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Bad Bish, the next generation-introducing the clutchless 4 speed.

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Old Mar 14, 2012, 11:19 AM
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Bad Bish, the next generation-introducing the clutchless 4 speed.

It's been a damn long road with this car, the now infamous Bad Bish. 9.04 at 159.64 mph, that time has plagued me for going on 4 years. Countless combinations, probably a hundred different tests of parts, different engine combinations, transmissions, clutches, engine management systems all to only get close to that time again. We've matched the MPH even on passes that were far from stellar but the ET has eluded us. The number one largest issue has been shifting and getting the power to the ground. I've refused to give up the big brakes and it's severely limited us on tire choice. Enough with the excuses!!! That's what I thought after our race attempt in North Carolina in October. I didn't know what I was going to do when we got back, I considered just biting the bullet and going with another Tilton carbon/carbon clutch, but the thought of $5,000 for a clutch that makes 40 passes, simply pisses me off. Then I thought about a dog box and knowing we tried that once and the only thing it seemed to do was let the car accidentally downshift from 3rd to 2nd......also left me not wanting to do that either.

Then I saw it, something I had entertained in the past but could never get the parts imported, an automatic. We tried to get the EVO7 GTA trans back when we had the black drag car and couldn't. Well I saw the thread that English Racing started about putting an auto in an EVO and as soon as I saw it I knew at the least, what I needed to do. I contacted Aaron at English to ask if he'd mind speeding up the process of me figuring out what parts I needed. At first, of course like any smart shop would do, he was a bit hesitant. I mean this could be HUGE for the EVO market and not wanting to give up "secrets" makes sense. I told him if he'd just shorten my list of the parts I needed to get I'd return the favor by letting him on everything we come up with the in future for it. Aaron talked to his partner in this, Andrew and they both decided the team effort would be beneficial. Aaron gave me the list of the needed parts and I started sourcing them. So first guy I need to thank is Aaron at English for trusting me enough to give me the list of parts I'd need to do the job. As a side note, as my build continued my list of parts changed from what he was using, some things were added, some not needed at all and others were just different. I will get into that more as the story goes.

First thing was the transmission, I was lucky to find a brand new unit (please don't ask details, that is something that both of us have decided to keep to ourselves) obviously it's not rocket science but I am not commenting on it.



The project was on from there. I have a very good friend, Vince Janis, the owner of Janis Transmission. Him and I entered into an agreement to do these together, along with the DSM transmissions for the 1g as an exclusive partnership between the two of us. He tore into the trans, found some weak parts and I had some new replacement pieces machined. Some of these parts included the hub, piston, steels, frictions and accumulator valves. At this point in time I'd like to thank the grandfather of the Auto's in the DSM's, Kevin Kwiatkowski, better known as Kiggly Racing for all his help and guidance along the way. Speaking with Kevin really helped speed up some of the things to look for based on all the knowledge and building he's done of the 1g and 2g DSM transmissions. Kevin is an over the top helpful guy and I can't thank him enough.

Next up was having a torque converter built to handle the power and supply the stall speeds we wanted to hit with the car. I have another company we've worked with for many years and got him interested in another exclusive deal for us. Our first converter we had built:



Next was to figure out a good shifter solution. I wanted to keep the car looking as stock inside as I could. I fully intend to daily drive this car,autocross it and of course enter into an entirely new world of speed on the drag strip. We found some nice center console pieces that would work and then I built a shifter base that would put the shifter where I wanted it. The shifter base:



Next I took my all time favorite shifter, the B&M Pro Stick and figured out the linkage, cable and trans mounting to make it work with the trans and actually smack every gear perfectly. This is also the first thing we were able to help Aaron at English out with and we sent him our first production shifter assembly, which you can see in the thread on their project. The second unit is built now and going to Andrew for his project. This is the completed kit that takes minutes to bolt into the car:



Once mounted in the car I was just happier than hell with the outcome. B&M offers a nice leather shift knob but I found it was too tall. The shifter comes with a white ball on it, didn't like that either. I ended up taking the stock knob, drilling and tapping it and using it. Love the feel, fitment and look of it. Anodizing the actual shift arm and providing a leather boot to seal it all up is something we may do in the future. Here's how it looks for now:





Since I was going to have a car with park sprague in it, I decided I'd eliminate the entire E-brake assembly for weight savings. I didn't want just a hole where the handle was so I used a single DIN pocket for a radio, cut it, ground it and epoxied it in. Great place for my phone now, can't slide out. Thanks to Jared Davis was the thought behind that, thanks Jared! Here it is:



I had to delete the clutch master cylinder in doing all this. It left a large hole in the firewall. We built plates that bolt in and seal that up nicely:



Finally after months of work and trying to get the car back together I started the install of the trans. It went pretty smoothly. I never liked the cut/welded thermostat housing I had on the car. I run an electric water pump and it's always been bolted to the side of my radiator. I decided to use our billet thermostat housing on the car and clean things up. Keep in mind there is no thermostat in a set up like this. This housing is 1 pound lighter than the stock housing and that's weighing the stock housing without a thermostat and sensors.



