The Transaxle Thread

Sean@Weddle said:
This is true. 

It's actually been a long time coming. Albins has been threatening to raise pricing on all of their products for the past 5 or 6 years. The increases in raw materials this past few years finally forced them to get things in order. It's a stiff increase, but we have not raised prices on these since 2010, so instead of a few small increases over the years, it's one big increase this year.

For what it's worth, our S4D sells for $17,500 and I will put it up against about 1400 HP/TQ at the crank. There are few high powered cars running these with all of our updates and upgrades last season with good results. 
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Is a S4D available or is it like an Albins with a year wait?

 
Mac said:
@Sean@Weddle Any recommendations for a shop near Havasu for a 2D rebuild?  It still runs, but I stopped driving it once I heard noise so not to make it worse.
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Jason at J&S Transaxles. 

Wallnutz said:
Is a S4D available or is it like an Albins with a year wait?
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Still about 6-months out on delivery for kits that we have sitting here waiting for various parts. But, as we are getting those parts, we are putting more parts back on the shelf after we fulfill what is needed for kits. So hopefully (key word), if you order a trans in 3 months, you may not be waiting 6 more months, but more like 3-4 since we should have more parts available to build more transmissions. 

Bottom line is that we are making more parts per batch, to fulfill current demand and get our inventory levels back up.

 
So you are telling us there is a bit of light at the end of the part shortage tunnel?   

 
Mac said:
Thank you.  I couldn't find them on a Google search.  Where are they located?
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928-208-six three eight five. Side hustle after his day job, usually better to call late afternoons.

 
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KLC said:
A question for Sean...Was poking around the Weddle website and I noticed that the price of an HV24 is now $15,995, which puts it at the same cost as an S4. Did Weddle seriously increase the price by $7000?

I want to install the internal oil pump in my HV24, where is the pump located and how much work is it to put it in? I have the technical expertise to do it I've been a tech for 35 years, I tell people that if a human has assembled something then I can surely take it apart and fix it lol. 

I know the internal pump is driven only with motion of the wheels, can the oil pump circuit be externally tapped and a cooler and filter be installed or is it better to just use an external pump for that and not even bother with the internal pump?
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Sean I believe you missed my post.  :classic_cool:

 
KLC said:
Sean I believe you missed my post.  :classic_cool:
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lol, i was on the site last week, i was going to suggest to someone the HV, but after seeing the price, i told him to go with a S4, if this is a true price, why even sell the HV, 

 
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KLC said:
Sean I believe you missed my post.  :classic_cool:
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J Alper said:
lol, i was on the site last week, i was going to suggest to someone the HV, but after seeing the price, i told him to go with a S4, if this is a true price, why even sell the HV, 
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Yes, I missed this one.

HV-24 and HV-25 did go up significantly. These were always a bit underpriced from the time we released them, we wanted to get them out there and running to show people how much better they are over a 2D. They should have been evenly priced with the S4/S5 units from the start, now that we have a few hundred of them out and running around, it was time to price them where they need to be to remain sustainable. 

If not for the recent inflation increase, these would have only gone up a few thousand dollars. But, you can thank whoever you choose for the bigger jump than what it should have been. 

I will still push an HV-2 trans over an S4/S5 to the vast majority of people. These are easy to operate and almost impossible to damage unless you are just plain abusive and trying to shift them like a sequential. We have made a massive improvement to the shifting, specifically to 2nd gear using a modern dual cone synchronizer rather than the VW 091 synchros that we're not really up to the task to shift these bigger gears.

There are many features in the HV-2 units that are stronger, and much longer lasting over the sequential units. The only thing holding these back from being as strong as a sequential is the smaller diff gears (same as an MD trans). Other than that, pound for pound, the HV-2 units will hold up much longer than any other transaxle on the market. That is not a sales pitch, it is a fact! 

Sequentials are awesome! But, you need to know and understand how they operate to avoid damage to them. Now that we have the sequential units well sorted out and holding together, we are only really seeing damage to the engagement dogs on the gears, mostly due to poor timed shifts. 

That is where the HV-2 will win out as long as you are not pushing more than 600 HP through them. The fact that you can run these HV-2 units 2-3 times longer between services is where the money you spend up front, pays off in the long run. Once you cross that 600 HP/TQ threshold, then yes, the sequential is really your only option to reliably handle that power.

 
More HV-24 facts:

Wide Open Baja rents their Subaru powered buggies for the SCORE races in Mexico. These are an arrive and drive rental program with full support for bucket list types that want the Baja racing experience without investing in an entire car. They pretty much guarantee you a finish and will replace anything on the car during the race as needed.

They were originally built with 094 transmissions back in the mid 2000's. They were hard on transmissions, and the cars were built in a way that they could remove and replace a transaxle in the field in about 30 minutes. Needless to say, their pit teams got pretty good at replacing transaxles during the races.

After having multiple failures on the 094 units, they upgraded to HV-1 transmissions around 2010/2011. These held up much better during the races, but still needed constant repair between races due to the 091/094 1st-4th gears. Typically 1st/2nd/and 3rd gears, along with a variety of other wear items like bearings and synchros were replaced a few times a year. 

