Finding the Right Transaxle
I just clicked the PayPal button and bought my tranny. I probably made the selection process harder than it had to be, but I'm a total novice when it comes to transaxles. I felt I needed to educate myself on all the possible choices out there and then narrow it down to the one that best fits my motor and wallet.
This chart and a chat with Fran helped me narrow my choices down to a used Porsche box, since I plan to build a street car with a 430HP LS3 motor.
Within the world of Porsche, there are a staggering number of tranny variations. However, the adapter that RCR supplies will only fit the G50 style bell housing. In other words, the 4 bolt mount with the starter mounted on the transaxle (vs on the motor). This significantly narrows the possibilities down to the 20ish G50s, G64s, and a few of the high end G96/G97 transaxles (i.e. GT2/GT3, Twin Turbo, etc).
Many of the G50s and G64s transaxles a have very low stump puller 1st gear ratios and top gear ratios that will spin your motor 2700RPM at 70MPH. I can live with a low 1st gear, but a screaming motor on a long highway cruise gets old fast. See the Spreadsheet I attached in an earlier post below to choose the ratio that fits your needs.
So what did I buy? It was a G50/21. It’s a 6 speed with a top gear that should cruise at 2278RPM at 65MPH.
A couple of final notes
- You can use an all-wheel drive (AWD) unit. Fran tells me that it can be converted cheaply and easily.
- A long tail can be chopped to fit. Fran can do that for you quite reasonably.
Hope this helps others in their tranny quest…