Transaxle Cost - What would you pay for a 6 speed?

I am gauging interest in the manufacture of a reasonble cost heavy duty 6 speed transaxle. Probably helical cut gears and syncromesh. Would be based off an existing known quality transmission (e.g. TREMEC, Doug Nash, G-Force, Jerico, etc.). Would also run with R & P on top for best weight distribution. Obviously the cheaper the better, but for a speciality item it is harder to recoupe engineering costs over a small number of units. Anyway....

Re: Transaxle Cost - What would you pay for a 6 sp

FYI -

I remember a bunch of years back in Kitcar or one of the rags had a guy in Texas (I think) that was working on such a thing. It was back when the 5 speed was actually from doug nash before the richmond gear buyout. The basic idea was the 5 speed moved into a custom housing that bolted to a quick an IRS quick change rear end. It looked very nice, but never saw much of it after that. The case of the trans was replaced with the new housing and it retaind the guts of the trans. The extra cool part was the quick change since you could get standard QC gears it was a nice deal.

Problems problems likely to be size, mounting and shifter. Was a good ideas since you still can get a 5 from the mail order rags under 2k (No shifter) and the 6 speed under 3K (with shifter).

Good luck on the project.

Sandy

There was a guy down in New Mexico or Texas who was building a Richmond-based five or six speed transaxle that used the standard Richmond RWD trani with a quick-change gear set mounted where the tail housing would go, the lower gear splined onto a driveshaft routed through the belly of the transmission into a custom-made differential housing between the bellhousing and trans that supported Ford nine-inch gear sets, including limited slip differentials. I believe it was called the QC-850. It was fairly expensive, very hard to get, (because the engineer who designed it was a consultant to a waste management company the always had him out on the road somewhere). The one major down side was that the QC-850 was a monster. It was very long and would, in all likelihood, stick out from under the ass of your car. It was said to be very durable, capable of handling 650+ HP. I have a brochure somewhere in my reference files. If anybody's interested, I'll see if I can't dig it up. There is also a fellow in Orange California, Ron Butfoy (or was it Ray?) that designed a ZF-based six speed transaxle. Its about 3-4 Inches longer than the five-speed and the last time I was able to reach Mr. Butfoy, he was asking around $14,000.00 (!) for the brand new transaxles. I visited the shop several times, it was next to a car dealership, same side of the street, about two blocks east of Anaheim Stadium, east of the freeway interchange. It may have been a Pontiac dealership.

RBT transaxles are currently producing new ZF 5 speeds and 6 speeds. I am interested in the Richmond based transaxle but ours would have to have the R&P mounted in the front between the engine and gear sets.

Mark,

It was Roy Butfoy, who, unfortunately passed on. His son, Lloyd is now running the business.

Lynn