i know you can use the 901, and an flopped 905. but has anyone used anything differently. moreover is it even possible to use anything else?
srry for the noobish thread but i got the day off and got thinking...

A boxter trans would work with a V-8 if you use the V-8 starter.

A flipped G-50 would work too.

There are other options for the tranny 4 sure. The 901 is a good solid tranny & works great for my v8 conversion. Whatever tranny you go with from the 901 the price will just go up. Not just a little bit either. So it really depends on how much you want to spend & what kind of driving you are talking about.

Not much help I know. Still my money is in the 901

look up zf transaxle, can you say sticker shock!

Look up Hewland or Xtrac if you really want Sticker shock. The Boxster box is only rated at 380nm of torque. Not that much more than a 901. I have one. The 901 is the worst option. It gets the job done marginally.

The G50 is so hard to find now. Plus they are $4-6K. The 915 ain't a much better option, although I have one of those as well. The 930 is a choice, not the best but it is the strongest of the cheap boxes. Still you'll have 6-8K$ in it when you are up and running.

The Audi 016 box might be an option. There are kit car guys running those. The strongest option is the Mendeola or Fortin gearbox.
http://mendeolatransaxles.com/sdr.php

If you want big power you have to be prepared to spend big money.

That is a paraphrase of the way I always heard it...

"Speed costs money... and the size of your wallet determines your top speed."

All it takes is money! It's really a balancing act. How much power are you going to run and what kind of driving are you going to do.
-901 if you don't build a real torque motor and don't drag race it will give you great driveability and there are gear set swaps where you can widen the ratios for a nice set up. I used a stock 901 for 15 years in mountain driving and some auto cross with about a 330HP bored out 327. Chose your cam to avoid lots of low end torque, the gear box is built for revs!(you won't use first)

I sent the box to Renegade about 10 years ago for the wider gear sets and it really makes a nice driver now. The only time I ever had a problem is when I tried to smoke the tires across the airport ramp. I side stepped the clutch... what a ride, but on the way home I heard the clunk clunk of the broken ring and pinion.
It's got so much power and so light you don't need to pop the clutch or use first gear.... second it perfect and once it's out you're off like a shot anyway.
-915 forget it, it's geared too low. If you spend the bucks to flip the ring and pinion and adapt the shifter you may as well go for the 930.
-930 spend the extra money for this box if you're going to a bunch of HP.(4speed)
-G50 just a few model years that were higher geared that work well and they are had to come by even with the $$ but it should give you 5 speeds.(who needs them)
-the other options mentioned are some really big bucks and adaptabillity will require some real fabrication.
Good luck,

Another suggestion for a V-8 trans.

Get a Corvair 4 speed. The corvair 4 speed was a slightly modified Saginaw 4 speed with a hollow mainshaft and a differential attached. You can get a regular Saginaw 4 speed, and mix and match the parts to make it a mid engined transmission. The benefit of this is that the Saginaw 4 speed is designed for a V-8 already, so you won't break it.

The drawbacks are that you have to fabricate both drive shafts and the shift linkage to use it.

And you are stuck with a gearbox suffereing from 40 years lack of development. The same basic problem the 901,915, etc have. Bad syncro design, etc.

Yea.. but it can handle the torque of a small block without breaking.

930 is best bang for the buck IMO - stout box (will take anything you can throw at it up to 750HP) and geared well for a typical V8.

If I were to use a 901 (with a LOW torque V8 as in never hook up the tires with the mildest of 350s or you are hosed), or a 915 (which if you get to 400HP with a 350 and therefore 370-400ft-lbs you will break that as well) I would completely regear that trans. You will spin unnecessarily high rpm rolling down the freeway with either. And I would essentially never use first in either of them, so just go with the 930.

I just yanked my 930 setup out to upgrade to the Mendeola sequential but that is a BIG undertaking and big $$.

I did the 930 right out of the hole (didn't waste time with the 901s and 915s) and was happy with it and felt the cost was reasonable given the reality of what a good 915 will cost you (essentially same $$ in the end with a full regear of the 915 and waaaayyyy more durable), just wanted a full race sequential box and decided to upgrade to the Mendy.

The 930 can run either inverted or you can flip the R&P as stated by others. The gearing you will find is near perfect for a V8 car, especially if it is a relatively mild V8 daily driver.

thanks. i guess the convair would be perfect for a very low budget..
has anyone used a 944 trans?

The saginaw 4 spd was used in the cheapest, lighest, lowest horsepower, lowest torque v8's. I have one, there is no comparison to the strength of the other 4 spd's used behind the "normal" chevy v8's. It was behind the 307 in the camaro's, and other light low powered chevy's. The same case was also the standard 3 spd. The v8 tranny did get bigger gears than the 6 tranny but was never considered a performance tranny thats why it was also in the corvair. It is a short tranny as they put 4 gears where they also have used 3 gears.

Also I don't remember there being a way to use the corvair tranny as a mid engine tranny just a tail dragger application.

I guess you could turn the motor ccw with it.

The 'Vair motor already turns the opposite way from ours, so no R&P flipping required.

That is an interesting notion, Clay...

--DD

The ZF from the Panteras are very strong, and I've heard they shift very well.

I'm going to buy one for my 914 next year.

Shifting well is a relative term. My friend has a pantera he bought in the early to mid 70's (he's still got it) and came to see me. He let me drive it around the neighborhood, it was not easy to shift and I can shift anything usually pretty good. I am sure you can get better at it. Before you buy one you should try one out.

