Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 08:52:49 -0500
Reply-To: Derek Drew <derekdrew@RCN.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Derek Drew <derekdrew@RCN.COM>
Subject: Subaru Motors Wreck Trannies?--Commentary
In-Reply-To: <955jff+a5g6@eGroups.com>
Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1"
<html>
In an earlier email I wrote. <br>
<br>
At 05:29 AM 1/30/01 +0000, you wrote:<br>
<br>
<blockquote type=cite cite>:Please note that <br>
> installers in South Africa and Australia are reporting widespread
<br>
> destruction of the syncro trans with these subaru installations, so
<br>
those <br>
> contemplating an engine swap should drive with a light foot or pick
<br>
a mild <br>
> engine to start with. </blockquote><br>
On subsequent thought, and after receiving a strong email complaint about
this, I believe the above statement is exaggerated and unnecessarily
inflammatory. That is:<br>
<br>
1. I don't think the subaru installations are any more likely that other
types of motor upgrades--Audi, TDI, etc.--to cause problems for the
syncro trans, and in fact may be less likely to cause problems than some
of the other approaches because the subaru motors don't always appear to
have as much of the dangerous torque that some of the other motors have.
Torque is the real problem for the transmissions, as has been widely
documented in archives, particularly in overseas environments more
accustomed to alternate engine installations than ours. <br>
<br>
2. I myself would not hesitate to install a subaru motor if I had the
time to think about it, and some day I probably will upgrade my motor,
considering the risk of earlier than normal trans failure to be
acceptably low but present nonetheless. I think the subaru motor is a
fine way to go about it. There is a great mailing list for those
contemplating the upgrade or undertaking it on egroups. It is a good idea
to get those emails in your personal email archives and I am a subscriber
for that purpose. To subscribe go to
<a href="http://www.egroups.com/" eudora="autourl">www.egroups.com</a> or
the new yahoo implementation of this and search on subaruvanagon. Warren
Chapman is the moderator of this list and also distributed to me Tim
Smith's wildly useful gearing calculator, which may be found at
<a href="http://users.rcn.com/derekdrew/syncrotireandgearratios.xls" eudora="autourl">http://users.rcn.com/derekdrew/syncrotireandgearratios.xls</a>
and elsewhere, and which now should probably be updated to admit the input of revolutions per mile information rather than what Mark Drillock has helped proved in the last day or so to be the greatly less accurate generic tire size data. <br>
<br>
3. When reading about transmission failures, it seems that the most commented on item to fail is the 3-4 slider hub (but now VW supplies an upgraded part for that so in a sense that problem seems to be fixed on a long term basis), the 4th gear and sometimes 3rd gear (which seems to be particularly susceptible to failure from high rpms--higher than we run here in the USA, by the way), and especially the big main bearing. If I recall correctly, Martin S. of MSDS way back in 1991 sent me a recommendation that this main bearing be loctited into place with red loctite as a fix for this last problem. He should know--he's been running a Porsche engine in his syncro and (of course) for awhile after he put that engine in he got very interested in his transmission--probably took it out and put it back in a bunch of times. I am not a transmission expert and Dennis Haynes or Weddle can comment on the common failures from more direct experience. I have heard no discussion ever on the lists of this concept of loctiting the main bearing into place and would be curious to hear comments on this as a method to reduce transmission failures. The South Africans VW factory actually reengineered upgraded components to strengthen the syncro transmission, and this upgrade is a good idea for 2WD owners looking to upgrade. Unfortunately, rumor has it that most of the components don't go into the syncro trans. Ken Wilfy should put these on <a href="http://www.vanagin.com/" eudora="autourl">www.vanagin.com</a> soon (right Ken?).<br>
<br>
In any case, so there is no confusion, one of the sources for the comment I made was this scary sounding email:<br>
<br>
=========================================<br>
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 08:25:56 <br>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com><br>
From: David Del Ben <ddelben@AIRINTER.COM.AU><br>
Organization: Air International Transit<br>
Subject: Re: Subject: 1990 waterboxer heads - a popular topic....<br>
Comments: To: Chris Mundy <cwmundy@OPTUSNET.COM.AU><br>
