Welcome everyone. In the spirit of innovation, I have an idea.

From the very first day that I owned my '04 MCS, I was a little underwhelmed with the acceleration and gearing. Since most [every?] gearbox I've ever seen has final drive gears which are popularly swapped both by OEMs and the aftermarket, amongst other reasons, in order to speed up acceleration, I looked at the possibility for my car.

Within that very first week, I was already trolling the net, looking for final drive gears [yes, there are TWO in this Getrag box of ours!]. All was to no avail- the MINI product line was not big enough to have multiple cars in the same family using the same gearbox. We lacked the blessing of inter-model swaps, which are extremely popular amongst the drag racing crowd.

NOW, with all of this talk about the Ford Focus SVT sharing our Getrag gearbox, I'm thinking again [and I was stoopid not to think of this earlier!]: it may just be possible that the Focus has what we '04 and earlier owners need- smaller final drive gears. So, who knows where to find/what the Focus's ratios are? I'm searching now. ::crosses fingers::

edit: success- read on, this WILL bring the '04 and earlier MCS's toward '05 MCS overall gear ratios!

 

For those curious on the theory of the final drive, here's a good excerpt, from Sport Compact Car Web, on the Focus gearbox:

"The new Getrag box is a curious piece. Look closely at the gear ratios listed in the spec box and you'll notice two different final drive ratios. Confused? The Getrag box is what is known as a dual layshaft design. Normally, you would have an input shaft with six gears on it meshing with an output shaft that also has six gears on it. This would make a very long transmission, however, and besides the packaging constraints, long shafts tend to be weaker than short ones. In the Getrag box, there are only four gears on the input shaft and there are two different output shafts. Second and third gear, for example, might share the same gear on the input shaft, but second would be a larger gear on one side of the input gear, and third would be a smaller one on the other side of the same input gear. Both output shafts drive the differential through different final drive gears, resulting in a 2.88:1 final drive for first, second, fifth and sixth gear, and a 4.25:1 final drive for third, fourth, and reverse."

http://www.sportcompactcarweb.com/ro...6scc_focussvt/

 

From MINI2, on the MCS final drive ratios:

"there is a 2.75:1 final drive for 1st, 2nd, 5th and 6th gear on one shaft and a 4.05 final drive for 3rd, 4th and Reverse on the other output shaft."

http://www.mini2.com/forum/showthrea...al+drive+ratio

 

And, from the first [SCW] article on the Focus SVT, regarding its ratios:


"1 : 4.41:1 2.88:1
2 : 2.67:1 2.88:1
3 : 1.34:1 4.25:1
4 : 1.08:1 4.25:1
5 : 1.32:1 2.88:1
6 : 1.07:1 2.88:1"

The last column appears to be the final drive....notice the resemblence but clear difference? I think I have a project .

 

The new ratios for the Focusified '04 MCS would be:


Gear Original '04*diff in FDs=Focusified Overall Drive Ratio
| 1 | 11.425 * (2.88/2.75) = 11.965
| 2 | 7.181 * (2.88/2.75) = 7.520
| 3 | 5.397 * (2.88/2.75) = 5.652
| 4 | 4.407 * (4.25/4.05) = 4.624
| 5 | 3.656 * (4.25/4.05) = 3.837
| 6 | 2.986 * (2.88/2.75) = 3.127
| R | 11.130 * (4.25/4.05) = 11.680

For reference, here are the '05 overall gear ratios:
| 1 | 12.789
| 2 | 7.793
| 3 | 5.651
| 4 | 4.615
| 5 | 3.828
| 6 | 3.126
| R | 11.944



SO, 6 would barely change [and highway mileage would be intact!], BUT 1 and 2 especially will go to about half-way between '04 and '05 spec. Perhaps it's a happy medium?

 

You've got my attention

 

It shouldn't be expensive to find a wrecked Ford Focus SVT box and source the two gears. In fact, it should be CHEAP, even to get new ones should they be available [this is a Ford ]!

