Anyone Using a WEVO XT-915 Racing Trans?

wolffie911 · 08-29-2013, 07:45 AM

???

Cory M · 08-29-2013, 09:10 AM

We've got a trans with the Wevo shifter, gateshift, 1 piece bearing retainer, and I think the side cover too. Quality parts with lots of racing miles behind them to back it up. What do you need to know?

chris_seven · 11:45 AM

I don't think the 'dog' selected gears are in production now.

There is a company in Australia making a dog gear kit for the 915 but it only works with their own straight cut gears and pricing seems a bit out of reach - at least here in the UK where the importer is (I believe) charging around $20k to supply and fit.

Modena Engineering in Victoria used to make a kit that worked with standard helical gears but they don't offer them now.

I think Albins have a kit drawn up but want an order for 10 sets before they manufacture - price is around $6k per kit

Drawing up a face dog set up to replace the synchros wouldn't be too difficult if there was enough interest but they wouldn't nice for a road car.

Flieger · Flieger's Garage

This guy used dog engagement, but it is a 930 case, and it is only 2 speed.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911-technical-forum/762965-worlds-lightest-930-transmission.html

KTL · 08-29-2013, 01:49 PM

Wevo and Guard helped my buddy cstreit with his pesky 3rd gear problem on the 915. They joined forces and put together a 3-4 setup that solved his exploding 3rd gear problem. You can hear the clashing a bit on 4th gear downshifts

MotoDelta Motorsports at BHF - YouTube

NASA GTS at Road America - Chris Streit #15 Porsche - YouTube

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-autocross-track-racing/351652-dog-gear-conversion-my-915-a.html

I traded messages with Roger Brown at California Motorsports (CMS) about the Albins dog engagement kit not too long ago and he said Albins discontinued it due to lack of support from the market.

Matt Monson at Guard has been working on a 915 dog shift trans to update their previous design. Maybe inquire with him. I've still got that on my wish list.......

gestalt1 · 08-29-2013, 07:03 PM

This might sound crazy but how streetable would a dog conversion be? I like to drive to, and hopefully from the track.

KTL · 08-30-2013, 07:12 AM

I recall Subie guys that do the Albins dog-shift conversion on their WRX say its streetable. Do a little research on that front and see what else you can find?

Matt Monson could give you some good feedback. He & I were talking a few years back about it.

chris_seven · 08-30-2013, 10:06 AM

We used them on Escort Rally Cars for years - they can be driven on the street but they aren't elegant and slow lazy gear shifts aren't an option.

When I last spoke to Albins (January this year at the Autosport Show in Birmingham) I had the impression that they never made dog kits but had them drawn and would make them if someone ordered 10 sets.

Jedi · Jedi's Garage

Here in South Africa we have an engineering company that has been converting 915's to dog gear engagement for over 10 years now. They replace all the 2nd - 5th gears, output shaft and various other mods. Initially they were not very reliable but over the years they have sorted out the issues and they have become reliable, or certainly more reliable than the normal 915's. There are about 7 or 8 cars using the transmission and all the cars are using 3.6 lt motors with around 350hp on the crank. I have used one this year and completed a 6 hour race, 4 x 1 hours and 8 x 20min sprint races, plus all the practices, qualifying etc without any real problems. We have only now had to open it up to replace a 3rd gear engager that was baulking a bit, and the part was off the shelf. The conversion costs around $6500, but of course you guys would have the logistics issue of dealing with a supplier here in SA. I would only recommend them for racing use as they can be quite noisy and I recon that you can get a road 915 to behave with the right bits.

Matt Monson · 09-04-2013, 12:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KTL

Matt Monson at Guard has been working on a 915 dog shift trans to update their previous design. Maybe inquire with him. I've still got that on my wish list.......

Just a correction. I don't think we'll ever again do dog box for the 915. As Roger told you, not enough market support in my opinion either. What I've been exploring is doing a 915 with VW style Borg-Warner synchros. This would be the ultimate 915 gearbox.

Well, other than the $20k gearbox Chris mentioned, which is not Aussie made. It's British and was a bespoke design for Francis Tuthill by a guy named Andre (former owner of Gemini out of South Africa, which he sold to Ricardo UK about 3 years ago). What Tuthill had Andre do was a full sequential gearbox conversion. It requires a new casting for the center section to handle the drum, and thus part of the cost.

There is another kit that Tuthill commissioned by an operation out of Australia called PPG. According to my conversations with Francis, it never worked right and PPG wasn't terribly interested in working out the bugs unless Tuthill kept wiring more money. So they pulled the plug. Buyer beware, if you see PPG 915 dog box kits advertised for sale you are buying prototype works in progress and not refined finished products.

Britian's 930 conversion that was linked is the old Albins kit. Hasn't been made in years, but between Hayden at Wevo and myself, we managed to get him into a complete gearbox with a few spares.

I believe that I've spoken to the OP. I'll be helping him sort it out. The XT kit is different than the conversion and has the dogs cut right onto the gears.

Regards,

Matt Monson
Guard Transmission LLC

KTL · 09-04-2013, 01:23 PM

Thanks for the correction as usual. I forgot it was Borg Warner synchros you were exploring. Good stuff nonetheless for the future of the 915!

I guess i'll have to shed a tear when I go out in the garage tonight. The dream of a 915 dog box some day just ain't gonna happen.......

Will have to save many many many many pennies instead for a Pro-Shift G50 build.

