tempest differential housing but the input gear had to come from the rear. So both the pinion shaft and the gearbox output shaft (blue) are hollow... and the (24" long) input gear shaft (red) runs through them. Note that the gearbox is still facing the same direction as in th Nova and the Tempest... AND all the components inside are still turning the direction they designed for. Note also that the Corvair crankshaft is actually turning the same direction as the Nova and Tempest in the car (i.e. clockwise when viewed from the front of the car) but is considered a reverse rotation engine when viewed by convention.

The Crown (Ted Trevor) Corv-8 basically just left the Corvair transaxle where it was and put the "Nova" bellhousing back on the front of the gearbox and put the "Nova" input gear (red) back in it. Simple, strong, everything still rotating their original directions. Cramped the driver's seat a bit though, as I recall.

The Kelmark kit simply turned the transaxle around and used a bellhousing adaptor to attach the V8 in place of the Corvair engine (the transaxle was not flipped upside down as Clark Corvair claims... hate to contradict the 'Vair experts but I'm very sure of this). Due to the details of the adapter, a new input gear shaft, 7/8" longer than stock, was supplied. Seems a shame... I wonder if they intentionally did it that way to supply a higher quality shaft. Anywho, this layout has the potential shift quality and strength disadvantages of the gearbox internals and ring & pinion all running backwards. Seems they got away with it though. I used to stop by Kelmark once in a while to see what neat stuff they were doing when I was going to college in Michigan, starting when they were
still operating out of a service bay in a gas station (in Okemos?). Anybody remember their sidewinder V8 transverse transaxle? I recall the prototype... don't know if they ever manufactured and sold any.


If you do flip the Corvair transaxle upside down, you could bolt the Corvair engine (or one of the many reverse-rotation Honda engines) back on (with a thin adaptor plate to right the bellhousing bolt pattern) and everything goes the right directon, it's mid-engine and low engine CG. Not sure about ground clearance; the 'Vair engine might not work; the Honda might need to be dry sumped?



Closer view... Note that Tempest layout (minus the Rope Drive shaft) is exactly what is used in the current Corvette. Straight through (input gear locked to output shaft) is still 4th gear... two more speed gears (both overdrive) added for 5th and 6th.

[horizenjob]

SportCarDesigner: Thanks so much for all that info. I will ponder until I understand it. I am trying to achieve the layout you presented in flipped Corvair / Honda. But had forgotten that Corvair was reverse rotation.

Too bad, I guess. My wish was for a turbo Ford xflow, for which a dry sump system costs peanuts. And that setup in your picture is what I'm used to for Formula Ford, where they use a flipped VW box with custom internals ( Hewland ). I looked a bit at VW bus transaxles, but not sure they are beefy enough for 150-180 hp. And also not sure about issues from chopping off the bell housing...

Perhaps I should look at Honda motors a bit. At least they ran F1 etc. back in the 60's so there is some nice history. I liked the physical compactness of the xflow and hoped to build a small, low chassis for it. Do the Hondas tend to be large and tall motors?

I guess a clue was the pictures on the D&D Fabrications web site with the Reverse rotation Rover engine...

Thanks also Mv8...

[Miatav8,MstrASE,A&P,F]

That is good info SportsCD.

Horizen, vw irs transaxles can flip the ring and pinion so the transaxle is turned around (i.e. Porsche Spyder midengine) versus flipped upside down. A rear engined vw is clockwise rotation. Most other vw transaxles cannot flip the r&p. I don't know exactly which ones could. Perhaps the buss transaxles can.

A vw bug transaxle with a few common parts is much stronger than a Porsche 914 transaxle. The bus transaxles are very heavy duty and usually have a r&p between 4 and 5.86 to 1.

The bellhousing isn't actually cut off. An adapter (usually from Kennedy) bolts to the existing bell.

[horizenjob]

MV8 thanks, didn't see this reply earlier.

So a VW bus transaxle might work, sounds like the ratio is very high though. Perhaps could swap in ring and pinion from other VW's maybe.

I would like to run it upside down, because then the motor can be lowered. That is the config used in Formula Fords and other low power road racers.

Cutting down the bell housing was to make it mountable in a sevenesque locost. They make little flywheels and clutches for Ford xflows to give good ground clearance. So if you could put all this together, you would a really small drive tunnel with plenty of foot room, good CG and weight distribution.

SportsCarDesigner, is there any chance that hollow shaft in the diff of a Corvair could be flipped end for end to change the rotation direction?

[SportsCarDesigner]

SportsCarDesigner, is there any chance that hollow shaft in the diff of a Corvair could be flipped end for end to change the rotation direction?

I doubt it has the splines in both ends. Broaching internal splines was a expensive process, so the ID would most likely be relieved past the used length to save broach wear. Not sure what the tooling looks like nowadays, but (in high-volume production) we used to pull a 20 foot long broach with a couple hundred sets of teeth, each set progressively bigger, through the hole. A quick process, but one that kept a lot of cutter-grinders employed.