I just wish I had more than 10 or so days off for my break, so I could be tearing into my gearbox this month. Does anyone have a box apart right now that they can just swap into and give some feedback????

Note: This should be significantly cheaper to do than buying/sourcing a new '05 MCS Getrag, and since the ratios are "half-way there," maybe they might prove _better_ for a modded MCS in the first place, since I've heard that the '05 overall ratio is too short once you add in power. Any thoughts?

 

second gear is the one I would like to change...it is way too tall for my taste. obviously the rest of the box would have to be looked at. I think for my driving 1st is fine.... 3rd would have to "balance" 2nd and so on......

 

Interesting idea. This may be a good middle ground to open up the '05 gearing, since they tend to get a bit short once you really pack on the power.

 

I'm looking further, and I think the Turbo Beetles share this box, too. Maybe their gears could be used. BUT, I've been unable to find their ratios. Grr, damn closed source VWs.

My thinking is that the Focus SVT will be a cheaper and easier to find swap, though.

 

ingsoc, I'm glad that you are pursuing this as these final drives might be most ideal, particularly for a mod'd pre '05 MCS!

I'm aware of a MINI currently being prepp'd for racing (no official release yet) where the guy picked-up a used SVT gearbox for a complete swap. He was experimenting with different tire sizes (diameters) also, in order to do the same... impact the final drive. Not sure if he'll chime-in here, but I'll ping him for an update nonetheless...

 

It might be most stupendous for a modded '05, too [so far my research has not shown if the '05s have the same final drive as the previous models....]! I keep hearing that their first gear gets too short, quickly, when modded. Maybe we'll all be rolling around in middle-of-the-road [Focusified] MCSs sometime soon. I'm gonna try to be the first one, though! .

The other thing that I'm thinking about is that, with the recent thread re: a staight cut swap, if you do this mod, there will be NO added noise, and it will cost a crap-load less. Here's a link to the aftermarket gears thread, with nice pictures of aftermarket gears to give you an idea what final drive gears I'm referring to:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ad.php?t=56036

The aftermarket gears are sold here:
http://www.minisport.com/new-mini-sh...n-product.html

Those ones, loud and apparently really short as they are, too, are nearly 1000 pounds British! You can surely find these two Focus gears in a junkyard for like 100 american or less!

The ratios on these gears, according to Cosmic, are:

"The new [final drive] ratios are: 5:1 in 3,4,R
3.148:1 in 1,2,5,6

[and overall ratios]
1st: 15.74
2nd: 8.24
3rd: 6.65
4th: 5.45
5th: 4.18
6th: 3.43"

 

Man ...I hope your right...if you find two, buy one for me and I will experiment with you.......(of course I will pay you back) if you give me the exact year Focus and model etc I'll start looking here.

 

Errr... but hasn't this already been done?

Ultrik Close Ratio Gear Set

 

Good point about this being a possible win for '05's & '06's as well...

I was following Cosmic's thread also, and it was cool to have Eric chime-in. Having driven in a couple cars with straight cut gears, I'm fairly convinced that I don't want to take my canyon commuter there, but the driving impressions shared were quite impressive though!

For me, if this SVT gearing is indeed the way to go, I would prefer a complete swap of the gearbox, assuming there are no fitment issues of note (trying to find-out now). This way there would be less down-time due to not needing to perform gear surgery, and one could also at their leisure build it up with an upgraded clutch, flywheel, LSD etc so it would be ready and waiting for an install once the current one is removed. Again, this is if the SVT Getrag poses no interesting or complex fitment issues...

And if this does prove to be problematic to the point of not being worth it, then I see the next desirable option being the obtainment of a pre '05 MCS gearbox (fairly affordable, as mentioned earlier), and then swapping the gears in that tranny, while adding other goodies, if interested. Like with the method above, down-time is minimized, and one could always sell their original box if a recoupe of expenses is important...

I guess that I just like the idea of taking the time build-up the replacement box or to do gear changes with no time-constraints and/or pressure to get the car operational again...