Matt Monson · 09-04-2013, 02:03 PM

Kevin,
We can do your G50 as a conversion. I still have plenty of parts for those, either special ratio or on your existing gears. Just put together a spare kit for the Skinne 8 second drag Beetle about an hour ago.

Anything new we would do for the 915 is still at least a year off. Right now Cayman gears are the flavour of the moment.

KTL · 09-05-2013, 08:49 AM

Well considering I just dumped a pretty penny on a "custom" Tilton/Wevo/MotoDelta/ProRaceStore hydraulic lightweight clutch & flywheel setup for my racecar, the 915 is going to have to suffice for a while. Just figured going forward several years down the road, it may be better to do a G50 instead of houring-out my 915 and starting over with new gears. We'll see.

chris_seven · 09-06-2013, 12:16 AM

Pfitzner Performance Gearbox - Surpassing Limitations

I guess the .au is misleading

Matt Monson · 09-06-2013, 09:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chris_seven

Pfitzner Performance Gearbox - Surpassing Limitations

I guess the .au is misleading

I don't understand?

PPG is Australian. They are former Modena employees. Here in the States their name is kind of mud since they've had so many of their Subaru dogboxes blow up.

chris_seven · 09-08-2013, 12:30 AM

I just don't see how I can be mistaken ?

Matt Monson · 09-09-2013, 11:56 AM

So because it's on the internet is has to be true? PPG probably just lifted a picture of Tuthill's car. Trust me, that gearkit is not "Tuthill Endorsed". Feel free to buy a set and see how well they work. Please be sure to report back.

chris_seven · 09-10-2013, 09:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matt Monson

So because it's on the internet is has to be true? PPG probably just lifted a picture of Tuthill's car. Trust me, that gearkit is not "Tuthill Endorsed". Feel free to buy a set and see how well they work. Please be sure to report back.

Internet BS is one thing, fraudulent claims are something quite different.

Esteemed British motoring journalist of Drive TV andwww.pistonheads.com, Chris Harris, has proclaimed the Pfitzner Performance Gearboxes (PPG) five-speed, straight cut dog gearbox in the Tuthill Porsche 911 as “sensational… a thing of joy.”

Chris Harris was testing the Francis Tuthill Porsche 911 rally car at the Prodrive Test Facility, Warwickshire for Drive TV and said: “The (PPG) dog gearbox is sensational. The gearbox is a thing of joy.”

Watch the sensational Pfitzner equipped Tuthill Porsche 911 being put through its paces by Chris Harris Drive TV fame:

A Very Special Porsche 911 - /CHRIS HARRIS ON CARS - YouTube

Matt Monson · 09-10-2013, 09:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chris_seven

Chris Harris was testing the Francis Tuthill Porsche 911 rally car at the Prodrive Test Facility, Warwickshire for Drive TV and said: “The (PPG) dog gearbox is sensational. The gearbox is a thing of joy.”

Actually that is not what he said. You left out part of the quote. What he said was,"The dog gearbox, as he misses a shift, is sensational".

See that's the root of the problem and why Tuthill abandoned it. The gearbox missed a lot of shifts. Harris, being a naive journalist, blamed himself for the bad shift. The issue is that when they started racing on it, it (the gearbox) missed a lot of shifts. And it broke, frequently. That video is a year and a half old. That's an eon in motorsports.

Call up Tuthill. Ask them if they are still running that gearbox in that car and how it is working out for them. Tell them that you would like to buy one to run in your car. Report back with your findings. I've got $50 that says they encourage you to buy Andre's gearbox instead.

wevoid · wevoid's Garage

I was in the UK in early July and visited with Tuthill's. Richard Tuthill and I went over to see Gemini in Brackley and go through the features of the recent design work by Andre. I also saw the first example torn down after a tarmac event.

The work is of the highest quality and it is a complete departure from the OE architecture of the 915 (except for the 76mm shaft spacing). The Gemini kit is housed in an outwardly complete 915 casing - no special hosuings, although various modifications are performed to package the Gemini architecture, shift rails, detents, interlock, gates, etc.

WEVO have cooperated with Tuthill from the outset of their 915 dog box projects, in an effort to help them avoid the steep learning curve that we jumped onto in 1997 with the Modena Kit (AKA GT and/or XT kit).

The PPG kit unfortunately had many of the same initial issues, some of them very avoidable. In my estimation it never reached the reliability of the old XT kit, of which WEVO assembled 25 units between 1998 and 2004. It is one of these older - no longer supported - units that started this thread.

I am sure the Gemini kit is the end game on this 915 Dog Box topic. It will be honed to perfection and will be both competitive and reliable for the service it is intended for. Part of our discussions in July included the adaptation of the Rally box for the Road Racing market draw from the USA. That will follow the full deployment of the Rally version to Tuthill and their immediate market - which is also global.

It will be expensive and for good reason - there is a high parts count and very high quality, low volume components. The transmissions will have to be built in the first case by Gemini or other experts of their allocation. However - once the conversion is completed, the transmission will be easy to service by any capable technician. I expect the price will be about $20K, but given that the last XT-915 WEVO built in 2004 was in the low $14K's I think the Gemini version represents great value.

I have not followed the fate of the PPG kits after Tuthill canned them and switched to Gemini - who are very local to their facility. But I sense that at the right price point, the kit may find some who are tolerant of the advantages - in couple with the reliability question marks.

Hayden