5 speeds some more

[Famous Frank]

I apologize if I have missed this information before, but does anyone know how to get in touch with Alan Voight? I would like to contact him, preferably by email regarding pricing, gear ratios, and availability of his 5 speed Elan conversions. Thank you.

[garyeanderson]

Hi Frank

I think you need to call, I don't believe Alan does email. the link below has a flyer with the telephone number

01144 151 630 3575 from the U.S. i think

http://www.lotuselan.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=13088

Gary

[cabc26b]

If you don't drive alot of miles and want someting realy slick there is a 5 speed box based on the hewland MK guts - lots of ratio choices and the option of not using the clutch as you change up and down , I think you can also opt for sequential vs H pattern for shifting. Taylor make them over here ( NA ) pretty sure sombody has them in the UK . I have always thought it wwould be fun to sneak one through tech inspection ( scrutineering) since its hard to tell what the transmission is on an elan with out going to a lot of trouble.

[CBUEB1771]

Frank,
Read my recent post under "5 Speeds for North America - Redux". I spoke to Alan in December. The telephone number posted by Gary is what I used.

[garyeanderson]

If you don't drive alot of miles and want someting realy slick there is a 5 speed box based on the hewland MK guts - lots of ratio choices and the option of not using the clutch as you change up and down , I think you can also opt for sequential vs H pattern for shifting. Taylor make them over here ( NA ) pretty sure sombody has them in the UK . I have always thought it wwould be fun to sneak one through tech inspection ( scrutineering) since its hard to tell what the transmission is on an elan with out going to a lot of trouble.

http://www.taylor-race.com/items.cfm?ca ... nformation

some nice images and dimentions here

http://www.taylor-race.com/techsprt2.cfm?catid=10

Its probably about the same money by the time you get one of Alan Voigts modified type 9 boxes, especially if you want a decent set of ratios to go in the Elan. I guess you would need a new bellhousing with the Taylor box too. I think this is the same gearbox as the Elite box in England.

Gary

[MintSprint]

If you don't drive alot of miles and want someting realy slick there is a 5 speed box based on the hewland MK guts - lots of ratio choices and the option of not using the clutch as you change up and down.

Straight-cut gears with face dog engagement?

Not a good idea for road use, and certainly not going to give you the relaxed high-speed cruising that is most people's aim when they fit a 5-speed!

One of my road cars (a Westfield FW400) has a Hewland transaxle, and whilst it's good fun for an hour long sprint around the local lanes on a Sunday morning, I wouldn't want to drive it in traffic, or do any long-distance touring in it!

[264889socal]

I have an Elite dog righ transmission, as sold by Taylor and Williams Engineering in my Datsun Sunny (B110). Trust me, it won't fit in an elan without a bunch of cutting. The shift mechanism at the back of the box is a slightly modified unit similar to a Hewland transaxle, with the shift rod extending out the back as well as to the front. This shaft is offset to the right and above the main housing. To get the shift rail in line with the center line of the car, I rotated the main case, making it wider than normal. It is a great gearbos, can be equipped with Mk 5 or Mk9 gears. Has changeable gears in the front of the box rather than the normal fixed gears from the imput shaft to the counter gear. You can keep the same ratios and change the final gear up or down. There have been some problems with the sequential shift mechanism, but since I don't use it (rules) I am not sure if it has been remedied or not. Something to do with the heat treatment of the barrel. Depending on how uou configure the shift lever, it can cause issues with the shift pattern. Since I am restricted to a 4-speed, I can do a direct rail to shifter design. Others using the whole 5-speed with a conventional H pattern use a different design. Mounting the shift lever pivot to the chassis instead of the transmission has caused some friends problems because of angles, and twist of the chassis. Quit a few of these transmissions are being used by GT and Production drivers in SCCA.

Rob

[SADLOTUS]

Blimey! If we're going down this road how about a Caterham 6 Speeder or Quaife sequential gearbox?

https://www.caterhamparts.co.uk/product ... 650da78804

http://www.quaife.co.uk/Gearboxes/Curre ... PerPage/10

or..

http://www.quaife.co.uk/Ford-Rocket-Com ... l-maincase

This Ford Rocket (Type E) 4-speed range change synchromesh Quaife gearbox with steel maincase gives an instant 'axle ratio change', e.g. 4.6 to 5.1.

The range change is achieved by simply twisting the gear lever. The change can be made in any gear. This includes the Quaife gear lever.

