Pity I'm not in Sydney, I could design up an adaptor and custom flywheel without too much trouble.
On my V6 I kept costs down but using as many standard parts as possible, just in weird combinations. I have the Mazda flywheel and pressure plate, but the VW ring gear, clutch plate and throw-out bearing.
Hey Wes, once you drew everything up in cad, what could you get one off adaptor plates and one off flywheels made for? p.s. I'm keen to retain the standard Subie flywheel and adapt it to the vw crank instead.
Reversed gears for Subaru transmissions.
Fit a Subaru 5 speed to your rear engined car www.subarugears.com
76bug wrote:a standard 5 speedsubaru box will handle 180-200kw at all 4 wheels in a full wrx with no problem, i dont know why you guys are worried about wether it will last or not in a beetle which only 900kg and driving 2 wheels. if the reverse crown will is a quality unit it is a fantastic concept.
its the ratio that is the braking point of the subaru box and Todd is on to this with a 4.44 crown wheel and pinon.
If you look at the subaru gear boxes over the years one can see what subaru did to beat the braking issue.
aussi boxes were 3.9 front & 3.54 rear there crap !
Jdm boxes 4.11 & 4.44
Now there is a 4.11 legacy box has a wave washer in 1st gear to stop the gear singing to you as you drive up to the window in macas , then there is a 4.11 wrx gear box & a 4.11 sti RA box close ratio.
The v3 sti was 4.44 ratio a good strong box , however I have three here broken 1st 2nd 3rd
Throw all the above out the window when your talking 6 speeds as the gears are massive & the box has a oil pump fitted. not like the 5 speed that is splash feed with oil.
Todd what steel is your cv flange made from ? it would be smart to have a flat rear face as the bolts come lose and I would want to fit a locking nut on the rear.
all looks good Todd
Looking for that special lady : PM me for coffee & cake
Craig Torrens6 times Australian, 7 times State Hillclimb Class Champion
I bought a big chunk of 20mm aluminium plate for $50 from a scrap metal merchant. We made 3 adapters from it, abrasive water jet cutting cost $66 per adaptor.
The flywheel cost $264 dollars. That was machining the ring gear off an old 2nd hand VW flywheel, machining up the Mazda flywheel, then pressing and welding the ring gear on.
I was happy with the adaptor plate, but I think the flywheel could have been done better. Having said that 2 of them exist, and neither have had a problem.
Thanks Seagull, we're slowly getting there, still a few bugs to iron out but I'll keep working on things and keep developing kits. The flanges are made from 709M billet, this is a pre-hardened steel used for gear making that still lets the machine tool cut it without too much wear.
The first batch I had hand-made as I couldn't get a cnc shop to do them at a reasonable price. But I think the guy making them for me will tire of it real quick, there's a lot of steps involved and material to remove. Going to visit another cnc shop this week to see if I can get a more reasonable price. Would like to keep the manufacture in Australia if possible. Barring this I may go to a forging and just have them done at the gear factory that does my gears.
I'm a bit surprised you want a flat face to put a nut on the back - millions of flanges around the world and I've not seen any with nuts on the back. But I guess it's easy enough to incorporate and then we've got an additional feature. Thanks for the suggestion 👍
Reversed gears for Subaru transmissions.
Fit a Subaru 5 speed to your rear engined car www.subarugears.com
Did a bit of work in fitting the subie box into a super today. Holesaw a hole a couple of cm to the right of the current shifter hole and then trim the access hole in the pan a bit to let the shift rod come through as per the pic of the shift rods above.....total work 5 min.
Now you find that the back of the box hits up against the lower lip of the body in 2 spots - where the reverse lockout is on the back of the box, and the finned ridge on top of the box. Grind off the ridge on the box, grind off the lip on the bottom of the body. Undo the body bolts and insert some washers to space it up a tad in the gearbox area. Box fits.
You can see here the lip that needs to be ground off the body.
If you really wanted it to fit nicely and have a bit of clearance for driveline movement you would need to do a little cut n shut or some persuasion with a hammer.
Didn't get to fitting the motor/box combo as some of the back of the body needs to be cut away to fit those big heads in. More to follow in a few weeks time.
Reversed gears for Subaru transmissions.
Fit a Subaru 5 speed to your rear engined car www.subarugears.com
OK guys, I think we've pretty much found Nirvana for the beetle guys. We managed to get the Subie Quad Cam EJ20T and 5 speed transmission to fit under the rear decklid and guards.
Thanks to the incredibly friendly, helpful and skillful assistance of Boof and his mates at the shed, we got to work on solving all this. Before I launch into it, a round of applause for Boof (Matt) for being a true champion, there was already a cut up pan and back half body waiting for me tonight. Thanks again.
