ok im wondering if this 3rd gear thing is a common problem. i broke one a few months ago while driving hard in the twisties. half the teeth on 3rd gear decided to come off. then just last night in my quest for 10's my third gear broke again.... i was just wondering if this is a common problem and if there is anything that can be done to strengthen it.

 

Yes, cars with a lot of power can break 3rd gear. To "solve" the problem you either need to back down on the shock loading or install a heavier transmission or gearset. Either one is going to cost $5k-10k.

 

I stripped off the teeth in 3rd from brake boosting. No shock, just load. It made some awful noises. Looks identical to the pics Anthony posted.

 

well what gearset would you recommend? because i really would rather not break another transmission.

 

Is it not possible to send off a good gear to a specialist and have them fabricate an improved gear out of something more durable? It would be much cheaper to just upgrade the known easily broken gears than doing a tranny conversion. I'm no tranny expert but, what's being done to the T-56 tranny that makes them so strong?

 

The T-56 has volume going for it and it was built for more torque in the first place. So the T-56 aftermarket can support the development cost of heavy-duty housings, or at least they can pick and choose parts from the highest torque OEM applications. Down the street from where I work is G-Force transmissions, and they could do it, but you'd have to pay a pretty hefty price to draw their resources away from larger and more profitable aftermarket segments. It's easier to adapt a T-56 than it is to make a perfect bolt-in transmission for the FD. You might want to contact Damian on this forum to see what his T-56 adaptation cost him.

As for a custom cut of gears, you won't get one-off's made for less than the cost of the PPG or Trust/Greddy gearsets. ($5k-7k) The FD stock internals have the countershaft gearings all made in one piece so that economically speaking I would expect that if you change one you just change all of them.

David

 

You can get gears cut for alot cheaper than that. I will be pulling a trans apart soon the see whats up with it, if it needs custom gears cut to be bullet proof....I will let you know the price of that.

 

I'd like to know where you go to get that done.

Dave

 

Problem is, driving a T-56 trans sucks. Not a fan based on the few LS1 FDs I've driven.

I also bend my third gear, lost lots of teeth. made horrible noises, I was able to limp the car 750 miles home. Thanks to Anthony for the spot-on advice

Mine died making repeated 3rd/4th gear redline pulls at 19-20 psi. No mis-shift, no over-rev.

I'm thinking it's important to keep the pulls to a minimum and not stress the hell out of the trans. Mine was also my original trans with ~125k on it (rebuilt twice). I now have a 26k-mile 2002 series 8 trans in the car...... it hasn't seen high boost yet

 

anyone had any experience with the OS Giken gear sets? im thinking thats probably the cheapest easiest solution, can be had for about 2500.00 anyone ever used them or have any opinions? i personally have a OS Giken twin plate in my car and i love it.

 

FYI - Damian did a T5. I believe it was a sequential dog box w/ straight cut gears. Look for his thread in the Race section.

 

hey whats up anthony nice kill this is gonna be my 3rd tranny is this true the you can put a gto tranny t56 on the fd

 

Anyone know if you can just use the 3rd gear only from the OS Giken set with a stock mazda gearset.


http://shop.edoperformance.com/giken...r-p-16559.html

 

no. its a complete kit, iirc it replaces the input or output shaft also