russellbridge
A2OC Donor
In short:
Stealth have come up with a new way of installing a 6th gear - using a Passat '11 onwards MYP gearbox. My new '04 A2 tdi 75 Sport (Paz's old car) was the guinea-pig - the install was done yesterday and everything works! It is a successful install which was done at a considerably lower cost than the Europarts method. (approx £700 to £800 total cost) The ratios are the same in gears 1 to 5, but with the bonus of an added 6th gear.
Longer description:
I was down at Stealth a month or so ago getting my Touran remapped. I was chatting to Vince about the Europarts route for a 6th gear and whether the price had come down at all. Vince mentioned that he thought he'd come up with a new method using the Passat '11 onwards MYP gearbox. A week later when I'd collected my new A2, I got in touch with Vince and agreed to be the 1st to try it. I then sourced an MYP gearbox from a breaker (advertised at £575, they took £450 cash - it was from a 15k mile Passat), and booked the car in with Stealth for yesterday. I also booked it in for a new clutch (as it's exposed during the install), and a G28 crank sensor as the car has been refusing to start. My car also had a fault on the gearbox - the syncro on first was shot, which I didn't know when I bought the car, so this would be a good way of dealing with that issue too.
We allocated a full day. Dan at Stealth did the work very professionally, with occasional input from Vince, both keeping me informed of what was going on, and letting me take photos and chat about what what issues were coming up. They extracted the old gearbox and sat the two side by side to work out whether it would work. They concluded that they needed to make a couple of brackets to support the gearchange cable carrier bracket which they'd taken from the old gearbox and offered to the new one. They made two new brackets - a right angle one, and a Z-shapped one to connect back to points on the new gearbox. They also swapped the drive flanges across. The old cables were re-used. They installed the new gearbox, noting that, like the JDD gearbox install, only 2 of the 3 mounting bolt points can be used, but unlike the JDD box, it doesn't need one of the bolt points to be ground down. They re-connected everything else back up. This was roughly 8:30am to 4pm, with a lunch break.
Everything seemed to work, so Dan took it for a test drive and said all was OK. Vince and I then took it out, and we compared the in-gear speeds I'd recorded on the way down. They were identical in gears 1 to 5, but now with the added bonus of a new 6th gear! The car was already re-mapped FYI. I don't know the exact ratios of either gearbox - both Stealth and I went into this 'blind' regarding the ratios. These are my recordings:
Old 5 speed box, recorded speed @ 2000rpm (read from display)
1st @ 2000rpm = 12mph
2nd @ 2000rpm = 20mph
3rd @ 2000rpm = 31mph
4th @ 2000rpm = 43mph
5th @ 2000rpm = 55mph
New MYP 6 speed box, recorded speed @ 2000rpm (read from display)
1st @ 2000rpm = 12mph
2nd @ 2000rpm = 21mph
3rd @ 2000rpm = 31mph
4th @ 2000rpm = 43mph
5th @ 2000rpm = 56mph
6th @ 2000rpm = 70mph
The throw pattern of the box is a lot tighter and less 'agricultural' than the old box, but it is notchy into 3rd and 4th, which might just be that the new 'box has been sat for a while and needs a bit of oil splashed around it. It feels similar to the pattern in my old Mk 1 TT. I'll report back in a month or so to see if it's got any better. Despite the notchiness it is an improvement over the old pattern (just), but it still requires 'grappling', it's not like the Touran which is a very light throw that you can do with 1 finger. On the motorway on the way home I used the new 6th all the way back to Manchester, sat at 60mph which was approx 1750rpm. It was happy at this speed, but not much less, and obviously a lot happier and far less rev happy at higher speeds. It would pull cleanly from 60mph, but I doubt that this would happen in an un-mapped car.
Photos below:
1: the 2 gearboxes side by side.
2: the gearchange cable carrier bracket moved across to see if it'd fit
3: gearchange cable carrier bracket installed properly with two new bespoke brackets
4: looking up at the car on the ramp without the gearbox in
5: looking up at the car on the ramp with the new gearbox in
The above is the total of my knowledge on this subject, so I can't answer any technical queries, sorry. I do not know, and I didn't ask, whether this will work for petrol cars too.
Vince is anticipating that quite a few people are going to go for this, so if you're interested, I'd get searching for an MYP gearbox at the breakers sooner rather than later!
