Guard Transmission's GT3 "Cup Car' 2 piece mainshaft show and tell
#1
05-26-2010, 04:28 PM
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Boulder, CO
Posts: 513
Rep Power: 0 
Guard Transmission's GT3 "Cup Car' 2 piece mainshaft show and tell
Hello,
We just got in a shipment on a new product, so I figured I'd snap a few photos and give the tech junkies around here a little something to drool over.
One of the most common complaints for GT2 and GT3 owners who track their cars is that their 2nd gear ratio is fixed on the mainshaft. Up until now, your only option is to spend a silly amount of money of a Porsche Motorsports Cup Car mainshaft with swappable second gear from one of the 99-2005 synchronized gearboxes. Well, that's not your only option anymore. While we have long produced 2 piece mainshafts for racing, we've never made them in a ratio that was tolerable for driving the car on the street and they were really only suited for dedicated racecars. With our new ratio offering, that's no longer the case. What we've done is make it in a 3.000 1st gear. This is very streetable, and when coupled to the appropriate 2nd gear is also going to make your car faster on the track. And you are also getting something that is roughly 40% stronger than stock.
It uses our proprietary 2 piece design. It's this design and the ability to manufacture the unit out of two very different metals that is key to the greater strength of this product. The quill, the section that mates to the clutch disc, is made out of 300M steel. This is the same steel used in high end axles and torsion bars. It's got a "spring rate" to it. What this means is when you release the clutch and all the force of your engine is transferred to the gearbox, it gives and absorbs some of the shock. It protects the gearstack itself from taking all that shock load.
Then the other half of the shaft is made out of 9310 vacuum processed gear steel. It gives you a super strong and stable platform to assemble the gearstack on. There's no need to compromise in either material or the heat treatment in an attempt to perform two functions. The parts leave our factory ready to install with no further treatments or modifications to make them stronger.
Guard Transmission has been using this design for more than ten years. It's such a good design, that a couple of years ago Porsche adopted it for use in their GT3R and RSR sequential gearboxes. Professional racers were removing the factory 1 piece mainshafts and replacing them with ours. Porsche Motorsports figured if you can't beat them, join them.
Another part of why our gears are always stronger than Porsche's stock gears is our tooth count. If you look at the picture below you will clearly see what I mean. We use fewer teeth to achieve the same numerical ratios that Porsche does. For a 2.00 second gear Porsche does it as a 20:40. For the same ratio we do it as a 16:32. So in any position and any ratio a GT gear will always be stronger than stock because the root of the tooth is thicker. This is definitely one of those places where bigger is better.
Furthermore, there's not a manufacturer out there who can compete with our tooth profiles. What you see below is a stock Porsche gearset.
What follows that is one of ours.
Can you see the difference? See how ours has that relief at the tip? That relief significantly reduces wear on the gears, and when combined with our proprietary pressure angles makes for a gear tooth that optimizes the contact area directly in the center of the tooth. Most other companies out there cutting gears are using off the shelf gear hobs that are one of 3 standardized profiles that are used by almost everyone. Our hobs are custom cut to order at a cost that is upwards of 10 times greater than the generic hobs you could just call up and order from a hob factory. There's nothing else like it outside of F1. It's one of the things that makes our gears truly unique and it's a manufacturing cost that we're willing to absorb to make a quality product. The crazy thing is, even though our costs are greater, our prices are still significantly less than Porsche's on parts like this.
Speaking of price, we all know that I can't talk price here. This forum is for technical discussions. So just keep an eye on the vendor classifieds section in the next few days and we'll put a few of these on special for 6speed members. I'll post a link once I've got finalized pricing on these new parts.
We just got in a shipment on a new product, so I figured I'd snap a few photos and give the tech junkies around here a little something to drool over.
One of the most common complaints for GT2 and GT3 owners who track their cars is that their 2nd gear ratio is fixed on the mainshaft. Up until now, your only option is to spend a silly amount of money of a Porsche Motorsports Cup Car mainshaft with swappable second gear from one of the 99-2005 synchronized gearboxes. Well, that's not your only option anymore. While we have long produced 2 piece mainshafts for racing, we've never made them in a ratio that was tolerable for driving the car on the street and they were really only suited for dedicated racecars. With our new ratio offering, that's no longer the case. What we've done is make it in a 3.000 1st gear. This is very streetable, and when coupled to the appropriate 2nd gear is also going to make your car faster on the track. And you are also getting something that is roughly 40% stronger than stock.
It uses our proprietary 2 piece design. It's this design and the ability to manufacture the unit out of two very different metals that is key to the greater strength of this product. The quill, the section that mates to the clutch disc, is made out of 300M steel. This is the same steel used in high end axles and torsion bars. It's got a "spring rate" to it. What this means is when you release the clutch and all the force of your engine is transferred to the gearbox, it gives and absorbs some of the shock. It protects the gearstack itself from taking all that shock load.
Then the other half of the shaft is made out of 9310 vacuum processed gear steel. It gives you a super strong and stable platform to assemble the gearstack on. There's no need to compromise in either material or the heat treatment in an attempt to perform two functions. The parts leave our factory ready to install with no further treatments or modifications to make them stronger.