I then decided to move the water pump to clear up some space below. I had to build this new bracket for mounting it in it's new location:



This is the bracket and pump in their new location:



Our upper i/c pipe simply would not work with the new trans in the car. I thought about all types of way to re-route it and finally came up with the best solution. In all my dyno testing I've found the absolute best way to run the tubing is straight into the face of the intercooler. My FF kit on my own car has the inlet to the intercooler facing the engine bay, like our old Deluxe kits. There is a noticeable gain in low/mid range power because of spool up like this. I decided to keep the pipes as short as possible and optimize this since I had to make changes. So we built a new Race FMIC just for the auto project:





Next was cooling the transmission. Heat is a huge problem when it comes to auto transmissions. I knew I wanted dual coolers. We contacted Fluidyne who custom makes our radiators now and contracted them to build a custom half width radiator with a trans cooler built into it:





There are multiple top radiator mounts on the market. None of them pulled the radiator close enough to the core support. It's amazing what you can make with a bench grinder, drill press and a band saw:



Next up was to build a mount for the air-to-air trans cooler, the fluid runs through the radiator first and then into this large unit and back to the trans:



The project was coming together very nicely. Some other subtle changes were made along the way. There was a LOT of wiring removed from the car, so much so I was able to eliminate the small relay/fuse box, this left a large gap between the battery and main fuse box. I cut the tray down an inch to move it over and scooted it back slightly. For my overly picky mind it was a huge difference. You can see it in the engine shot below and the trans installed too:



I also decided to move the hideous power steering reservoir too, which I posted elsewhere about but here it is again:



Here is the trans finally all installed in the car:



So now some additional details. As you've noticed, the thread is title "clutchless 4 speed". There is a reason for that. I personally do not want an EVO with an AUTOmatic transmission in it. My goal from day one was to have a trans I still had to shift but didn't need to worry about a clutch. That is what we built here. I have also agreed to not step on the toes of the guys at English. They wanted to and still do want to offer a completely automatic option, complete with a paddle shift option. For me, I have zero interest in that. For those of you that want those options you will need to look to them for that.

This set up that we built is manually shifted for every gear. In other words, it's just like driving a manual trans but with no clutch pedal. If you want 1st gear, you have to put the shifter into 1st, if you want 2nd, same thing. So you are rowing through the gears just as you normally would, difference is you left foot can be used for brake boosting!

A lot of people who knew what I was doing thought I was building a sole purpose drag car, that can't be further from the truth. Contrary to what many believe this should be even better for autocrossing than it was as a manual. Most auto's don't work well because they will downshift when you don't expect it and that upsets the car. In this case you can up shift/downshift without a clutch, which interrupts power, at any time and it will never up shift or downshift without you wanting it to.

More things that we are offering only. This kit we have assembled works with our Forward Facing turbo kit only. It MAY fit with other FF kits too but for now let's just assume for ours only. This, as you can see, is due to starter placement. We will also not be stepping on English's toes when it comes to that. So if someone wants this kit from us, it has to be used with our FF kit only. We MAY build a turbo kit at a later date that is NOT FF to work with this but for now, it is not in the works and will be some time before we'd even consider it.

Our plans are to get some testing under out belts and when we are confident enough in the product to offer it. The nice thing is we have a huge head start on every aspect of the project because we have most of the parts duplicated and available already. As a matter of fact we have orders for 6 transmissions so far and have sold all of our radiators we got in to the guys who are waiting for transmissions. (Thanks to those of you that took those off our hands.)

I also need to thanks Andrew for sending me out the first prototype shift box for the car. This allowed me to actually drive the car yesterday for the first time. I may as well get the story out there now I just got the car completed on Friday, Andrew send out the box and I received it yesterday. I plugged it in and dropped the car into reverse. Something else I want to note, because of a special starter we had to source for fitment the way the car starts is 100% different than ever before. It spins so fast now it starts instantly. Oh what a sweet thing, backed it out of the shop and dropped in into 1st. Ah yes, very crisp, car moves forward NICELY!!! Out of the shop and onto the road, smack 2nd, nice firm shift, smack 3rd nice again, lift slightly (due to some electronic issues still fourth can't be slammed) and if shifted nice into 4th. The car is EXTREMELY quiet now, it doesn't even sound like an EVO. It's hard to describe but it's extremely smooth and noise free. All that rattle and driveline decel noise is 100% gone. Once I hit the 55 mph speed limit sign at the edge of town I pulled the shifter back to 3rd and hit the floor with the throttle. The acceleration that came, honestly, scared me. First I haven't driven anything fast in 6 months and second the car I don't think has ever accelerated like that before. I lifted at 6,000 rpm....sad, yes I know. I shifted back into 4th and turned around at the next side road. I gave it just a bit of rpm holding the brake and let it go in 1st, car was at 9,700 rpm nearly instantly, lifted and looked in the mirror to see black marks in the road. A torque converter is no joke, last year I had the tire spin under control after all the Robi Spec work and the 265-45 tires, not now! I pulled onto the next road, hit it in 1st, saw the tach go past 9,000 rpm again, smacked 2nd and back to 9,000+ rpm, acceleration was stupid. I shifted easily into 3rd and then into 4th. The 4th gear shift didn't seem to activate for some reason as the tach didn't drop. I pulled the shifter back to 3rd and the rpm rose. I thought maybe I was just not use to the RPM vs. gear. I was chicken to go back to 4th, after about a 1/4 mile I bumped it back to 4th gear and everything was fine. As I pulled into our shop parking lot I saw my brother outside. He's a big skeptic on this project, feels an EVO should ONLY be a 5 speed/6 speed manual. I wanted to show him how wrong he was. I pushed the brake pedal as hard as I could, smashed the gas to the floor and the car started building rpm, 2800, 2900, 3000, 3400, 3800, 6000, uh oh, something is wrong, shouldn't go from 3800 to 6000 that fast. I lifted off the gas and there sat the car, unable to move. SON OF A *****. 5 months of work, 3 miles of driving and it's broken.

