Upgraded 1-3 and syncros.

 

Hope you're not feeling down
Your car is awesome and will be all the better after the work

I know I'll regret admitting to this, but whenever my car gets me down I look at other peoples cars to cheer myself up again - One of the cars I look at the most is yours

You might not feel it right now, but you're truly blessed to have a car like yours
Hope it's sorted soon for you

 

No shame in admitting that. I look to a lot of the folks here for inspiration when it comes to decisions about the car and even sometimes about other things too. In a way all of us who own Porsches are blessed in one way or another, and it's nice to keep that in mind as part of the big picture!

 

Yes, Rodger ordered one of our stock ratio 3rd gears for you.

I feel need to comment on this since it's not wholly accurate. The route that has been suggested to you is the 997.1/GT2 mainshaft like Mikelly did. This is a good approach. However the part that is not completely true is that you cannot do a stronger 3rd gear without doing the mainshaft 1/2 upgrade. A more accurate statement would be that one cannot use the wider 997.1 factory 3rd gear without doing the mainshaft upgrade.

The 997.1 3rd gear, which is what's being suggested to you, is a couple of mm wider than your 996t gearset. However the ratio and toothcount is exactly the same. While the gearteeth are wider, they aren't any thicker. It's still the high toothcount that you have on your existing gear. But please don't take this the wrong way and see it as me in some way saying that this isn't a good option. It is a good option and we haven't seen very many of these newer 3rd gears break. Furthermore, the 2nd gear is wider, and you do improve your 1st and 2nd gear ratios at the same time. I just feel the need to clarify because there's a lot of people reading this, and I don't want people to have the impression that the only way to get a stronger 3rd gear is to buy a new mainshaft. As I stated above, another option is our 3rd gears. If there's no damage to the mainshaft or 1 & 2, just 3rd gear can be replaced on it's own, you just can't use the 997.1 factory 3rd gear.

As for PMing you a quote, we're not a builder. We're a gear and differential manufacturer. We work through a network of builders. If you wanted to let me know where in Texas you are located, I can probably give you a couple of referrals for you to talk to some other builders. You don't necessarily need to ship your gearbox out of state to get a good rebuild done, and if you're already going to trailer your car to someone to remove the gearbox, why not have it be someone who can do the work for you without another $400 in shipping the box back and forth across the country. Though if you do want to ship it, that opens up a lot more options including builders like the above mentioned Rodger at Orbit, Bill Rader in Vegas, Bobby Hart at CMS, Goldcrest Motors in GA, or Brian Copans in Ohio.

 

If you plan to ship I will again recommend Bill Rader for his outstanding customer service, he's also on GT Gears list of good people to work with. Be careful with who you choose to do work on your tranny!

 

Thanks Ant and Steve, yes I am blessed. What I have right now is a luxury problem.

Thanks Matt,

My car is at Drivers Source in Houston, and the tranny should be comming out today.

The only catch is we need to disasemble it before we know if 1-2 are good. Actually, I was able to shift into 1st gear so yes it is OK.

 

I am eagerly awaiting some pics. Please document the process for us. Thanks.

 

Matt,

So you sell a beefed up 3rd gear that is a direct bolt in?

 

Damn that sucks man Good luck

On a high RPM 2nd gear downshift from 3rd i'm getting a little clunk and or grind, at low speed no problem though... My synchros prob have to be replaced to, awaiting responses on the probably costs involved...

 

That's what I'm telling you. 9FF uses them in their builds. Jurgen Alzen Motorsports does too, as to a number of builders of turbo cars here in the States, like Accumoto, TPC, EVOMS, etc. We've also got our gears in Eddie Bello's 1200whp drag 911.

 

Excellent, my mechanic uses Brian Copain who, as noted has a relationship with you.

 

Yep. If Steve ships the box up to Brian, just have him ask Brian to get you one of our replacement 3rd gears and it will get taken care of. If there'a anything else, just let me know.

Regards,

Matt

 

Should note; i picked my car up today with the new 3rd gear, 3rd gear does have a different sound, sounds like a cup car - now I wish I did 1st -5th I personally love the sound

 

We hear that a lot. Going into it people are afraid of the idea of noisy gears. Then they hear them and get all hot and bothered.

The noise is partly a result of the reduced toothcount and part of the helix angles. We relax the angle of the tooth when compared to an OEM street gear to make the gears stronger.

Porsche people are funny. We were only able to sell helical gears until the Cup Car sequential came out with straight cut gears. The 996 Cup was helical gears. Porsche people tend to think "OEM is best" and don't want to vary from what the factory did. Straight cut gears have been the industry standard for decades in other race cars. To this day I can't sell a straight cut gearset for a 1980's 915 gearbox to save my life. But now that the Cups have straight cut, we do actually sell quite a few straight gears for 996T and GT3 customers.

 

Update: Steve Ott at Drivers Source sent my tranny to BMC and G in Ohio (I believe it is Brian Copan's shop...Chad, CJV also recommended him).

I owe him a little over $7.5K and Steve Ott a little under 1K so the total cost is 8.5k...ouch.

However, 1-4 were done along with steel syncros, so this tranny should be very strong.