Can't find a Honda engine you like?

[horizenjob]

Can't find a Honda engine you like?

Just ignorant on the subject. Will do some looking.

I "liked" the xflow, the pushrods are out of fashion, but it is a very compact package. It's very physical volume efficient and the dry sump parts are very cheap. Also the pictures of wiring harnesses had me looking forward to a really minimal system. I wonder if I just heard a sigh of relief from the 30 year old Formula Ford in my garage...

Anyone have hints on Honda motors, 4 cyl. reverse rotation, maybe 2 litre?

[hklvette]

If you're looking for "V8 capable" transaxles for a transverse application, Fiero guys use getrag 282s all the time. 300hp isn't really a problem for them, but 400 starts pushing the limit without cryo-treatment. Another option is the F40 G6 6 speed if you're not on a tight budget. Nobody really knows the power handling limit of that transmission yet, though. http://www.v8archie.com/ has adapters for bolting SBC bolt pattern to the 282 and F40, which use GM small metric (60* V6). I recommend taking a look at http://www.fiero.nl for a look at various swaps done in fieros that could apply to middy locosts with ease.

[SportsCarDesigner]

If you're looking for "V8 capable" transaxles for a transverse application, Fiero guys use getrag 282s all the time. 300hp isn't really a problem for them, but 400 starts pushing the limit without cryo-treatment. Another option is the F40 G6 6 speed if you're not on a tight budget. Nobody really knows the power handling limit of that transmission yet, though. http://www.v8archie.com/ has adapters for bolting SBC bolt pattern to the 282 and F40, which use GM small metric (60* V6). I recommend taking a look at http://www.fiero.nl for a look at various swaps done in fieros that could apply to middy locosts with ease.

I've got a specs brochure somewhere from when we were trying to market the 282 for applications outside GM. It has the torque rating in it. I'll see if I can find it, but don't hold your breath... I've got a lot of that kind of stuff in storage boxes 'cause I've moved several times.

Trivia: The Getrag/Muncie 282 was designed with common major dimensions to the GM (not Getrag) 4-speed transaxle already in production so it could be machined on the existing case and clutch housing Lamb transfer lines (after a significant retooling that added flexibility at some stations). It took a couple hours to switch from making 4-speed parts to 5-speeds or back. One could look at the prints from both and see that every comparable dimension on the Getrag had the tolerance blatently and obviously exactly halved. Someone's misguided idea of improving quality. The Getrag design engineer set up temporary office in my lab to field pleas for relief... he had the knowledge and authority to change dimensions and tolerances, something you didn't see much in GM. To hold the impossible tolerances we installed about a hundred thermalcouples on the transfer lines and more closely controlled oil temperatures of every spindle head and all coolants and I monitored them constantly. We sometimes, on hot days, had to dump large quantities of dry ice in the coolant resevoir to keep production running. I left in May 1987... better try to get one made before that . I went past the Chevrolet Muncie (/Allison Transmision/GM Truck and Bus/Hydramatic/New Venture Gear) plant the other day... it's almost gone; they've just about finished hauling away the mountains of steel. A few miles west the "other" historic manual transmission plant, Warner Gear (Borg Warner... T-10, Super T-10, T-5, T-45, T-56... etc. now Tremec Mexico) is operating its last days, closing this summer, scheduled to also be torn down. The "new" Delco Battery plant was torn down a couple years ago. The Westinghouse (/ABB) Large Power Tranformer plant has set empty for 10 years; rumor is that the new owner is going to tear it down 'cause the scrap steel is worth 3 times what he paid for it. Nobody in the US makes large power transformers now... my buddy who works for the electric company says a lot of the large transformers he deals with were manufactured pre-WW2, some in the '20s... and it's becoming a real problem. Seems the boom industry in Muncie is demolition/salvage.

[hklvette]

Here you go:

Many say they are reliable up to 300-350 horsepower. Though some say up to 400 horsepower.

I found these specs while searching though.
Quote:

HM-282 (5TM40)
200 lb/ft maximum torque
88 lbs. dry weight
7000 RPM Maximum input speed

200lb-ft is a quite conservative rating for this transmission. Also, Quad 4 guys have run this transmission up to 8k input speed without much difficulty.

[KB58]

Anyone have hints on Honda motors, 4 cyl. reverse rotation, maybe 2 litre?

Honda H22A1 is 2.2 liter and turns the "wrong way."

Honda K20 is 2 liter and spins the right way, as do the K24 2.4 liter engines.

[horizenjob]

From the offroad racing crowd:

Here's another transaxle, VW form factor but with considerable beefing:

http://www.fortinracing.com/transaxles.html

Runs Hewland DG parts and is good for 500+ HP.

Kurt thanks for the Honda pointers. I looked at Honda B20, will look some more.

These transaxles will take reverse rotation, so older Honda's are OK.


Also:

http://pbseng.com/tranny.htm

Available with an LS1 bellhousing.