They key to making this setup fit in a beetle body is to lower the engine and transmission down as close to the frame horns as possible. We actually end up with the motor in the same spot as if you used an IRS beetle box with the banana mount reversed to move the beetle box forward.
In order to get the Subaru output shaft as low as possible, I have to produce some Subaflange output flanges that are 50mm longer and move the large part of the flange and cv outboard of the frame horns. Thus the skinny part of the output flange can sit just above the horns. This will necessitate finding or making shorter drive shafts but that was already part of this conversion anyway.
This mock-up was done with a swingaxle pan which still has round frame horns. An IRS pan already has these flatter so expect a decent amount more clearance for the cam covers on an IRS pan to what you see in these pics.
This is what we cut out of the body to get it to fit. There is a bit of cutting on the edge of the seatbelt mount reinforced plate so you would/should box this and make everything strong again. We really didn't need to cut into that firewall/parcel shelf. One bolt of the transmission just hits it. This could be 'adjusted' with a hammer or the bolt left out and the boss ground off the gearbox.
We needed to cut off some of the back of the body, just after the last body/guard bolt. Also cut some of the metal off the inside of the guard to clear the cam covers. Maybe a little much was cut away here but you get the picture.
Left hand guard j.u.s.t. touching the top of the cam cover.
Without cam cover
Right hand side cam cover
Without cam cover
Output shaft to frame horn clearance
Throttle body to firewall clearance....you could get a pod filter on that for n/a and get nice cool air, or for turbo apps you could get a silicone elbow in there and route to wherever your intercooler is. No cutting of firewall for throttle (maybe around the turbo depending on location and up-pipe.)
And the finale......
Aircooled guys you KNOW your motors are gonna fit in here with this box easy AS. I am working on the adaptor plate and flywheel adaptor for type 1 and type 4 motors to bolt right up.
Reversed gears for Subaru transmissions.
Fit a Subaru 5 speed to your rear engined car www.subarugears.com
We know that most turbo guys will cut more of the firewall to account for intercooler and turbo, we also wanted to show the minimum amount needed to run a high powered vw engine with a subaru box.
I am really impressed with the fit of the whole unit, a few weeks back we were very concerned about length and height. This will nearly be easier than reversing a stock box mount and moving forward 50mm, as the front intermediate mount will be similar, you do not shorten shift rod and the rear engine mount and gearbox mount is one unit. I have a seperate engine mount that attatches after the box and engine are fitted.
Looks like the superbug will be expecting an engine sooner than I expected.....with my bug getting a gearbox swap shortly after.
Made a video of the test buggy going down the freeway today. EJ25, entry level 5 speed box with VW cable clutch and bowden tube, 3.9 final drive ratio, 31" tall tyres
I tried this morning, but had trouble holding the camera steady and launching at the same time 🙂. ttriebler is bringing over some spy dvd sun glasses as we speak, so I will see what I can get done on the weekend.
OK here's the definitive answer on the 6 speed gearboxes. There are two types. Firstly there is the 6 speed STi box. This thing is 40kg heavier than our beloved 5 speed, built like a truck gearbox and doesn't fit into any VW based pan. The thing is huge. I am not and will not be doing reversed gears for it and they are completely different to the 5 speed gears.
Now, there's a second type of 6 speed out and it's in the 2010 Outback and some Forester/Liberty cars around the world. It is also behind the turbo diesel with 350nM torque from the factory. This 6 speed is a revised version of the beloved 5 speed. They changed reverse gear from a dog gear that moves on a shaft to a constant mesh gear. This made room inside the housing for an extra forward gear. So the 5 speed is now a 6 speed and incorporates all of Subaru's latest design updates and double cone carbon synchros, plus a revised case casting that has extra stiffening ribs. Interestingly it is cable operated instead of shift rod and this mechanism is interchangeable with 5 speeds.
My reversed ring and pinion bolt straight into this 6 speed. So for whoever wants to have a 6 speed just for the sake of it, you can now have your cake and eat it.
Reversed gears for Subaru transmissions.
Fit a Subaru 5 speed to your rear engined car www.subarugears.com
Kev buy a pair of weld in IRS boxes and get with the program. You know your bug will handle heaps better as an IRS to boot.
Matt I picked up those widened flanges today, the blue paint on them is almost dry. Going up the shed tomorrow (Sunday?) we can give them a quick trial fit on the rig if you have time. And I can take your 180rwkw beastie out for a thrash.
Reversed gears for Subaru transmissions.
Fit a Subaru 5 speed to your rear engined car www.subarugears.com