Gearbox ratios 2.040, 1.540, 1.210, 1:1
Under drive ratios 2.280, 1.720, 1.360, 1.120

.......just a thought

[type36lotus]

They look too much like art to hide under a chassis!

[MintSprint]

Blimey! If we're going down this road how about a Caterham 6 Speeder or Quaife sequential gearbox?

Notwithstanding the fact that I detect a certain tongue-in-cheek element here, I think we've got to remember that most people fit 5-speeds to Elans because the car is woefully short-geared for modern road use, and they want to give more relaxed cruising potential.

The Caterham box still has direct top (1:1 ratio), just like the Elan 4 speed , so won't offer any benefit unless you can also find an ultra-tall final drive ratio to combine with them. I looked at this box myself and discarded the idea for this very reason - I couldn't find anyone who could supply a tall enough CWP for the English diff to make it worthwhile.

The suggestions of competition boxes are even less practical. They share the same ratio problems, for the most part, but being straight cut are excruciatingly noisy (even at high speed in my Westfield, both exhaust and wind noise are drowned out by the scream of the straight-cut gears!) and dog engagement is not at all traffic-friendly, whether or not the selection is sequential.

[SADLOTUS]

Mr Mintsprint, correct, it's a fair cop, tongue in cheek it was.

My friend has an HPC Seven with ZF box, and you can hear that coming down the road way before any exhaust or engine noise.

There again, wonder if anyone has ever asked Quaife to make up a nice tall overdrive top Type 9 for road use?

[garyeanderson]

Just be happy that there is a 3.54 CW & P available. This will give you about 4% drop over the 3.77 and 10% over the 3.9, the rest of the options in the U.S. are rather expensive dreams. The Alfa box is one of the few that I have seen that will work reasonably well. If you want some sporting ratios for your Elan (not the Plus2) then you are going to have to pay dearly to get the revs down at 80mph with a 5 speed.

Gary

earplugs are a cheap alternative

[worzel]

Hi All

Keeps cropping up this one.

Many years ago I saw an ad in motorsport mag for an elan fitted with an electric overdrive. Intrigued I rang the owner and asked him how he'd done this. Essentially he'd used the overdrive out of a Hillman Hunter (apparently there were a few so equipped) because the overdrive was the smallest available. He assured me there were no body or chassis mods needed just a custom made input shaft. He was selling the car because he was emigrating and I asked him for the technical drawings (which he said he still had)- offering to pay for a copy. They never arrived! He might have been spinning a yarn but- any prospective buyer would soon find out if it worked or not so I'm guessing that he had in fact done such a conversion.

Somebody I know has an elan with a 5 speed alfa box which works very well and I'm sure there are other boxes from relatively modern cars that could be adapted to fit (BMW or Toyota?). I've had Type 9 in my car for nearly 10 years (yes the lever is in the right place) and it does make the car more "friendly" but- noise levels aren't much lower than on the 4 speed and I'd have to say that on some occasions (when my mind drifts) I sometimes reach for 6th! In fact because the box in my car can be fitted with an even higher 5th ratio (mine is currently 0.82 to 1) to give 0.75 to 1 I'm going to do this later this year. This will up 5th from 22.7 mph/1000 revs to 24.9 mph/1000 revs and I'm pretty sure it'll pull it without any problem.

Speaking from experience if I was about to fit a 5 speed box nowadays I'd probably try to get hold of a rear drive Alfa box since they appear to be about as good as any and better than quite a few with a switch like change. Nothing wrong with the Ford Type 9 but why mess around with the internals if a different one will go in using a sandwich plate.

Regards

John

[cabc26b]

Could it be that the instalation in a seven clone amplifies the noise ? I have run hewlands ( in midengine config only) and have a quaife dog box in one of my cars now. I will tell you , in my car ( with a hardtop) the gear noise is not in the forefront. And in a mid egdine I did not notice the noise above that of the engine.

[garyeanderson]

Could it be that the instalation in a seven clone amplifies the noise ? I have run hewlands ( in midengine config only) and have a quaife dog box in one of my cars now. I will tell you , in my car ( with a hardtop) the gear noise is not in the forefront. And in a mid egdine I did not notice the noise above that of the engine.

My hardtop lives in upstairs bedroom now, It was so loud, after a 1 hour ride I couldn't hear a word that Vermont state trooper was saying to me face to face. Some times its hard to talk your way out of a speeding ticket when you just can't hear. To be fair, the S2 doesn't have any sound deadener re-installed so it was like being inside a drum. The 20 inch tall tires and supertrapp muffler with all of the baffels installed did't help much either.

Gary