Audi 016 Heavy Duty gear set

Guys,
First a little background, I know it`s boring but please stay with me.....
I work for a small UK firm called Competition Transmission Services and we, as the name would sudgest, build transmissions.
Some time ago we felt there was call for a heavy duty gear set for the european `world class` T5 transmission as fitted to the Sierra Cosworth and some TVRs. We asked Quaife Engineering to produce these kits for us and have been selling them world wide for a couple of years now with what could be called fair degree of sucess, so far we have not had one failure, this despite the ever increasing power outputs of the guys running them, the highest we know of so far is over 600bhp and still going strong.
About 18 months back I joined this merry little GT40 band, having bought a 20 year old unstarted KVA, yep, in at the deep end /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
Now having a background of riding superbikes and wanting a GT40 with too much power than is probably good for you I soon realised that I was going to need a pretty strong transmission and not being in the position to afford a ZF started a campain of harassment on Bernie, the owner of CTS /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif.
So, the bit your waiting for, if you`ve not got bored and gone to read about, or watch, drying paint.
I`m glad to say that it paid off, and thought this as good a time as any to anounce that we at CTS will, with Quaife Engineering, be producing a heavy duty gear kit for the Audi 016 transmission /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
This will be a full gear set including input shaft and will use the standard Audi final drive ratios (3.89 and 4.11). The tooth form will be of a semi helical design and will retain the synchromesh gear engagement and standard cases. Ratios have not been finalised but will give a good usable spread and should top out at 6000prm (using the 3.89 final drive ratio) at around 180mph, should your engine be capable of running over 7000rpm in top, we see no reason why you won`t see a genuine 200mph. These ratios were arrived at using a middle ground between origonal tyre sizes and modern ie: 335/35/17 so should suit most cars. This gear set will also work well on track as a close ratio set by using the standard Audi 4.11 final drive ratio.
We see this gear set as a double solution to the problems of potential weakness in the standard transmission while also rectifying the issues concering usable gear ratios.
Baring disaster we should be able to supply these gear kits sometime later this year at a proposed price of 1340 UK pounds.
This, including the optional Quaife ATB LSDs that are available at 660 UK pounds, should keep the price under two grand for the full gear set and ATB differential.
And this is pretty much what we set out to do, we felt there was a real need for a sensibly priced, good strong transmission for a mid engined car with the right ratios for a supercar (read as GT40, I wasn`t going to let us make something I couldn`t use /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif), and should have the option of fitting a torsen type LSD, we know the ATB and like the way it works and it`s strength has never been a question.
So there you have it, I`ll post a list of gear ratios as soon as we have them, pictures when we have the gear set, etc and keep you all up to date as and when things progress.
Cheers,
Stuart.

Sounds good!

I've got an RF GT40 so this solves my problem trying to choose a box for it. So put me down for a set please!!

Check your messages.

We`ll start an order book pending on delivery of the first batch, intitaly we would probably be looking at around 25-30 kits but if the interest is there we can always up that figure, it`s always a pain waiting on production runs.
Cheers,
Stuart.

You have got my attention! Please let me know as soon as more info is available.

Regards,
RV

That's great news. But why didn't you do it for the 01E instead of the 016? You'd be starting with a better platform. Was it because there are a lot more 2WD 016 boxes available?

Hi Mark,
That`s about the sum of it, the 016 has good availablity, is cheap and with the pull of a V8 if you have five good ratios you shoudn`t realy need six, just means changing gear more often LOL and a six ratio gear kit would have been more expensive and priced some people out of the market so the 016 got the vote.

I'll be keeping a close eye on your progress too Stuart. Alternatively feel free to keep me posted by e-mail.

aah Stuart, at last no more secret cups of tea at Markyate discussing this /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif Thanks for the call last night, I'll be in for one eventually, as discussed.

Brett

Hi Stuart,
Is there any way to work a transaxle inversion into this situation? Obviously the lower we can get the engine the better. I suspect it would require some case changes that may not be feasible as a "kit".

Thanks

Stuart, this is good information and of course you are welcome on the board, but it is also advertising. I can tell you there will soon be a day that these sort of posts will be deleted if they are coming from non-supporters or non-advertisers (a coming class of support).