<br>
Chris,<br>
There is an experienced and knowledgeable VW mechanic that I know of in<br>
Penrith just west of Sydney - Kym at Indian Automotive.<br>
(Maybe the closest we have to a Ron Salmon/Bus Depot here in Oz.<br>
He told me he was doing the Subaru conversions for a while - but then he<br>
stopped as he had trouble with his customers blowing up their<br>
transmissions. Seems the gearboxes don't like the extra power/toque of the<br>
Subaru Engines.<br>
<br>
I'm keeping a little private list of all Australians on the list - just to<br>
keep in touch etc.<br>
Email me privately if you want the address etc of the above.<br>
<br>
David Del Ben<br>
85 1.9-Carravelle<br>
<br>
======================================================= <br>
<br>
On the positive (negative?) side, the subaru torque seems like it isn't as high as the TDI, for example. Read this post from Karl, for example.<br>
<br>
====================================================<br>
<b>From:</b>"Karl M." <<font color="#0000FF"><u>THEWESTYMAN@M...</u></font>><br>
<b>Date:</b> MonJul10,20000:33am<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Syncro] 4th gear ratio<br>
I have driven several Subaru conversions, and my opinion is to stay with<br>
stock gearing. The Subaru lacks the torque curve to pull the higher gearing<br>
and maintain a consistant road speed.<br>
<br>
Karl M<br>
<br>
----- Original Message -----<br>
<br>
> I have considered changing out 4th gear, but in association with the<br>
> subaru engine swap, which seems to make more sense. <br>
<br>
===========================================================<br>
<br>
Over time, as we have more experience with Subaru motor installations here in North America, we can find out if others here experience similar problems to those experienced in Austrailia. (I cannot find the similar post from South Africa so maybe I imagined it). We did receive an email in the last few days about a failure of a transmission after an Audi installation, which provided a similar power boost to that one would get from a subaru motor: <br>
<br>
============================================================<br>
From: Mark Drillock <drillock@earthlink.net><br>
Mailing-List: list Syncro@yahoogroups.com<br>
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 08:16:57 -0800<br>
Subject: Re: [Syncro] Re: Syncro vibrations, good driveshaft, bad driveshaft position<br>
<br>
Warren, this is my 5 cylinder Syncro. I can't attribute the bearing<br>
failure to anything in particular. It has lived a harder than normal<br>
life since I bought the Syncro 7(?) years ago. It has had about 40k<br>
miles of towing use during that period. I have had the 5 cylinder for<br>
almost 2 years and 24k miles, 3/4 towing. The Redline MTL was in during<br>
this time. I had the rebuild done at a SoCal VW tranny rebuilders. No<br>
special strengthening was done. I don't think there is any that would<br>
relate to the mainshaft bearings.<br>
<br>
Mark<br>
<br>
> >Mark Drillock <drillock@e...> wrote:<br>
> > I had just had the tranny out....<and>.... my freshly rebuilt<br>
> tranny<br>
> <br>
> Mark, I assume you are talking about the tranny in your van with the<br>
> 5 Cyl conversion. To what do you attribute your tranny failure?<br>
> <br>
> Age??<br>
> Extra HP of the 5 Cyl.??<br>
> Towing Trailor??<br>
> Wrong Transmission Fluid/Oil?<br>
> Who rebuilt it??<br>
> Any special strengthening in the rebuild??<br>
> <br>
> Since I now have about the same power/torque as your engine, would<br>
> like your advice on longevity. I don't plan to do much trailering,<br>
> but my van will be loaded.<br>
<br>
=======================================<br>
<br>
Here is a couple of comments about the grossly dangerous Oettinger conversions. These seem to apply to a lesser extent but also to TDI conversions with foot stomping drivers. <br>
<br>
=======================================<br>
<br>
Here is what Thomas Niksch said about experiences with large motors in Germany: <br>
<br>
“You should also forget putting an Oettinger 3.2 <br>
into any syncro. You can count the miles, until the gear-box will "explode" <br>
because of the power - and more impotant - high torque. (They used to hve <br>
automatic with most of the 4x2 WBX 6. We have had several 1,9 TDI (110 HP, 260 <br>
Nm) conversions and the gear boxes sometimes make it only 5.000 km.”<br>
<br>
=======================================<br>
Michael, <br>