Not a happy ending to my story, I know. I guess it's part of development though. The car is up on stands now and tomorrow I plan to pull it apart and see what part needs to be improved next. Right now no gears work and Park doesn't even work (should have kept that e-brake!haha). It has to be a gear or shaft that's broken. This isn't what I was hoping for but I'm in so deep and I'm so excited about it all after driving it that we are going to keep on going.

Hope you guys are excited and enjoyed the write up.
Old Mar 14, 2012, 11:20 AM
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yippy 1st in to read. haaha ok now i need to read it.
Old Mar 14, 2012, 11:25 AM
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Been waiting a long time for this.
Old Mar 14, 2012, 11:30 AM
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Oh god this should put down some serious times
Old Mar 14, 2012, 11:32 AM
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This car is going to be insane....again! Great Job!


-Justin
Old Mar 14, 2012, 11:37 AM
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cant wait to see what it does now
Old Mar 14, 2012, 11:40 AM
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Awesome guys , can't wait to see this in action!
Old Mar 14, 2012, 11:41 AM
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Yes, I do believe that once we get it all to work and hold the power this is going to bring on a lot of new records. Most of the DSM guys who go from a 5 speed to an auto gain .5 seconds by just making the swap.

My goal with my car is to simply have a reliable 8.90 EVO that runs pass after pass in the 8.90 range. I honestly thought once the trans was in the car it was going to be a long time before it had to come back out, with it breaking so soon it's been a kick in the *****. Now I feel there will be a long road of development for this power left. The car makes 725 whp and 585 ft lbs of torque at just 32 psi. I saw as high as 37 psi in 3rd gear yesterday.
Old Mar 14, 2012, 11:44 AM
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I don't like it I love it!!!!
Old Mar 14, 2012, 11:46 AM
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Great things always from Buschur Racing. Ive been checking facebook,highboost,and here for the last few months for this LOL....

Again nice work Dave
Old Mar 14, 2012, 11:50 AM
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loved the story. cant wait to see its next trip. next time get some vids of the car leaving the shop and some vids of inside while riving it.

great work.
Old Mar 14, 2012, 11:51 AM
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Can't wait to see updates, and I'm pretty curious what broke!
Old Mar 14, 2012, 11:54 AM
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Badass, can't wait for results!
Old Mar 14, 2012, 11:54 AM
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Here is some more bits of information I forgot to add to the first post when I was typing it.

The "silent partner" in English's thread that was mentioned was me. There are some weights in their thread that I supplied and I'm going to re-post them here.

EVO8 5 speed weighs 128.2 pounds
Auto weighs 146 pounds
Stock torque converter is 29.3 pounds
BR converter is 23 pounds
Exedy Triple HD 35.4 pounds
RS t case is 63.8 pounds
Auto tcase is 57.9 pounds
Shifter cables, shifter, base, metal base, trans bracket, clutch pedal, clutch master plate, slave, and lines weigh 13.15 pounds
BR auto shifter assembly 5.25#
5 speed fluid, 5.25#
Auto fluid, 17.5#
Stock gutted/sensor-less thermostat housing, 1.3#
BR housing, .4 pounds with sensors

EVO8 final drive is 4.52
Auto final drive is 4.13

EVO8 1st gear is 2.92
Auto is 2.84

EVO8 overdrive is .72
Auto is .71

I scaled the car today. I removed a lot of weight out of the car over the last 5 months. Unfortunately for me, my goal of 2690 pounds wasn't even close. I don't even know WTF happened to be honest. The car is heavy and based on all the weights it makes no sense. Without a driver and about a 1/4 tank of fuel the car now weighs in at 2771 pounds. Crazy. That's going to put it at 2971 with me in it or heavier depending on fuel.
Old Mar 14, 2012, 12:01 PM
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I have been waiting for this day, for those of us that made the switch in the dsm community, I know have loved every aspect of the car. The evo will be exceptional in Manumatic mode . I felt like I was RIGHT there, when I was reading the last paragraph.


Last edited by antilag_200; Apr 5, 2012 at 08:45 AM.


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