Guard Transmission has been using this design for more than ten years. It's such a good design, that a couple of years ago Porsche adopted it for use in their GT3R and RSR sequential gearboxes. Professional racers were removing the factory 1 piece mainshafts and replacing them with ours. Porsche Motorsports figured if you can't beat them, join them.
Another part of why our gears are always stronger than Porsche's stock gears is our tooth count. If you look at the picture below you will clearly see what I mean. We use fewer teeth to achieve the same numerical ratios that Porsche does. For a 2.00 second gear Porsche does it as a 20:40. For the same ratio we do it as a 16:32. So in any position and any ratio a GT gear will always be stronger than stock because the root of the tooth is thicker. This is definitely one of those places where bigger is better.
Furthermore, there's not a manufacturer out there who can compete with our tooth profiles. What you see below is a stock Porsche gearset.
What follows that is one of ours.
Can you see the difference? See how ours has that relief at the tip? That relief significantly reduces wear on the gears, and when combined with our proprietary pressure angles makes for a gear tooth that optimizes the contact area directly in the center of the tooth. Most other companies out there cutting gears are using off the shelf gear hobs that are one of 3 standardized profiles that are used by almost everyone. Our hobs are custom cut to order at a cost that is upwards of 10 times greater than the generic hobs you could just call up and order from a hob factory. There's nothing else like it outside of F1. It's one of the things that makes our gears truly unique and it's a manufacturing cost that we're willing to absorb to make a quality product. The crazy thing is, even though our costs are greater, our prices are still significantly less than Porsche's on parts like this.
Speaking of price, we all know that I can't talk price here. This forum is for technical discussions. So just keep an eye on the vendor classifieds section in the next few days and we'll put a few of these on special for 6speed members. I'll post a link once I've got finalized pricing on these new parts.
#2
05-26-2010, 04:41 PM
Registered User
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Saratoga, NY
Age: 42
Posts: 85
Rep Power: 19
Very cool. Do you manufacture these in-house? I assume you have a nasty 5 axis, twin spindle turning center? What kind of machines do you use?
#3
05-26-2010, 04:50 PM
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Boulder, CO
Posts: 513
Rep Power: 0
Almost all of our parts are made Down Under. But it is on a 5 axis machine.I forget the brand but IIRC it's Japanese. The hobs themselves are made in the UK. Next time I'm over there visiting the factory I'll snap some pictures of the machines.
#4
05-26-2010, 04:52 PM
Registered User
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Saratoga, NY
Age: 42
Posts: 85
Rep Power: 19
Cool. I run a machine shop so I'm always interested in other companies that still actually make stuff.
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#9
06-01-2010, 10:16 AM
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Boulder, CO
Posts: 513
Rep Power: 0 The short answer is yes, experience and expertise. Most of the top gear cutters in the world are in Australia. We only work with the best. If you've ever been to the PRI trade show in Florida then you've likely seens all the sparkly shiny gearsets being pushed by all the American vendors. They're really pretty. But if you run the gears together it's another story all together. It sounds like you're shaking a pair of rocks in your hands. There's just not the precision and quality coming out of American facilities that you find in Australia. That's why we are there. That's why Porsche Motorsports is there. Aussie gears are the industry standard.
The long version involves the "creation myth" of Guard Transmission. A couple of decades ago, Paul Guard owned an air cooled VW shop in Hawaii. He was kind of getting burned out on the scene and decided to take a vacation to New Zealand. So he shipped over his Karmann Ghia and a couple of surfboards and started bumming around. While the Kiwis were familiar with the Beetle, they had pretty much never seens a Ghia. This got Paul a lot of attention and he kind of got linked in to the local VW scene because of his car. As he talked to people, they started talking about cars and the problems they were having in Hawaii with breaking the gearboxes on their hot rods. One guy he talked to told him there was a guy over in Australia who was cutting gears for VWs.
Paul decided it was worth his while to go find this guy and see what it would take to get some gears cut. Paul had them make him 10 Type II gearsets. When Paul got back to Hawaii, he put a set in a local drag car and used that as his "marketing" vehicle. It took him 2 years to sell those first ten gearsets, with 8 of the ten going to Southern California. That's how it all started. Paul didn't start doing Porsche gears and LSDs for almost another decade, but over time as he spent time in LA, he saw that there were a lot of 911s running around. It was a logical progression to go to the Porsche stuff as the cars were being raced and the owners had money to spend on mods.
Here's the special pricing I am offering to 6 Speed members if you are interested in buying:
https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...ml#post2859820
sechsgang,
The beauty of subscribing to my own threads is I get to see your replies BEFORE the ninja edit.
If you want dog box, I can do dog box for you. We can convert your factory synchronized GT3 gearbox to sequential for about the cost of what the 997 Cup Car guys pay to rebuild their sequential box. That wouldn't include the cost of the shifter and electronics to make it work, but what goes on inside is something we can handle quite easily. Drop me a line if you were serious. 