I happen to know some guys in the VW business who have the Oettinger franchise in Sydney,Aus. and are the local Oettinger tune-up gurus, although mainly these days for T4s,Golf,Passat & Polo.They have spent time in Germany at VW factory training courses and also at Oettinger training with the high performance tuning chip technology.They also sold me my Transporter WBX new in '92. Anyway they happen to have an Oettinger WBX 6cyl in a '90 Crew Cab.Originally it was in a camper that caught fire (nothing to do with the engine) and they got it for a steal from the wrecker for only $5000Aus who didn't really know what he had,or what it was worth! It has since had a top-end re-build as it was apparantly never set up right and used to ping badly,mainly I believe because it was running too hot as the stock cooling system didn't handle the 6cyl in Australian conditions. <br>
<br>
Anyway,from talking to them about it (& while looking & lusting over it) I understand the following to be things you may want to consider before deciding what to do. <br>
*At over 3 litres,they have excellent performance,but rather thirsty & therefore costly to run.(yea I know, a 2.1l in a camper aint great either but...) *Unless you have an automatic transmission,they tend to destroy manual WBX gearboxes as it isn't quite strong enough for the extra power of the Oettinger. <br>
<br>
========================================<br>
<br>
As a result of all these transmissions blowing up, the Europeans put together a special project to custom manufacturer super strengthened transmission parts, under the blessing of SDP itself, so they could drive their TDIs without such worry. <br>
<br>
You can read about this here: <br>
<br>
<a href="http://users.rcn.com/derekdrew/SEITE1.BMP" eudora="autourl">http://users.rcn.com/derekdrew/SEITE1.BMP</a> <br>
<a href="http://users.rcn.com/derekdrew/SEITE2.BMP" eudora="autourl">http://users.rcn.com/derekdrew/SEITE2.BMP</a><br>
<a href="http://users.rcn.com/derekdrew/SEITE3.BMP" eudora="autourl">http://users.rcn.com/derekdrew/SEITE3.BMP</a> <br>
<a href="http://users.rcn.com/derekdrew/SEITE4.BMP" eudora="autourl">http://users.rcn.com/derekdrew/SEITE4.BMP</a> <br>
<br>
In summary, compared to other engine conversion options, the Subaru motors may be among the best possible choices in terms of not over torquing the transmissions and therefore among the *better* choices in terms of transmission failure risk. I will consider the subaru motor myself when the time comes. <br>
<br>
<br>
________________________________________________________<br>
Derek Drew New York, NY & Washington, DC<br>
derekdrew@rcn.com<x-tab> </x-tab><br>
Email me for Viscous Couplings <br>
Now syndicating 16" Trailing Arms, Fender Flares, Final Drive Ring & Pinions<br>
'90 Syncro Westfalia... <br>
...seen off-road at <a href="http://www.tiu.net/~des/vw/drew/index.html" eudora="autourl">http://www.tiu.net/~des/vw/drew/index.html</a><br>
<br>
Also seen at: <br>
<a href="http://4wd.sofcom.com/VW/snow.html" eudora="autourl">http://4wd.sofcom.com/VW/snow.html</a><br>
<a href="http://4wd.sofcom.com/VW/Campers/Campers.html" eudora="autourl">http://4wd.sofcom.com/VW/Campers/Campers.html</a><br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><a href="http://www.vanagon.com/syncros/trips/ranger-rover/index.html" eudora="autourl">http://www.vanagon.com/syncros/trips/ranger-rover/index.html</a><br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><a href="http://www.vanagon.com/syncros/trips/peters-mill/index.html" eudora="autourl">http://www.vanagon.com/syncros/trips/peters-mill/index.html</a><br>
Note: most valuable Vanagon sites on the planet (for owners) are:<br>
<a href="http://gerry.vanagon.com/cgi-bin/wa.exe?S1=vanagon" eudora="autourl">http://gerry.vanagon.com/cgi-bin/wa.exe?S1=vanagon</a><br>
<a href="ftp://gerry.vanagon.com/pub/" eudora="autourl">ftp://gerry.vanagon.com/pub/</a><br>
<a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Syncro" eudora="autourl">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Syncro</a><br>
To sign up for the Vanagon mailing list send email to <font color="#0000FF"><u>listserv@gerry.vanagon.com<br>
</u></font><x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab>with the body text SUBSCRIBE VANAGON <i>Firstname Lastname</i> <br>
To sign up for the Syncro mailing list go to <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Syncro" eudora="autourl"><font color="#0000FF">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Syncro</a> <br>
</font> My refrigerator article: <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab> </x-tab><a href="http://www.vanagon.com/info/articles/Refrigerator/Reefer_Madness.htm" eudora="autourl">http://www.vanagon.com/info/articles/Refrigerator/Reefer_Madness.htm</a><br>
My article that shows how to deal with insurance companies: <br>
<a href="ftp://gerry.vanagon.com/pub/auto-insurance-madness.html" eudora="autourl">ftp://gerry.vanagon.com/pub/auto-insurance-madness.html</a> </html>
| 