 

Oooh, and at a mere $3,500!

 

Yeah! heh. I could probably do some charity work and outfit like 10 of my dear friends' MCSs with this mod for that price .

BY THE WAY, as I suggested earlier, this kinda mod [changing the final drive gears] is extremely popular amongst the Ford tuning [esp. drag racing] community. Like I said, this was to be one of my first mods, until I figured out that the MINI model like at the time ['04] was so limited in its use of our box that there were no easy 'in mark' options.

 

Spider, I tried to pm you but "you've got WAY TOO MUCH FRICKIN MAIL"...heh . I'll paste below:

Spider:
Hey Spider! To answer you, I'm 99% sure that this will work, because the outside dimensions of the Focus tranny are the same [but some of the mount points on the outside of the case are different]. The inside of the gearboxes is the same, I hear and believe. Now, as TonyB was saying, it might be easier just to swap in a whole new Focus tranny [and put in the lsd, etc while the new one is detached- can't remember if you have one yet, but I don't]. I personally, though, would like to keep my gear ratios about mid-way between the '04 and '05, and I think that the Focus ones would be a little different... I'm gonna get on the wire with my Ford friends and see if I can find some Focus SVT trannies and/or just the final drive gears. I'll keep you in the loop. Have a great one!

TonyB and Everyone [abridged]:
...the overall outside dimensions of the Focus tranny are the same [but some of the mount points on the outside of the case are different], is what I am hearing... The inside of the gearboxes is the same, I hear and believe.

They needed to be mounted a little differently for use in the Focus, is what I'm hearing as the explanation. Can anyone find out for sure?

The one thing about swapping trannies completely is that I'm not sure that I dig the overall SVT gear ratios:
"Ford says: overall ratios are
[1st] 12.7,
[2nd] 7.7,
[3rd] 5.7,
[4th] 4.6,
[5th] 3.8
[6th] 3.1:1"
http://townhall-talk.edmunds.com/WebX?14@@.eea6348/239!keywords=allin%3Amsgtext%20limit%3A.eea6348%20 ratios

...and these are just about exactly the same as the '05 MCS ratios:
| 1 | 12.789
| 2 | 7.793
| 3 | 5.651
| 4 | 4.615
| 5 | 3.828
| 6 | 3.126
| R | 11.944

For comparison, again, the OFD/PF ratios would be:

Gear Original '04*diff in FDs=Focusified Overall Drive Ratio
| 1 | 11.425 * (2.88/2.75) = 11.965
| 2 | 7.181 * (2.88/2.75) = 7.520
| 3 | 5.397 * (2.88/2.75) = 5.652
| 4 | 4.407 * (4.25/4.05) = 4.624
| 5 | 3.656 * (4.25/4.05) = 3.837
| 6 | 2.986 * (2.88/2.75) = 3.127
| R | 11.130 * (4.25/4.05) = 11.680

The thing I'm not sure of with the direct swap is that the overall ratio for 1st and 2nd are higher [you will be at redline faster], may be too short for pretty tuned MINI's? They are, actually, just about exactly the same as the '05 ratios....

 

Bravo...nice stuff...keep it up...

 

What he said

 

Ingsoc, you might also track down the ratios that the TT uses, since that's the same box as well. Then you can just use the whole quattro system and have a go of it.

 

now your talking about my dream Mini. The 3.0 liter A3 with quattro is starting to look real good to me

 

stolen from another thread... ...


I see myself some room for 2 cool things:
1) a driveshaft, and
2) [you might have guessed] a side exit exhaust

Hmm, now, how to convince the parental units?

PS: Anyone know if a TT engine would fit in our bonnets? Could just use the MINI block, but...

 

Move out, get married and get wife's permission Being single has it's advantages but I'd rather have a warm bed

 

I've got the first covered, albeit since I have no money, I am rather dependent . Kinda like my car- they paid the sticker, I paid for everything not "sticker" .

Anyways, wow, it sure would be nice to have the only 4wd MINI in circulation . ::dreams::