5th gear weakness is there a fix?
#1
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last year at a lemons race we got some pointers from a SPEC racer. He basically told us "Don't use 5th gear, it a weak overdrive gear and you will break it if you are shifting hard into the gear". This kinda sucks because in a few spots on the track we are starting to bounce the rev limiter in 4th.
Currently we have a NA6 car with a 1.8 all junk yard hp mods and KIA 4.778 gears. The final drive is pretty awesome because of how quick the car feels, but now we run out of trans. Were working to source some 4.44 gears (not having much luck, do RX8 gears fit NA/NB 7" rears?) to bring things down a bit (would love the NZ 4.625 KIA gears, but I digress.
So my questions are:
What makes 5th gear is fragile?
- Synchro?
- The Gear itself?
- Brass Bushing?
Is there some race proven method to fixing the fragility?
- I have read something about replacing the brass bushing with a needle bearing (professionally done of course) but IIRC this was on RX7 transmissions so I don't know if that can be applied to our transmissions.
While I'm there I would like to put in a closer ratio 5th gear from a 626, does this cause any additional reliability issues?
Im open to swapping to a different bolt up transmission like an RX7 but I'm not sure this will solve anything and may make my hearing issues worse.
As Always, I appreciate everyone's insight.
Currently we have a NA6 car with a 1.8 all junk yard hp mods and KIA 4.778 gears. The final drive is pretty awesome because of how quick the car feels, but now we run out of trans. Were working to source some 4.44 gears (not having much luck, do RX8 gears fit NA/NB 7" rears?) to bring things down a bit (would love the NZ 4.625 KIA gears, but I digress.
So my questions are:
What makes 5th gear is fragile?
- Synchro?
- The Gear itself?
- Brass Bushing?
Is there some race proven method to fixing the fragility?
- I have read something about replacing the brass bushing with a needle bearing (professionally done of course) but IIRC this was on RX7 transmissions so I don't know if that can be applied to our transmissions.
While I'm there I would like to put in a closer ratio 5th gear from a 626, does this cause any additional reliability issues?
Im open to swapping to a different bolt up transmission like an RX7 but I'm not sure this will solve anything and may make my hearing issues worse.
As Always, I appreciate everyone's insight.
#3
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Way back when I hung out with Spec Miata drivers I don't overly remember 5th being an issue for them either. Yes they went through transmissions, but usually 2nd, and 3rd gear.
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Huh, strange, guy who told me isn't just a racer also a builder. Maybe he was talking about the early 5 speeds that came with the 1.6 engines? But that makes me feel better about using 5th.
does anyone have any experience with swapping a 626 5th gear into our transmissions? It's .858 vs our .814
does anyone have any experience with swapping a 626 5th gear into our transmissions? It's .858 vs our .814
#5
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We use a '94 5 speed and 4.77 in our Chump Car and never had a problem with 5th gear. The 5th syncro can have issues if you shift quickly from 2nd to 5th, so maybe that was were the miscommunication came from?
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4.77s are faster unless you are running out of gear in 5th. 4.30 cars use 2-3-4. 4.77 cars are able to use 3-4-5 which are closer together. It's the same reason why 6-speeds are faster than 5-speeds (closer ratios = less RPM drop = higher average RPM = higher average power).
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Last time we dynoed the car with a fresh motor ('94 BP) it was around 120-125 whp. Plans are to bump the power up this year to take advantage of the new Chump Car motor swap rules (Either a BP4W or VVT). At that time, we'll go back to the 4.1 to "save" some points.