AkumaNoZeta

Oh, I think I see now. It's like adding a second center LSD into the mix. If I were to do it that way I would first make the two gears from your drawing into an overdrive to cancel out the reduction from the transaxle's final drive. I would also weld up the spider gears in the final drive so that all the power get transfered to the driveshafts. I'm still worried about the lifespan of the VLSD's fluid since it would be locked pretty much the whole time. I like that because it's adding another part instead of doing complicated modifications to an different part

So are you saying to put the VLSD in place of the final drive? That's what I'm getting out of it. If so you still need a way to get the power from the engine to rotate the assembly. That would pretty much have the VLSD locked up the whole time the vehicle is being driven wouldn't it? Would that cause the fluids inside the coupling to burn up a lot quicker than normally?

I like that idea. Axle splines do spline into a viscous coupling the same as a spool would doesn't it? I would like to see a photoshop though, maybe even just a drawing made in MS Paint. I'm still thinking along the lines of changing the transaxle. Here's what I think. Cut off the part of the casing that holds the final drive and cast two peices that would be used for holding the final drive but extended outwards to fit in a gear assembly like the Edelbrock one you were talking about and have it designed so that the two peices bolt together and then that whole thing bolts back on the rest of the case so that whenever you have to rebuild the transaxle it would be easier to do so than when it was in factory trim and you will get that 1:1 ratio to boot.

I found this image if it helps any http://www.davidandjemma.com/mazda/images/G25/J2-004.gif

You do have a point. But that could be taken two ways, 1.) there's already more loss so what's a little more? or 2.) We already added more loss so let's try to limit any more to be taken. I'm just trying to think of what would be the most efficient and allow future maintenance to be a little simpler. Knowing how the human brain works, we'll probably get off the computer and 5 hours later a random thought will hit us and we'll be "THAT'S IT!!! IT'S PERFECT!!!"

The problem with that idea is that you'll probably have to drill more holes in the casing in order to have the gears on shafts to rotate which would make rebuilding a little more difficult. And wouldn't having it run through more gears make more power lost through the drivetrain? Then again, if the chain idea is done then the smaller gear would have to be cut down considerably as well so the chain wouldn't rub against the case which might make that gear more prone to breakage. There's no easy solution, but that's what makes the discussion fun.

I uploaded a drawing of how a FWD transaxle is like from my text book. As you can see there is a final drive that's like the ring and spider assembly of a differential (circled in red). The only thing I can think of is to replace the gears with similiar sized ones with teet on it so you can hook a chain around them, transfer cases are done that way in big V8 trucks so it should be able to handle all the torque a little 2.0 litre, or less, can ever dish out. Sorry for the blurry photo, my scanner is all packed up so I used my camera instead and I don't have much of a steady hand. I'm 19 but feel 80, lol.

I ripped apart and reassembled a 4T60 transaxle in school, but that's an automatic not a manual. In an automatic transaxle I think the only bet you have is to replace the planetary gear system with something to work with the diffs, probably has to be custom made. I want a manual though, for me driving an automatic is so boring that it literally makes me fall asleep

Flipping it would cause problems with the pulleys and belts, the problem is they would be hitting the firewall...then again set it forward more and make sure you have enough room to access the pulleys for future maintenance. Or on a race-car make access holes through the firewall.

To sum up the edit, are you talking about just putting a tiny ring gear in there? That would pretty much make them into something like a minispool wouldn't they? I'm not an offroader so it would be street-driven if I did do it. That's why I was thinking more of doing something to the transaxle instead of the differentials.

The thing that scared me about that is the angle would be too much and cause the oil to settle away from the pick-up and we know what bad things will happen if that occurs. I had an idea about for left-hand drive steering shafts, what about the engine/trans assembly of a Toyota MR2 Spyder? I haven't been able to find a photo of the engine bay in one of those but maybe because the engine is in the back it could be mounted to the transaxle differently allowing the engine to offset to the right side, leaving ample room for the left-hand drive steering shafts. No idea though, maybe later today I'll be able to ask my nieghbor (she has a MR2) if I can check out the engine.

I didn't see that exact thread, but I saw a similar one when I did the search. That link did help because I saw the photo of that magazine page in yahoo images but they weren't near as big or as easy to see so now I have that image saved on my computer. Thank you for that.

This has gotten very interesting to me. Another thing that crossed my mind with that is the weight would be biased to the left side because of how they assembly is. If you try to center it then that would make an extreme angle for the CV shafts to make for the front diff. Then again let it be biased to the left and offset that with putting the battery in the back on the right and move the fuel cell over the right as well. I think that set-up would be best on a right-hand drive vehicle because the assembly would probably have to be pushed back a bit in order to get the differential and wheel hubs lined up properly, not to mention if it's right hand drive you won't have to worry about the steering shaft being a big concern. I like it when my brain works XD

Wait...if you mount an engine and transaxle assembly longitudilly (I'm a bad speller) then what would you do about the gear ratios? The output of the transaxle will already have the final drive in it and then it would go through another reduction at the differentials making the thing REDICUOUSLY high geared, is there a way to make the differentials a 1:1 ratio instead of 3.55:1 or whatever they is? Maybe you have to do something to the final drive of the transaxle?