They ran these cars with HV-1 transmissions for the next 6 years or so. They still actually run their daily rental program with these transmissions. 

Once we released the HV-24 transmissions, I got in their ear and let them know how much better these were over the HV-1, and they should be using these in their race cars. Their race car fleet all got upgraded around 2017/2018 I think. 

Since then, their service bills on the race car units was drastically reduced. They are no longer replacing gears and bearings at the rate they were. They still need to replace synchros and diff gears, but these are fairly inexpensive. The gearboxes are lasting longer in between services and they are getting more miles between rebuilds. Looking back at their sales history over the past few years, I don't see one order for HV-24 1st-4th gears. 

 
KLC said:
I want to install the internal oil pump in my HV24, where is the pump located and how much work is it to put it in? I have the technical expertise to do it I've been a tech for 35 years, I tell people that if a human has assembled something then I can surely take it apart and fix it lol. 

I know the internal pump is driven only with motion of the wheels, can the oil pump circuit be externally tapped and a cooler and filter be installed or is it better to just use an external pump for that and not even bother with the internal pump?
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Pump is located inside the gearbox and can only accessed by removing the forward housings (nosecone and gear carrier housing). The trans has to be assembled with it, or completely disassembled to install one. It is a mechanical pump using gears to circulate the oil, and driven off the pinion shaft, so it is pumping anytime the wheels are in motion, even if being towed with the engine off and in neutral.

There is a pressure regulator, and pressure release built into the pump to allow for blow off under hard accelerations or jarring bumps. 

The return line only requires (1) AN-8 fitting that can be located in 2 different spots on the trans. This return line feeds internal galleys in the cast housings and spray bars that feed oil to every upper bearing and gear in the trans. I cannot iterate how trick and cool this feature is, and really helps bearing and gear longevity.

Most recreational users will never require any sort of cooler, most people do not drive these cars long enough and hard enough to get the trans too hot. A simple direct line from the "pump out" fitting direct to the return fitting is all that is needed. 

If you want to be Johnny Racecardriver, and feel the need to run a cooler, you can simply run the line from the pump out to the cooler, then out of the cooler and into the trans. Easy peasy. 

 
Sean@Weddle said:
Sequentials are awesome! But, you need to know and understand how they operate to avoid damage to them. Now that we have the sequential units well sorted out and holding together, we are only really seeing damage to the engagement dogs on the gears, mostly due to poor timed shifts. 
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I think the how to shift a sequential thread disappeared with all the other good info. Would you mind reviewing the proper sequential etiquette to keep the alive for a long time please?

 
Ok thank you sir for your informative posts. 

When we bought our HV-24 we were swapping from a Honda/094 to an LS/HV-24. There were a lot of frame modifications made to accommodate the HV-24, it is a big bitch and heavy too. There are no real issues with it, other than some quirks to shifting it when cold first thing in the morning, but that goes away when warmed up. I am going to try some of the 75w-190 oil as you have suggested, instead of the LAT that I have been using, and I'll report back to the group if there were improvements in cold shiftability. 

There is a pesky drip from one of the side cover o-rings that I see on the garage floor during the off season but it isn't enough to warrant a repair at this point in time. 1 or 2 drips a week at the most is all it is, it seems that when it is used in the winter the drips stop completely. 

I have the oil out of it right now, and after 3 seasons on it and probably 3 or 4 gear oil changes there still isn't much on the magnet. I was happy with that.

 
Sean does the HD4 with the 13" ring gear ( no longer in production) use the same gears as the s4s?

 
KLC said:
There are no real issues with it, other than some quirks to shifting it when cold first thing in the morning, but that goes away when warmed up. I am going to try some of the 75w-190 oil as you have suggested, instead of the LAT that I have been using, and I'll report back to the group if there were improvements in cold shiftability. 
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Not to throw another wrench in the gears, but we have been using and supplying the Torco RTF oil for the new HV-2 going out the door for the past few months. Ron ran it in his test trans and it seemed to really help out the shifting. You will probably want the multi-cone synchro upgrade for 2nd gear when you plan on pulling it for it's first service, that is the bigger help.

badboy6 said:
Sean does the HD4 with the 13" ring gear ( no longer in production) use the same gears as the s4s?
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No, they were larger/wider. 1st idler gear was about the size of a spare tire for a Honda Civic. 

 
Prop a dumb question....

but does gear oil in an S4S warm up while the car is idling? or does it need to be in gear, rolling in order to get the gear oil warmed up. 

 
EmpirE231 said:
Prop a dumb question....

but does gear oil in an S4S warm up while the car is idling? or does it need to be in gear, rolling in order to get the gear oil warmed up. 
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While the gears in the trans are spinning while in neutral and engine running, there is not enough load on them to generate much heat. It might get some radiant heat from the engine transferring through the bell housing, but the trans will only really start warming up with some moderate driving. 

 
Mac said:
@Sean@Weddle Any recommendations for a shop near Havasu for a 2D rebuild?  It still runs, but I stopped driving it once I heard noise so not to make it worse.
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Sam is in Havasu about every weekend, I'm sure he could take it with him to Rancho for you. 

 
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