#10
06-01-2010, 11:28 PM
Registered User
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Posts: 4,205
Rep Power: 204 Hello Tinker,
The short answer is yes, experience and expertise. Most of the top gear cutters in the world are in Australia. We only work with the best. If you've ever been to the PRI trade show in Florida then you've likely seens all the sparkly shiny gearsets being pushed by all the American vendors. They're really pretty. But if you run the gears together it's another story all together. It sounds like you're shaking a pair of rocks in your hands. There's just not the precision and quality coming out of American facilities that you find in Australia. That's why we are there. That's why Porsche Motorsports is there. Aussie gears are the industry standard.
The long version involves the "creation myth" of Guard Transmission. A couple of decades ago, Paul Guard owned an air cooled VW shop in Hawaii. He was kind of getting burned out on the scene and decided to take a vacation to New Zealand. So he shipped over his Karmann Ghia and a couple of surfboards and started bumming around. While the Kiwis were familiar with the Beetle, they had pretty much never seens a Ghia. This got Paul a lot of attention and he kind of got linked in to the local VW scene because of his car. As he talked to people, they started talking about cars and the problems they were having in Hawaii with breaking the gearboxes on their hot rods. One guy he talked to told him there was a guy over in Australia who was cutting gears for VWs.
Paul decided it was worth his while to go find this guy and see what it would take to get some gears cut. Paul had them make him 10 Type II gearsets. When Paul got back to Hawaii, he put a set in a local drag car and used that as his "marketing" vehicle. It took him 2 years to sell those first ten gearsets, with 8 of the ten going to Southern California. That's how it all started. Paul didn't start doing Porsche gears and LSDs for almost another decade, but over time as he spent time in LA, he saw that there were a lot of 911s running around. It was a logical progression to go to the Porsche stuff as the cars were being raced and the owners had money to spend on mods.
Here's the special pricing I am offering to 6 Speed members if you are interested in buying:
https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...ml#post2859820
sechsgang,
The beauty of subscribing to my own threads is I get to see your replies BEFORE the ninja edit. If you want dog box, I can do dog box for you. We can convert your factory synchronized GT3 gearbox to sequential for about the cost of what the 997 Cup Car guys pay to rebuild their sequential box. That wouldn't include the cost of the shifter and electronics to make it work, but what goes on inside is something we can handle quite easily. Drop me a line if you were serious.
The short answer is yes, experience and expertise. Most of the top gear cutters in the world are in Australia. We only work with the best. If you've ever been to the PRI trade show in Florida then you've likely seens all the sparkly shiny gearsets being pushed by all the American vendors. They're really pretty. But if you run the gears together it's another story all together. It sounds like you're shaking a pair of rocks in your hands. There's just not the precision and quality coming out of American facilities that you find in Australia. That's why we are there. That's why Porsche Motorsports is there. Aussie gears are the industry standard.
The long version involves the "creation myth" of Guard Transmission. A couple of decades ago, Paul Guard owned an air cooled VW shop in Hawaii. He was kind of getting burned out on the scene and decided to take a vacation to New Zealand. So he shipped over his Karmann Ghia and a couple of surfboards and started bumming around. While the Kiwis were familiar with the Beetle, they had pretty much never seens a Ghia. This got Paul a lot of attention and he kind of got linked in to the local VW scene because of his car. As he talked to people, they started talking about cars and the problems they were having in Hawaii with breaking the gearboxes on their hot rods. One guy he talked to told him there was a guy over in Australia who was cutting gears for VWs.
Paul decided it was worth his while to go find this guy and see what it would take to get some gears cut. Paul had them make him 10 Type II gearsets. When Paul got back to Hawaii, he put a set in a local drag car and used that as his "marketing" vehicle. It took him 2 years to sell those first ten gearsets, with 8 of the ten going to Southern California. That's how it all started. Paul didn't start doing Porsche gears and LSDs for almost another decade, but over time as he spent time in LA, he saw that there were a lot of 911s running around. It was a logical progression to go to the Porsche stuff as the cars were being raced and the owners had money to spend on mods.
Here's the special pricing I am offering to 6 Speed members if you are interested in buying:
https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...ml#post2859820
sechsgang,
The beauty of subscribing to my own threads is I get to see your replies BEFORE the ninja edit.
If you want dog box, I can do dog box for you. We can convert your factory synchronized GT3 gearbox to sequential for about the cost of what the 997 Cup Car guys pay to rebuild their sequential box. That wouldn't include the cost of the shifter and electronics to make it work, but what goes on inside is something we can handle quite easily. Drop me a line if you were serious. ) So I may drop you a line in the upcoming future.
#11
06-02-2010, 10:58 AM
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Boulder, CO
Posts: 513
Rep Power: 0
Just let me know if there's anything I can help you with. Even if you are just refreshing your current box, our gears are both better made and less expensive than OEM.
#12
06-02-2010, 01:46 PM
Registered User
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Posts: 4,205
Rep Power: 204
I actually had just put ur LSD into my street gt3...and then sold it so I could get this lol. Go figure. The new owner is greatly enjoying your limited slip lol.