Now that's something I would never have thought about, that's genius. So pretty much all they do is replace the half-shafts from the transaxle and fit driveshafts to them which go to front and rear diffs? Probably wouldn't need a driveshaft to go to the front differential because it's so close to each other? Just weld a plat to the end to bolt it to the flange, right? I think that would work if you use IRS type diffs, maybe put a U-joint in there to give it a little wiggle room. If you use a solid axle (but who wants that anyways? lol) that wouldn't work would it? Probably need to use CV joints because the up-and-down motion would be too much just for U-joints, right?

I guess I just like to think about things or something. I've been thinking about the 2G Talons and Eclipses with AWD and not to mention the Evo and just loving the idea of AWD. So I decided to try to think about ways to make the beautiful Z into an AWD. My first thought was the drivetrain of a GTR, but appearently it's been done (would love more info and photos on that car by the way). My next idea involved the SR20 because I just plain love the mid-engine effect and the engine itself, I was thinking maybe rigging up the transfer case of a 4X4 truck or something to the output shaft of the 5spd transmission and just get another differential fabbed up from and some custom length driveshafts of course. What I didn't like about that was the differential would have to be offset to one side or the other causing torque steer in the front. The next idea I had was swapping the entire drivetrain and/or supsension from a DSM (Evo, GSX, TSI AWD, etc.) but I'm not sure if the Z's chassis is wide enough for the eninge and transaxle assembly. The thing I didn't like about that was the the engine is pretty much all hanging out in front which is the opposite of the mid-engine layout I love so dearly. What does everybody else think? This is just for conversion, I'm not planning this...unless I get another Z where I can chop and weld at freely and make into an all-out racer, but I doubt it. lol. Any other idears?

The time thing was just to help me understand it a little better, sorry about that. Here's something else I've been thinking of. A smaller final drive in my high torque, low RPM Mustang performs better while a bigger gear in the low torque, high RPM Z (thinking 9000 RPM SR20) works better. From the factory the 5500RPM 5.0 Mustang comes with a 3.08 gear and I've heard that the 9000RPM S2000 comes with a 4.11 gear, that's been making me thinking final drive ratios has a lot to do with RPM. Is that right? I know rear tire size is another factor, but what other things are the big factors of rear gear ratio selection?

I'm asking this because it just jumped in my head while thinking about cars. First I was thinking about matching the diff's gear to the ratios of the transmission's gears. I was trying to think of it mathmatically at first starting by saying "since 4th gear is a 1:1 ratio and if the diff was a 3.50 (random number) then that would make the final ratio 3.50 so tran's gear X diff gear = final ratio. So if 1st was a 3.73 (random again) that would make the final ratio of 13.05" Which just sounds too high to me. Is there a real mathmatical way of looking at it? If so, am I even close to it? A different way I was thinking of it was time. Let's say you were going WFO (wide f***ing open, as in full throttle) in your car and you spent 2 seconds in first, then 3 seconds in second, 5 seconds in third, and 8 seconds in fourth. When you put a smaller gear in the differential would it just change the time spent in first, changing it to 1s in 1st, 3s in 2nd, 5s in 3rd, and 8s in 4th or would it change all of them making it like 1s in 1st, 2s in 2nd, 3.5s in 3rd, and 6s in 4th? Sorry for the length and if it's ununderstandable, but I'm just curious and have a yearning for the learning.

How hard is it to make an AC system while swapping in the SR20. The AC was already stripped from my car when I got it, what kind of problems would that cause?

Could any body shop fix the floor and roughly how much would that cost?

Well, the fuses wasn't it. One was for the HVAC fan and the other is probably the radio or the wiper motor because those are the only things I didn't test to see if that's what it fixed. I wish I had someone here that could help me. I don't have someone to cycle the key for me while I'm under the hood, etc.

Bad news about that, when I was remvoing wire looms looking for more possible shorts I found even more look connectors like that. The previous owner eliminated a lot of emission things and the AC and stuff like that, could they all be from that stuff?

I feel pretty stupid...I spent like half an hour looking for possible shorts in wires because I found one at the connector that goes to the distributor. Then I was stumped and then I was like..."Ok, what was I supposed to do before anything else?...hmmm....CHECK FUSES!!!" and I did and I found 2 10A fuses blown already and gotta go back and make a list of others that are blown before I go to the store and buy more...That should have been what I did before anything else, but nooooo. I thought I was to smart for that *Pounds self on head*

Everything else seems alright, it's just that the floor is peeled away from the frame. Just something I'll have to fix when I get the car on a rotisserie.

The other side is very similar but has structial foam seeping out of it. I couldn't get pics of the whole thing because I suck with cameras but I got a pic of the front and back of both sides. You can see where the new floor starts in the proper place but goes upward, it also looks like it was screwed together instead of welded.