Russ
Stealth have come up with a new way of installing a 6th gear - using a Passat '11 onwards MYP gearbox. My new '04 A2 tdi 75 Sport (Paz's old car) was the guinea-pig - the install was done yesterday and everything works! It is a successful install which was done at a considerably lower cost than the Europarts method. (approx £700 to £800 total cost) The ratios are the same in gears 1 to 5, but with the bonus of an added 6th gear.
Longer description:
I was down at Stealth a month or so ago getting my Touran remapped. I was chatting to Vince about the Europarts route for a 6th gear and whether the price had come down at all. Vince mentioned that he thought he'd come up with a new method using the Passat '11 onwards MYP gearbox. A week later when I'd collected my new A2, I got in touch with Vince and agreed to be the 1st to try it. I then sourced an MYP gearbox from a breaker (advertised at £575, they took £450 cash - it was from a 15k mile Passat), and booked the car in with Stealth for yesterday. I also booked it in for a new clutch (as it's exposed during the install), and a G28 crank sensor as the car has been refusing to start. My car also had a fault on the gearbox - the syncro on first was shot, which I didn't know when I bought the car, so this would be a good way of dealing with that issue too.
We allocated a full day. Dan at Stealth did the work very professionally, with occasional input from Vince, both keeping me informed of what was going on, and letting me take photos and chat about what what issues were coming up. They extracted the old gearbox and sat the two side by side to work out whether it would work. They concluded that they needed to make a couple of brackets to support the gearchange cable carrier bracket which they'd taken from the old gearbox and offered to the new one. They made two new brackets - a right angle one, and a Z-shapped one to connect back to points on the new gearbox. They also swapped the drive flanges across. The old cables were re-used. They installed the new gearbox, noting that, like the JDD gearbox install, only 2 of the 3 mounting bolt points can be used, but unlike the JDD box, it doesn't need one of the bolt points to be ground down. They re-connected everything else back up. This was roughly 8:30am to 4pm, with a lunch break.
Everything seemed to work, so Dan took it for a test drive and said all was OK. Vince and I then took it out, and we compared the in-gear speeds I'd recorded on the way down. They were identical in gears 1 to 5, but now with the added bonus of a new 6th gear! The car was already re-mapped FYI. I don't know the exact ratios of either gearbox - both Stealth and I went into this 'blind' regarding the ratios. These are my recordings:
Old 5 speed box, recorded speed @ 2000rpm (read from display)
1st @ 2000rpm = 12mph
2nd @ 2000rpm = 20mph
3rd @ 2000rpm = 31mph
4th @ 2000rpm = 43mph
5th @ 2000rpm = 55mph
New MYP 6 speed box, recorded speed @ 2000rpm (read from display)
1st @ 2000rpm = 12mph
2nd @ 2000rpm = 21mph
3rd @ 2000rpm = 31mph
4th @ 2000rpm = 43mph
5th @ 2000rpm = 56mph
6th @ 2000rpm = 70mph
The throw pattern of the box is a lot tighter and less 'agricultural' than the old box, but it is notchy into 3rd and 4th, which might just be that the new 'box has been sat for a while and needs a bit of oil splashed around it. It feels similar to the pattern in my old Mk 1 TT. I'll report back in a month or so to see if it's got any better. Despite the notchiness it is an improvement over the old pattern (just), but it still requires 'grappling', it's not like the Touran which is a very light throw that you can do with 1 finger. On the motorway on the way home I used the new 6th all the way back to Manchester, sat at 60mph which was approx 1750rpm. It was happy at this speed, but not much less, and obviously a lot happier and far less rev happy at higher speeds. It would pull cleanly from 60mph, but I doubt that this would happen in an un-mapped car.
Photos below:
1: the 2 gearboxes side by side.
2: the gearchange cable carrier bracket moved across to see if it'd fit
3: gearchange cable carrier bracket installed properly with two new bespoke brackets
4: looking up at the car on the ramp without the gearbox in
5: looking up at the car on the ramp with the new gearbox in
The above is the total of my knowledge on this subject, so I can't answer any technical queries, sorry. I do not know, and I didn't ask, whether this will work for petrol cars too.
Vince is anticipating that quite a few people are going to go for this, so if you're interested, I'd get searching for an MYP gearbox at the breakers sooner rather than later!
Russ
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