LMS Quaife RX7Gear Set
So anyone ever use one of these gear sets?
QKE4K001 | Quaife USA Two ratios available 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 2.345 1.544 1.222 1:1 0.868 2.564 1.670 1.273 1.1 0.794 I am looking for an alternative to my RX7 trans with a Miata 1.8L gears. I like the ratios in this combination has but I have already killed 3rd gear. |
a friend of mine has the set in a turbo miata, he's out at the race track almost every weekend, and the trans has been totally fine. he's ready for engine #4 though. the 1.8 miata isn't reliable @300hp...
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My biggest problem with those gearsets is getting them...when i was looking a while back the only way i could get them was direct from Quaife and, to the public, that meant something like $2500 at the time. Maybe with the exchange going more favorable rate it would be better...
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Thanks for the feedback. Still researching options and will give Quaife a call
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Just be careful. I have a Quaife Dog Box Setup for my Cougar that worked great until it came time to get replacement gears and blockers. New ones took ages to get in and when they arrived the I.D. bore was wrong and Quaife is all, What? Couldn't happen. I buddy in Vancouver is having the same issues with his Cobra Quaife setup as well.
It seems they are great selling you a complete new set, but they go through all kinds of engineering changes that it is extremely hard to get working replacement parts a few years down the road when you need them as the engineering levels are almost impossible to trace backwards without sending them the worn parts as a target. Even then sometimes they new stuff is wrong. I have learned to always check on replacement parts for wear items, availability and tracking. Eric |
Thanks Eric I will ask about replacement/maintenance parts
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Originally Posted by 23Racer
(Post 11956258)
Just be careful. I have a Quaife Dog Box Setup for my Cougar that worked great until it came time to get replacement gears and blockers. New ones took ages to get in and when they arrived the I.D. bore was wrong and Quaife is all, What? Couldn't happen. I buddy in Vancouver is having the same issues with his Cobra Quaife setup as well.
It seems they are great selling you a complete new set, but they go through all kinds of engineering changes that it is extremely hard to get working replacement parts a few years down the road when you need them as the engineering levels are almost impossible to trace backwards without sending them the worn parts as a target. Even then sometimes they new stuff is wrong. I have learned to always check on replacement parts for wear items, availability and tracking. Eric Regards, Eric |
Cool car! Probably legal for SCCA STU
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Originally Posted by mustanghammer
(Post 11958803)
Cool car! Probably legal for SCCA STU
Eric |
Since the ST category was originally created as a club racing home for World Challenge cars I bet your car fits in some where at a specified minimum weight.
I got into STU because I liked the engine swap capabilities and some of the other aspects of the rules. E Production probably would have been a better choice but that die is cast. |
Are you a Grassroots Motorsports forum reader by any chance? :)
What situations are you encountering that killed 3rd in your Miata gearset? Also $2500 is a friggin' steal for a gearset... when I was looking before, they were closer to $4000. |
Hi PeeJay, I have an e-script to Grassroots. What should I be looking for, I haven't checked my iPad in awhile.
3rd gear failed on an upshift from second at about 8k RPM. Not a speed shift and not what I would consider abusive. Just a pop then no more 3rd gear. I don't think that upshift caused the failure. Likely the gear was stressed by me on a downshift while getting used to the new brakes and clutch while I was testing the car several weeks prior. Or by the previous owner when it was in the 99 Miata it came from. The cost of the Quaife gear set is not the issue and other than repairing the transmission I have it is the cheapest option I have seen so far. But it is allot of money to spend if it is not better than what have now in terms of reliability. Another company I am going to contact is Houseman Autosport - www.racegearbox.com |
LMS Quaife RX7Gear Set
OS giken also makes gear sets for rx7s. I haven't seen anyone use one. But based on everything else the make they're probably really nice...
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Originally Posted by mustanghammer
(Post 11959238)
Hi PeeJay, I have an e-script to Grassroots. What should I be looking for, I haven't checked my iPad in awhile.
3rd gear failed on an upshift from second at about 8k RPM. Not a speed shift and not what I would consider abusive. Just a pop then no more 3rd gear. I don't think that upshift caused the failure. Likely the gear was stressed by me on a downshift while getting used to the new brakes and clutch while I was testing the car several weeks prior. Or by the previous owner when it was in the 99 Miata it came from. The cost of the Quaife gear set is not the issue and other than repairing the transmission I have it is the cheapest option I have seen so far. But it is allot of money to spend if it is not better than what have now in terms of reliability. Another company I am going to contact is Houseman Autosport - www.racegearbox.com Eric |
I assumed LMS = Learn Me Some, a phrase I never see outside of GRM ;)
Funny, normally I wear boxes out but I had an FB box fail the same way. No warning, no awful noises, just a bang the first time I tried to shift into 3rd gear and then it was a neutral. My friend's Miata is making however much power a 12psi MSM engine makes, he's on the same transmission since forever, and I noticed while driving it that it was difficult to shift when stopped when everything was hot. I drained something that looked like silvery water out of the trans... usually if I drained fluid that bad out of an FB trans, it was because I was pulling the trans out to scrap it. Put actual gear oil in and it shifts fine and is quiet. |
I ran a stock NA FC box for about 4 years. Only issue was the 3rd gear synchro failing. It handled 250 hp with no issues as long as I treated it well. I believe it handled well over 30 race weekends. I replaced the lubes twice a year with good stuff and really tried to minimize the shock loadings it would experience.
