im putting together the fb gearbox/fc tailhousing. what i need to know is will the 12a bellhousing work with my slave cylinder and my starter?? or will i have to change the bellhousing? and if so how in the hell do i get it off. its broken apart but wont come!!!! thanks

 

You can use either bellhousing. They are the same dimensionally, but a S5 bellhousing has more bracing. Did I mention that I broke 4 gears in my FB box, and have since swapped back to the Fc one?

 

well i got it off now. all i gotta do is put the little slip round pins in where the shaft is. dont tell me that!!!lol how did i happen?? i heard they where just as strong

 

nope, not as strong. The gears aren't chemically the same metals. Older ones use weaker compositions of steel. They look the same, and fit the same, but aren't.

 

It took me about 6K miles to break 4 gears. And around 2k of that was breaking in a motor. Also, I never took it to the track, never did any hard launches, and was always trying to be easy on the tranny. Trust me when I say its not the way to go. The shorter gears are nice, but not worth how weak the tranny is. The only gear that wasnt messed up was 2nd. Another thing....the tranny was pristine before it went in the car. Synchros and such were perfect.

 

Ohhhhh that's not what I want to hear, Mazdaspeed7!!!
I've only put abot 500 km on mine so far. We'll see if it lasts a season of autoxing. But man, it pulls really nicely in second!!
Have to keep my eye peeled for a junkyard S5, then. Or rebuild my graunchy S4 box.

 

REPU trannies are rumored to be as strong as the FC trannies. FB's came with less than 100hp on the ground. Not really needing anything all that capable to control that kind of power.

 

I guess Ill post some useful tranny info here. all pre-rx7 13B's had a ribcase tranny, which is very similar to the TII tranny, but it used the same clutch/flywheel as all FB's and n/a FC's. That bellhousing will also bolt up to a TII tranny, and let you use a n/a flywheel and PP, and RB sells a n/a size disc with a turbo spline for just that. But even the old ribcase tranny is very strong. Too bad theyre hard to find.

 

man o man. please let this tranny last for me dangit!!!!!!!!