Funny how the Corvair is still coming up now and then, I had a 66 convertible Corvair in the early eighty's,,,,, yes it had a Crown V-8 conversion. The transmission held together well.
My V8 car has a 930, 4 speed and it takes all my 350 can give it! The gearing is good for a hot-rod / freeway car. I think I'm at around 2200 rpm at 65 mph... but who drives at 65 on the freeway?

I think someone should put a modern V6 and its 5 or 6 speed transmission in a 914. There are a lot of nice packages out there.

Sume day sooon I am going to do it using my Fiat X19

it was the muncie trannies that would take the power. sags sucked, we broke lots of them.

i looked up zf transaxle ealier and found some guy had put up a stock gt40 tranny for sale for $5k what a deal!

when I built more than a few stroker Clevelands for Panteras I drove my fair share of them as well as my friend's and the shifting as stated by messix is all relative (BTW the Pantera was the whole reason I got into the idea of a V8 914 and I LOVE those cars).

The 930 is a standard Porsche setup for a Chevy V8 conversion and shifts as easily as the ZF box without all the hassle of making the ZF work, custom axles v. off the shelf Porsche stuff, etc.

The Saginaw boxes are not a great option IMO as they are the weaker trans of the Chebbies and would be work put in to making your own mount adapters and so forth for no good reason when stuff already exists to use a 930 (or 915 for that matter that is better strength-wise).

Do yourself a favor and don't try to reinvent the wheel on this stuff - the money wasted on making cheaper shit fit with custom parts v. off the shelf conversion pieces will become a break even in the end - and the proven stuff is a slam dunk so you get the lack of headaches for little no to extra charge in the long run. ZFs are a waste of time and no savings v. a much more easily installed 930 Porsche box, the Saginaw strikes me as a waste of time for sure, etc.

i would love to take credit but it was charliew that made that statement.

i would think a 930 box is the way to go for all the reasons stated above. and i drove tony's v8 monster and it had a modified 901 [jeff hines knows some back story on that i think]. with the power of a very healthy 350 i don't think you would be getting on it really hard 'cause it just scary have 400+ hp in a 2,000lb car that will hook up and go. that is what tony's car did when i drove it with him sitting next to me and saying "i trust you, go ahead and get on it" top end of 4th gear at 7500rpm and the smell of clutch and freeway getting eaten up very quickly......
chit now i've got the urge to build a V8 car again......

I never thought I'd try a 901 behind a 500+ HP V-8 so I had a 915 built with a flipped ring & pinion and a tall 5th gear. As soon as I installed Michelin Pilot Sport tires on my car 2nd gear blew clean off the shaft. It was a sinking feeling to hear the metal clang down inside the box and the resulting $2,000+ to get it fixed. I then sold it fresh to another V-8 guy who only had 400HP and told him it should be fine at that power level. 500hp is just too much for the 2nd gear in a 915 box according to Bobby Hart at CA Motorsports. He would know because all he does is build porsche transaxles for a living down in Lake Havasu, AZ. He tried to talk me into a G50/50 turbo trans with a billet sideshifter kit he developed for that trans (also sold through Patrick Motorsports)....but I don't have the 13-14K needed for such a box. The 930 box he built me has a flipped ring & pinion and a shortened bell housing. He freshened everything up and it wound up costing me about $6,500 just for the trans. Another $1000+ for a clutch and custom flywheel & ring gear. I have tried almost every disc known to man and I'm back running the stock disc due to its soft and buttery takeoff & good manners. Apparently KEP is making a disc that is very similar to the stock sachs disc and has a marcel and continuous material around it's circumfrence. It will hold about 10-15% more TQ than a stock disc. The 4 or 6 puck racing style discs clatter like a paint shaker and work like shit on the street. I'm now planning on a 100HP shot of nitrous so I will have to upgrade my pressure plate to a stage 2 (Kennedy). My box is cable shifted and if done properly, you will like the results better than a mechanical linkage. Just my 2 cents from a guy who has blown up a few thousand dollars worth of "stuff". Tim is right when he says a 930 box can handle 750HP and has great gearing for a healthy V-8. I found that my 1/4 mile times at the track are well over .5-.75 seconds faster because I'm not shifting like a monkey in a Mercury space capsule. You'll find the 4 speed to offer plenty of top end speed. If I can get my car to 7000RPM in 4th it will do 197MPH. However, I think drag will come into play sometime before that happens as the 914 Sheridan body work is rather wide and probably creates a bit of drag above 160 MPH. Anyway, it is my opinion that a 930 box is the best box for the money. If you have 14-16K laying around there are better choices.

Bill

After all that talk of G50, Saginaw, Corvair, ZF, and 930, Troy put my car to the test that night, I since beat on it at AX in Bremerton, A few months ago, she's still tighter than a cathloic school girl. I've learned to start off in 2nd more often than not and the 901 is solid. It's almost worth having a spare ( E-Bay $100-500) and have it ready when she blows. I would love a taller 5th gear for hwy crusing now 60 MPH is 3000 rpm. 930 Trans are hard to come by I've been looking, I would figure $4500.00 or so, For that kind o dough Troy can build his own V-8 car with a 901.
If you look up Factory Five and Optima, Kit cars they both have V-8 power and are designed aroung the G50, Sweet cars, Like someone said earlier, the Pantera started me on the mid engine Big HP. So for my thin wallet it had 914 written all over it. I first had a Capri V6 with a Paxton Blower, intercooled, 300 hp in a 914, +20 years ago. Now I have grown up, it' s gotta have a V-8.

Have fun, Smokem if you gotem

Tony

Figure more...A core 930 box is had for around $2000-3000K....and after you build it and flip it...it will be closer to 7K when you are done. There is no way out of this problem. It's like paying taxes and dying...no way around it.

Bill