|
Hello-
Having 5 speeds is a wonderful thing :-). A good cruising gear can be had with a 5- or 4-speed box... that's not the issue. The issue is that the 5-speed box has much lower rpm drops than the 4-speed one from low to high gear. The difference is VERY notable... no 4-speed box can ever make up this difference.
The Porsche conversion isn't *that* much of a pain... several have done it. The weak point compared to VW, most of the time, isn't 1st gear at all. Rather, it's the engagement stuff... if you try to slam and force gears all the time (a la drag racing), the Porsche box will hate you - oddly enough, the VW one, although still unhappy, will be less unhappy.
The 930 turbo box is very strong, but the gearing is pretty sucky for most applications. By the mid 1980's, when the rest of the sports car world caught up to Porsche, the 4-speed box of the 930 was a pretty bad selling point... Porsche *finally* gave it up in 1989. It is a very popular idea to get a 5th gear in old 930's... a properly regeared 5-speed tranny makes them accelerate notably better!
Take care,
__________________
Shad Laws
|