[ant7]

Excellent, well informed post!
Anthony...

Originally Posted by Cluskera

I'm a bit tired of seeing the "G50" adverts I have to confess. I find it laughable someone would see a need to advertise a car with the gearbox type in the title. I find it amusing that the conversation becomes more muted when the fabled 73 RS comes into the fold, as though paying 250000 for a car suddenly means the gearbox is okay.

I think adverts on here and any 911 forum should be banned if they use this as a mechanism for ultimately damaging the reputation of brilliant cars with a properly sorted silky 915. It also leads to ludicrous scenarios like people hashing a good car to fit a g50 in when it never had one.

All the g50 nonsense highlights is how few people own or have truly driven a car with a properly sorted 915. By the time the 5th owner has the car they think "it's normal " and the effort to right the wrongs is admittedly beyond some people either cost wise or from a patience point if view or expertise point of view.

Porsche never built a car with a bad gearbox. The word bad the emphasis.

Here are some excerpts from the article titled "box of delights".

For years, a myth has been perpetuated that Porsche's 915 gearbox isn't very good. However like many things in Porsche folklore, the truth is very different.

Check the classifieds and you'll see that prices of the 3.2 carreras are usually higher for post-87 cars and these adverts invariably include the magic words "G 50 gear box".

The 915 gearbox was derived from the 916 unit which had been built for competition in the 908 racer.The 915 made its first appearance on a 911 in '72 with the 2.4 liter engine which had 8% more torque than the previous 2.2. The 915 is a fine competition gearbox; light fast and accessible. Just look at it's racing record - all the 911's successes from the seventies and eighties.

Attached though Porsche was to the design of the 915 gearbox, it's torque capacity was ultimately to prove finite despite continuous upgrades. But as each new 911 iteration was introduced, torque increased between 5 to 10 %... finally the 915's capacity to transmit was reached. Rather than invest in tooling for a new gearbox casing for a larger capacity 915, Porsche turned instead to a cheaper solution represented by the Borg Warner synchromesh which was already sued in the Audi gearboxes fitted to the 924 and 944 models. So Schmid's light, competition oriented design was reluctantly abandoned.

The 915 was a classic product of a company devoted to competition and owners were expected to know how to use the clutch correctly. But the problem was drivers did not always use it correctly with the result that the gearbox was eventually prone to baulking with which it is associated today and the lower ratios become more difficult to engage.

John Sadler an unshamed purist for whom the 915 is an integral part of the Porsche experience accepts that Porsche had to switch to the G50 as both the torque and weight of the 911 had increased. But for him the G50 was somewhat of a variance with the principle of the 911.

The classic 911 enthusiast who finds an exceptional 915 car, could get himself a 911 that is closer to traditional Porsche values and for real aficionados will offer more satisfaction than a 911 with the G50.