I suppose the narrow minded idiots chased him off the MiniDriver forum too?

Just on the 5 speed motorcycle gearbox, obviously reverse gear had to be put in there somewhere,
but the other thing that I'm pondering is the weight of a car verses that of a bike.
Bike engines are incredibly powerful but pushing substantially less weight.
In the long run would the bike gear train be up to the task?
I only ask the question because I've never seen inside a bike box but externally they look quite small
compared to a car gearbox.

*cough* Troll.

David was an active member of Minidriver untill the same idiots that made him leave here joined up there. He hates bullshit and a fair bit of it gets thrown around on forums, eg,

David got his hands dirty, he pushed the envelope and tried new things that others only dreamed about, and showed his results with proof, rather than "God says its good so ill follow blindly" He has moved on to bigger & better things these days, not too long before new cranks, rods, blocks and performance pistons are available, along with many other items, much cheaper than from anyone else.

_________________
Have a Nice Day.
If already having a nice day please disregard.

Steady steady boys.

At least he still can be searched out on the forum. Some epic conversations on vibration theory

_________________
SooperDooperMiniCooperExpertEngineering

All garage work involves equal measures of enthusiasm, ingenuity and a fair degree of irresponsibility.

It would have been a 6 speed!

I think the use of the gearbox may not have been aimed at the road having six very close ratio gears, but certainly something which would have cruelled any intention of using it in a K-Mart carpark. Motorbike gearboxes deal with a lot of punishment, but I am unsure on the long term application of the kind of torque cars put out, and the weight of the car the motorbike gearbox would have to cope with. But again, I don't think it was aimed at the normal guy on the road.

_________________
SooperDooperMiniCooperExpertEngineering

All garage work involves equal measures of enthusiasm, ingenuity and a fair degree of irresponsibility.

Hell yes. Provided a good few hours of procrastination from my studies!

Hi jprior2912

My 2 cents worth about gearboxes and helical vs straight cut, generally, then in a mini context.

Generally speaking...
Helical gears - this is what to use if you wish to listen to the radio / have a quieter ride. Essentially they provide a compromise on strength over straight cut gears but are much nicer to live with day to day on a road car due to reduced noise levels. They also create side load on the thrust washers in the gear box - which is generally only an issue if you are driving the car hard all the time (ie racing).

Straight cut gears - strong but they whine ..... if you have an out-and-out racing car, then you don't care about listening to the radio or having nice conversations with the better half in the passenger seat.... It's all about strength. The compromise with straight cut gears is noise.

4 or 5 speed box...it's all in the ratios.
I don't have any experience with 5 speeds in minis, however, can I say that both 4 or 5 speeds can be great if you have the right ratios. A 4 speed or 5 speed with crap ratios is not fun to drive. One of the best modifications I ever did to my 998 was to use Cooper S close ratios. It transforms the car - from something with stupid wide gaps from the lower gears to something that is a joy to drive and rewarding to keep the motor spinning through the gears.


In a mini gearbox context.....
Just speaking about conventional 4 speeds here.... Once you get past about 90bhp (approx) my understanding is that the conventional mini gearboxes start to get a bit unreliable. Generally speaking most cars producing under 90hp would be ok with decent 4 speed helical gearboxes. But it does come back to how you treat it.

I've been running a 3 syncro 4 speed box with a warm 998 for approx 20 years now. It's using a worn set of Sprite/Midget gears from memory (these are the Mk1 Cooper S ratios but they run in reverse rotation and thus a worn Sprite gearset can work very nicely in a Mini). First gear is NOT strong on one of the 3 synro gearboxes, so I treat first gear nice and give it heaps in all other gears.

So it comes back to what you want to do with your car. My tip would be:
- get good ratios (Mk1 Cooper S ratios are pretty nice for example!). Standard mini ratios are not that great.
- for a 100+bhp / high torque mini /racing car - go straight cut for reliability, but for pretty much anything else on the street go with helical otherwise the gearbox whine from a straight cut will drive you nuts. But don't compromise on ratios.

Consider also that you can have a really good gearbox setup with a 4 speed box if the ratios are good.

Also there are gearbox specialists in Melbourne (and I assume in Australia generally) that can build you custom gear sets and mini gearboxes if you require.

Before you commit to a straight cut box, take a ride in a car with one..... see if you can live with the noise level....