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A quick review which will be updated later after the break-in. All speeds in KPH as I assume you can convert them if you need to.
Wow, just wow! Perfect gear range for the car. 2.66 1.78. 1.30. 100 .80. .50 seems a little bit low in paper, but in reality it's absolutely perfect.
Had to check clutch engagement at higher rpm. Ran 1st up to 4-5k rpm and switch to 2nd. Was more than pleasantly surprised to see I was doing 80kph at about 3k rpm. For some of you, this maybe insignificant, for me it's basically where 3rd used to be.
At 140kph (80 mph) in 3rd gear I was up around 5,500 rpm. That's highway speeds and plenty of room left, 5th gear was around 2800-3000 ish and 6th was 2k on the nose as indicated.
The car it's self feels like it went on a diet, smooth linear power delivery from the beginning until well past sanity.
I absolutely would not recommend less than 3.73 gearing. I'm actually thinking of 3.90 in my 8.8 now. With 3.90 it will be similar to what I had, but lower rpm in the same places compared to the old trans.
The downside. You need the ability, time, and patience to be able to get everything to play well with each other. What I mean by this is you need a custom spacer. In my case it was 13.5 MM. Then you need a F body pilot bearing.
Transfer the speedometer sensor, reverse lockout and reverse light switch.
You will have to Fab a cover for the inspection hole. (Smaller than it looks in the photo)
You will need patience also. I consider it advanced plug and play.
It is worth noting that my clutch pedal effort is significantly less than it was before hand. I cannot account for why. But I'm not complaining. 🤘
So is this solution right for you? Depends on what you want. They are pretty legendary on their robustness, and honestly it will handle way more than I intend to throw at it.
So far everything is breaking in beautiful. I will update after 500 miles or so.
I'm making this post more so that someone will be able to find it later on in a search should they encounter any issues installing one. There is almost no information about the transmission on our platform that I could find through my google foo. I was hoping for a reference on what to expect prior to purchase, and I basically went in blind and on faith.
It payed off well in this case.
Nice work! Did you have the custom spacer made or were you able to purchase it somewhere? Any pictures of it?
Had to machine it from Aluminum. If you look in the inspection hole you can see it.
13.5mm is .531" or just over half inch. The previous act spacer was almost an inch at 24mm. Bear in mind the act uses a different spacer than most for their setup. The tick spacer is also a different length.
With this trans your either using the oem v slave and spacer, or something similar to the tilton adjustible.
Just take the measurements, and plan accordingly. Took us 2 trys with the spacer to perfect it.
Well break in period is done draining and refilling with good old Dex 3 H spec.
Trans ran hot first few days, then slowly settled down and really became smooth .
I feel as if the Hurst setup is preventing it from being a truly smooth and silky shift. I'll be swapping out for the CS shifter as I keep hearing it's smoother.
I still get the occasional "nibble" on a 1-2 or 2-3 until the trans is fully warmed up.
I haven't noticed any fuel savings as I'm varying the speeds in each gear while under the break in period.
But now that I've got 650 miles on it I'll be driving as normal.
It's a solid trans if you have the time to futz with it and make it work .
I'm fabbing a transmission cooler up, and will change the fluid to amsoil torque drive after I install it .
Any recommendations for a diff cooler setup for my 8.8?
I would think 70-80C (~160-175F) would be in the ideal range. Am I wrong?
Protecting the trans and diff from exhaust heat would probably be more easily accomplished and keep those parts within a reasonable heat range. I noticed a reduction in diff noise when I applied heat shielding to the adjacent exhaust pipes. It's not pretty, but it's effective.
I would think 70-80C (~160-175F) would be in the ideal range. Am I wrong?
Protecting the trans and diff from exhaust heat would probably be more easily accomplished and keep those parts within a reasonable heat range. I noticed a reduction in diff noise when I applied heat shielding to the adjacent exhaust pipes. It's not pretty, but it's effective.
You are not wrong on the operating temps. I'm still getting a spike of 20C today, but I absolutely flogged the hell out of the car, so it's to be expected, and unlike the oil that shipped with the new transmission, it dropped temps fairly quickly. I cannot explain as to why. It's just my observation while pushing it .
I do have heat wrap around the diff area. When ambient temps exceed 54c, plus the radiant heat coming off the ground, there isn't much else to do except run a diff cooler. I'm honestly just wanting to do it because I can, and while I don't track the car yet, on our "Fun runs" sustained speeds of 160-200 kph are not unheard of. All that adds up to heat needing to go somewhere .
The trans cooler is a no-brainer my book .the previous trans primarily failed because of heat .
01-23-2018, 07:48 AM
