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Tell Jon at TRE you were running a synchro mesh fluid and he'll tell you it hurt the trans. Those fluids do not have the additives put transmissions need. The transmissions that can get away with those thin low additive synchromesh fluids have much wider shaft spacing and bigger gears that can handle a less robust fluid.
You have to run a proper GL4 with good viscosity, like Redline MT90 or Motul Gear300 if these transmissions to last. If you'd end it in, Jon will likely find a good amount wear in a lot of the gears.
When I first got the car I don't know what was in the trans but it wasn't the happiest camper with aggressive 2nd and 3rd gear shifts. I put in the synchromesh knowing there would be a bit more gear wear, but hoping the synchros would be a bit happier, and they were.
At this point I think it's a lesser of two evils situation. Probably smarter for me to switch back to a GL4 fluid and hope that keeps the gears happy for one more seaon and just mush the synchros or double clutch it. Would be nice to reuse one or two gears but I'm expecting to replace all or most synchros, all bearings, and since 4th and 5th are getting changed I just need to hope the best for 1st, (which may be swapped for a 9 1st anyway) 2nd and 3rd. Car has always had a sprung clutch so I'm thinking I'll at least be able to reuse the input shaft and counter shaft.
Edit: yikes, looks like 1st gear input is part of the input shaft. Def changing fluids back, synchros are cheap comparatively.
If you switch to a 9 first, you'll be buying an input shaft. The input 1st and 2nd gears are integral with the input shaft.
If the trans isn't shifting will with a good GL4 like redline or the motul, it's just time for a refresh. Sacrificing protection for the gears to help it shift better isn't helping your cause. Id rather be a little gentler on shifts than tearing up the hard parts in the trans.
Looking at parts and prices now. Yea after finding out about the input shaft, moving to a 9 1st gear is probably only goinf to happen if I need a new input shaft.
If the trans goes to Jon, don't hesitate to buy the 1:1 straight cut 4th. It is not nearly as loud as I expected it to be for street driving, and you can only hear when in 4th. It doesn't make any noise when it's not in use. Its a bit spendy, IIRC it was $750. But you won't be replacing 4th gear every time the trans comes out in the future...lol
I believe that's made by PAR, either way, yes it was in the plan. Glad to hear you like it. Better ratio, only a couple hundred more than replacing the stock gears (which would probably only last a couple seasons) and cool whiney sounds, sign me up. Car doesn't see much street anymore and when it does I'm usually wearing headphones to help forget about how much my *** is vibrating so I don't see any gained noise as a bad thing haha.
Got bored on lunch and made a spreadsheet. For anyone interested in a simple gear speed calculator that's specific to evos here you go. Just put in which gear is being used, tire diameter, engine speed and final drive (fill out the cyan colored cells) and it will populate speed. I know there's a million calculators like this on the internet I just wanted to make a dummy one where you don't need to remember each gear from what trans is which ratio. It's a calculator for lazy people like me.
I believe that's made by PAR, either way, yes it was in the plan. Glad to hear you like it. Better ratio, only a couple hundred more than replacing the stock gears (which would probably only last a couple seasons) and cool whiney sounds, sign me up. Car doesn't see much street anymore and when it does I'm usually wearing headphones to help forget about how much my *** is vibrating so I don't see any gained noise as a bad thing haha.
Yeah, on my invoice it's listed as a PAR/TRE part.
Got bored on lunch and made a spreadsheet. For anyone interested in a simple gear speed calculator that's specific to evos here you go. Just put in which gear is being used, tire diameter, engine speed and final drive (fill out the cyan colored cells) and it will populate speed. I know there's a million calculators like this on the internet I just wanted to make a dummy one where you don't need to remember each gear from what trans is which ratio. It's a calculator for lazy people like me.
edit: don't know what's going on but it doesn't want to populate for other people, download it as an excel file and it'll work fine.
Thank you for doing that Sir. I'm moving to a 4.31 from a 4.11 and its interesting to quickly adjust it.
FWIW , I ran the numbers a while back just for the difference in first gear. Feel free to add it if you would like to
Here are some examples of first gear
evo 8 first 2.928 x 4.53 = 13.263 STOCK
evo 8 first 2.928 x 4.31 =12.619
evo 8 first 2.928 x 4.11 =12.03 (this is what I have now)
evo 9 2.785 x 4.53 =12.616 STOCK
evo 9 2.785 x 4.31 =12.00
evo 9 2.785 x 4.11 =11.44
Thank you for doing that Sir. I'm moving to a 4.31 from a 4.11 and its interesting to quickly adjust it.
No problem, glad you found it useful. I'm still updating it, added speed spreads and percentages to give a better visual on how different ratios affect spacing, common tires sizes used on track cars, and still working on adding OE part numbers for all the guts in the trans.
I really like how things look with 1st and 2nd from an 8, 3rd and 4th from PAR and a JDM 5th. Don't think I want to fork out another $800 or so for the 3rd gear though. But being able to do 100 in 3rd would definitely be a game changer for me at a lot of the tracks around here.
Still flipping back and forth between the JDM 5th or using them from a 9, they're about the same price. The 9 is good for 176mph which I don't have enough power to get up to anyway, nor do I see myself hitting a track large enough that I'd need tall gearing. Been using the calculator to try and see about engine speed drops to help. With the JDM, shifting at 8000 in 4th (PAR gear) would bring me back to about 6500 in 5th which I think might be a tad high for my power band, whereas with the 9 5th shifting at 8000 in 4th (PAR gear) would bring me back to a lick over 6000 which I think is still pretty good. But doing the same math with the 8 5th gear would drop it down to 5700 and I know my 5th now is an absolute dog so maybe the 9th isn't that much of an improvement of what I'm looking for...
If the trans goes to Jon, don't hesitate to buy the 1:1 straight cut 4th. It is not nearly as loud as I expected it to be for street driving, and you can only hear when in 4th. It doesn't make any noise when it's not in use. Its a bit spendy, IIRC it was $750. But you won't be replacing 4th gear every time the trans comes out in the future...lol
Jusst keep in mind, last I checked, straight cut gear costs you for NASA TT2/3. Not sure about gridlife stuff.
Lol nice spreadsheet I have the same thing in my google docs. Guess Im selfish since I didn't share the wealth, lol!
Couple things here...do you always plan to run a 275/35-18? Bc its kinda tall which will give you some speed, which I know is stating the obvious but if you build it around expectation that you will see a certain speed a simple tire swap could easily skew things.
Also, what are your thoughts on raising the limiter? When I went through the math the difference between 8 grand to 9 grand is huge! Personally that is what Im most excited about with my new motor so just throwing the idea out there to get some juices flowing on your end.
Nov 6, 2018, 08:29 AM