Unless you need the different ratios, the strength of a stock box is fine. Eric |
I don't have nearly that kind of luck.
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Picked up "LMS" from another site. Didn't know it was used beyond there!
When my car was in IT7 I used to wear out 3rd gear synchronizers every so often. When it happened I just swapped in another box that shifted okay in 3rd and 4th. Never had one fail out-right though. I always prided myself on not being rough on equipment or a ham-fist behind the wheel. Guess I am a little rusty now..... Thanks for the info on Houseman. Looking forward to talking to them. eage8 I saw that OS Giken makes gear sets for turbo II transmissions. More spendier than the Quaife but I understand the Turbo II box is pretty strong. Thoughts on that one??? Oh, I should mention that I may go to Bridgeport 13B to be competitive in STU and or ST3 (NASA). Especially since KS Speedway is a track I may race at a couple of times a year and terminal velocity really matters there. |
Originally Posted by peejay
(Post 11959541)
I don't have nearly that kind of luck.
we tend to finish the 25 without the hood... like 3/4 times! |
Originally Posted by j9fd3s
(Post 11960046)
me neither, well I do fine, but we've always shared cars, and or had multiple drivers, and THEY can take all the teeth off of 3rd gear in an FC trans @140rwhp. in the scheme of things though, loosing 3rd that one time was like small potatoes...
we tend to finish the 25 without the hood... like 3/4 times! Eric |
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Bounce a curb under power and boom goes the gearbox.
Or the rear axles, if the gearbox is on the downslope of the luck plane that weekend. Attachment 621274 |
Jeez us. .. what do you to that poor car PeeJay?
Eric |
The downside of increasing available traction is that you stress the drivetrain more :)
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Originally Posted by 23Racer
(Post 11960498)
Man, you need to teach your guys how to heel and toe and upshift. I started racing in the Firehawk Series and had to quickly learn how to make a weak stock box live for up to 24 hours of hard racing. I am extremely gentle on gearboxes and diffs.
Eric we just did the NASA western championships, and that was just a 40 minute race! the Rx7 of course, was completely trouble free |
Agreed ;)
We've raced spec miatas and RX-7s. The Miata is a fantastic and very reliable platform. But i have to say in at least my direct experience, once i had the cooling sorted out the FC is such a bullet proof platform it almost makes racing too much fun ;) my car is twice as reliable as any miata ive had direct experience with. The racing RX-8s though.....what a nightmare...fast as hell but lots of fragile areas on that car for racing... |
Originally Posted by RockLobster
(Post 11961201)
Agreed ;)
We've raced spec miatas and RX-7s. The Miata is a fantastic and very reliable platform. But i have to say in at least my direct experience, once i had the cooling sorted out the FC is such a bullet proof platform it almost makes racing too much fun ;) my car is twice as reliable as any miata ive had direct experience with. The racing RX-8s though.....what a nightmare...fast as hell but lots of fragile areas on that car for racing... the honda is faster than the miata, but its an expensive endurance car, it needs every moving part replaced to go like 20 hours, and in a 25 hour race that means the duct tape and cardboard is literally holding it together. |
Just wait. On the 12th of September I am putting 2 new to the car drivers in my rx7 for a 3 hour. Last year it went fine, they won the class and the car ran like a train. This year it's going on slicks. Should be interesting....
I am going to try to baby the Cougar to get it to run for 3 hours on slicks. Both cars have gearboxes made from glass, so it's a race inside a race to see who blows up the box first. We have a Miata gear cluster in an FB case with an NA FC tailshaft housing. Talk about Frankenstein. Eric |
Thought I would circle back around and relay what I have learned about Quaife and OS Giken gear sets.
First the OS Giken FD gear sets are available but just barley. Per the OS Giken rep I spoke with these gear sets can be purchased but the lead time is 6 months or longer. He told me that it is likely that these gear sets will be discontinued at some point in the future. FC Gear sets are NLA. Anecdotal evidence regarding the Quaife NA gear sets is that they are indeed stronger than the OE gears. Quaife will not publish torque ratings for these gears however. From my research the, weak part of the NA Transmission is the case itself. Broken case bolts and cracked case castings are not uncommon behind high torque turbo Miata engines. But the Quaife gears are not made of glass and can handle some power. The Quaife gear set looks like a viable option until you realize that this is not a bolt in solution - some machine work required. Based on my research and time spent speaking with Jesse Prather (he has installed the kits), a person can expect to spend an additional $1000 -$1500 on top of the kit price. So out the out the door price is $4000-4500. Then there is the potential for delivery issues. Many people, including Jesse reported inconsistent delivery times. Sometimes stuff comes in quick and other times it doesn't. To be fair, I don't think this is a situation unique to Quaife. After all we are dealing with low volume, made to order parts for a 30 year old car... So.........I bought a Jerico 4spd. Merica! |
The nice thing about just biting the bullet and swapping to a T10 pattern trans is that a LOT of different companies make something for it, whether you want a 2 speed internal clutch trans or a 3/4/5/6 speed box...
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