Reverse drive Subaru 5 speed for rear engine VW's now done.

[ttriebler]

STD Subaru diff ratios are 4.4, 4.1 and 3.9 so these are certainly available from us.
Wes 4.4:1 should do the job nicely I would think.

It's the other ratios of up to 5.9 that I'm awaiting confirmation on from the factory.
We will not compromise on the strength of the gears so we'll see how far we can take it.

[PhillipM]

Ok, so you have a race car and want to be able to get close to redline in 5th gear.

Pretty much, all the guys over here looking for a better gearbox are off-road racers, but if we get the redline in 4th we'd be doing well, n'mind 5th!

[Baja Wes]

yeah, I thought 300kph in an offroad racer might be a bit optimistic

[PhillipM]

Yes, having the aerodynamics of a brick wall doesn't help
~125mph and all of a sudden she don't wanna go no faster.

Just hoping that 5.9 gearset is strong enough to get rid of these 20 year old gearboxes!

[SportyBug]

This is amazing! But I would like to see pictures of it installed in a beetle first. And maybe I missed it but what about the clutch? Is it hydraulic like most modern clutches or is a cable? That and the more I look at the pictures the more I wonder about connecting our shift rod to the suby pieces. Maybe I just need to see it to understand cause it looks like the 2wd nose cone covers it up so much that it can't be reached.

[ttriebler]

Why, do you think that a couple of hundred thousand Subaru's have imaginary gearboxes?

Sorry...couldn't help it.....you get a lot of doubters around and fair enough too, it's a big committment to change gearboxes.

You will see some install pix fairly soon as we are building our test rigs now.

It's preferable to change to hydraulic clutch as this is what it's designed for but I've also designed the "Subaclutch" which is a way to make the Subaru "push" clutch fork work with the beetle "pull" clutch cable. It basically uses rose joints to reverse the direction of force from your clutch cable. Will post up once everything's fully developed and tested.

[SportyBug]

No, not a doubter. I'm just very visual and seeing it all together makes it easier to understand something new. I'm excited that this is finally a possibility

[SportyBug]

I've been searching trying to find out more about your project here and it still amazing to me. Even found a few more pictures of it on The Samba Do you have a build thread some where? I'd bet STF would let you have one on here since you are an individual and not just some big corporation. Might help you get the word out and stir up more excitement if you can follow you progress and how it goes together

[ttriebler]

Do a search on the Samba for my build thread "4WD conversion begins!"

[ambrynmc]

I'm assuming the 6 speed box is different too?

[ttriebler]

Correct...in a fashion...
The non-split case 6 speed as seen in sti's and so on is a different design and these gears do not suit.
However, some of Subaru's 2010 cars now offer the 5MT "TY" split case transmission in a revised design which is now 6 speed. It's operated by cable shift and looks like a revised 'pull' clutch. Parts of the casing have been stiffened with extra webbing but the overall length and design is the same as the 5MT "TY" split case. So its likely that the reversed gears will work on these boxes as well.

I note that these 6MT "TY" boxes are used on the new flat four Subaru diesel motors which have gobs of torque so theres a good chance that the insides have had further revisions as well.

[crimson ghost]

Subscribing for updates

[SportyBug]

Can you explain how this works. To me this looks like it shouldn't work when "shifting right or left" or rotate the shifter shaft properly

[ttriebler]

You're correct in your thought process.... if both the vw shifter rod and the subie shifter rod were held firmly in place they would not be able to rotate, overlapping rods can't do that.

However, the VW shift rod is not held in place very firmly at all and moves within the tunnel and has some flex. So joining them together like this effectively makes them 1 shift rod. It works very well, shifts precisely and smoothly and doesn't hit anything in the tunnel.

The dune buggy guys and 6 rib kombi guys have been doing something similar for years. Generally the shifter for the 091 kombi goes through into this area a lot higher than the stock beetle shifter. The dune buggy guys usually put it through their lift kit. So the two shift rods are misaligned on the vertical plane rather than the horizontal plane like the Subie. They simply weld 2 x VW shift rod clamps together and let the flex in the whole lot effectively make it 1 shift rod.

[ttriebler]

Product update : We now produce the Subaflange, an output flange that converts the Subaru box splined output to VW CV's.

Subaflange type 124 allows VW type 1 (94mm), type 2 and type 4 (100mm) CV joints
Subaflange type 930 allows Porsche 930 (108mm) CV joints only

The width is adjustable to be the same as either 091 box with vw flanges or type 1 irs box with vw flanges. This way you can retain your current cv and drive shaft installation.

The Subaflanges are made from 709m billet and will withstand any punishment. Here's the computer simulated strength analysis, notice there are no red hotspots :



Here's a couple of pix of the final product :




We're now also offering fully built reversed transmissions.
These are fitted with our flipped ring and pinion,
Subasleeve 2wd locking sleeve,
Subaplate block off plate for 2wd (or shortened centre diff housing for those with torsion bars),
Subaflange output flanges.

All transmissions are fully refurbished by factory trained personnel with over 15 years of experience working on these transmissions.

There's a grid on the site http://www.subarugears.com where you select the box according to your application, vehicle weight and engine power. Prices start from $3400 with core or $3700 outright.