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I'd like to open a topic for discussion among the gear-heads out there. Last week JustinHiFi started a thread called "my favorite gear" talking about the fun of acceleration in third. I wrote a post called "Beware of 3rd Gear" and was hoping for a response, but I'm thinking it scrolled away before many people read it. (I prefer that theory to the one that says it was a stupid post and people are just ignoring me to be polite!)
So here, I'm re-posting it as a new thread. If I don't get responses, I'll shut up. :D
Last fall, I was talking to Dave at SPG9, and we were talking trannies. I had some questions on clutch replacement. During the course of the discussion, he hinted that maybe sometime in the next year or so he (and SPG9) was going to come up with a re-engineered retrofit tranny that corrected some of the weaknesses of the 5 speeds we now have. In passing, he mentioned something about the design of the third gear being the weakest part of the engine. He was saying something like the shaft that's engaged when you're in third doesn't have a bearing in the middle to support it, or that it wasn't anchored the same way to the transmission case, or words to that effect. My memory's a little foggy on that part of the conversation, but what I do remember is resolving not to go to top-of-the-redzone boost in third gear after our discussion.
Can anyone shed more light on this? Am I hallucinating here, or is there something peculiar/different/flawed about third gear and support for the shafts and rotating machinery in the tranny as compared to the other gears? I'm hoping someone who's taken one of these apart or rebuilt it might have an idea. Dave seemed to be telling me it was a design deficiency that he'd like to correct.
I freely admit I don't know what I'm talking about here, so please jump in if you have hands-on knowledge. Thanks!
- = M = -
(BTW, I'll only do WOT/redzone boosting in 4th or 5th gears. Don't ever need it in 1st/2nd, and don't want to break anything in 3rd!)
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