Not really the way I want to operate but after studying about 15 other online communities from Scrapbooking to Martial Arts to Flying to Yachting I've come to the conclusion that just about all of them operate on the folks that stand to make $$$, not the members that make the community. There will be a more complete post later, just wanted you to know since I'm moving the topic to the transaxle forum where it belongs.

Add me to the list for a set of gears.

Ron, no worries mate, nothing comes for free these days. When you know how things are going to work, with regard to traders supporting the site, we will certainly be interested. We do support another auto site in a similar manner and agree that this is the way it should be.

Stuart,

Please keep me posted on your progress also, via e-mail.

No worries Stuart, your post just happened to come at a time when I'm completing the software to handle the banner and advertising duties. I am also highly interested in one of these sets as I'll be running an 016 and am planning on severe duty for it. The 01E as Mark mentioned would be good too, but the market is in the 016s. I've had a friend of mine in Germany looking for the 01Es for me, 2wd, and they can be found but are rare. Seems that if you're spending 70k on a car, Audi A8, our German friends figure it should be 4wd too - not 2wd, so there are not as many of those 2wd boxes around.

Your market is definitely in the 016 boxes as there are a lot of those in use for the GT40s.

Ron

I build GT40 cars using the 351w motors. We usually do the stroker motors so we can get 427 ci. The horsepower is always verified on the dyno so that when our clients friend s hear the story about power, they can show the dyno sheet with the engine number and date. Since we test at over a mile high we also furnish the corrected numbers for sea level which usually amounts to 15-20% increase.

My dilemna has always been the transaxle. I would be very interested in assisting you with this development in my demonstrator cars which are normally under 450 hp so that there wouldn't be any great strain on the unit. We too are in the process of developing an automatic transaxle which is an expensive undertaking so must progress slowly. We have several agencies that would like to handle our cars as a lease program. We would then repurchase the cars at the end of the lease and turn them into leased race cars for nostalgia and SCCA events.

As you know the ZF is a very good unit however in the bigger power the units frequently fail.Theyt are also very difficult to inventory parts etc due to the cost and availability. We have used some of the Audi getrag units and many can't get out of the shop before a failure occurs within. The Porsche units are difficult to adapt and also fail, mostly under deceleration. It would be nice to get some expert involvement to develop a unit strong enough with a versatile set of gears to withstand punishment. Look what they did with the puny powerglide automatic that now will hold 4000 hp everyday.The Richmond 4 speed!
You can email me direct also at [email protected]. I am not a salesman nor do I participate in the chat rooms since most of those fellows apparently already know considerably more than I ever will. I will not compromise any of your proprietary information but rather share mine with confidentiality. Who knows, could be worthwhile.

I'm interested in this gear set also. Please keep us posted.

Charlie

I am also interested. Would be possible to do other gearboxes as well.

Is there a "typical" failure mode with these boxes? Does it usually damage the case when it fails. I'm considering polishing the aluminum case parts but if a failure is going to trash the case I don't want to put that much work into it.

Charlie

The one draw back of the 016 transaxle is the mid section.
It has the bearing collar for the main shaft. This collar is not strong and it will fail if sudden torque is applied. What happens is the the input shaft absorbs the torque and flexes. This flex causes the bearing in that section to rise and this breaks the collar around the bearing. This mid section is a cast iron piece and it is fine for what it was designed for. It does an exellent job up to about 300 to 350 FT LBS of torque. After that you are flirting with failure. I would love to see this section made from billit with a little more support the bearing area.
You just have to realize that the GT40's that use this trans are road race cars and not dragstrip cars. I'm not saying you have to baby the trans, I'm saying that you can't do 3500RPM clutch dumps and expect it to last very long.

Hersh /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

As enough people have asked, here are the proposed ratios for our 016 kit.
They are approximate for now, as final tooth counts are yet to be established.
1st; 2.54:1, 2nd; 1.66:1, 3rd; 1.21:1, 4th; 0.895:1, 5th 0.675:1.
Below is a graph to show speed to revs relationships through the gears.
Figures used for the graph were 3.89:1 final drive, along with a 335/35/17 tyre. We used our online (Excel) ratio calculator for this. if you wish to crunch these numbers with different tyre/final drive options, the calculator is available at http://www.gearboxman.co.uk/content/gearspeeds.xls