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1cleangsx

Proven Member
1,072
1,199
Sep 28, 2013
Cheyenne, Wyoming
Just happened to be on tmz’s awd rebuild page and noticed he no longer offers his stg 3/4 buildOMG. I understand parts are simply becoming non existent, i know Jack’s dropped their evo 3 Ultimate Ratio build a year or so ago, it just sucks for 5 speed guys in the 400-600 hp street car range. I can’t justify 8 grand on a transmission built for 1,000 horsepower when I’m making half that. I’m sure I’m on borrowed time with my 130’000 mile stock 90 trans at 35 psi with a 35r, I was planning on a rebuild/upgrade next year, but now I’m wondering should I just go auto? Or maybe a White Shed Speed stg 3:hellyeah:
 
I’m finding all kinds of parts are turning N/A!?!? I’m looking more for factory oem stuff, but can certainly relate to the dilemma of knowing things used to be commonly available, and now are nowhere to be found. I spend way more time searching the web, and less actually on the car. Surprised to hear you’re considering going 5MT to auto. Nothing wrong with auto, but a distinctly different creature than rowing through cogs and fancy footwork.
 
I love my 5 speed, I just know it won’t last forever, I see your a 90 GSX as well:hellyeah: Jacks told me via email that gear set stock will handle 450 whp, I know others disagree but I still feel the 90 trans is where it’s at, however it doesn’t like high rpm shifts and there’s definently a loss of boost between shifts which is what’s most attractive to me about an auto
 
The hub & slider assemblies went obsolete. If you can supply your own, I'm sure TMZ will still play ball.
 
Thanks guys, I know both Tim, and bastard could no doubt take care of me, just a little hard accepting the reality of our aging platform LOL
 
FYI, I need to update my page. I don't have any 3/4 sliders stocked up. It's likely my rebuilds will be affected. The "stage" rebuild doesn't really mean all that much in power handling anyway.

It's very likely that if the demand for a solution was there, the parts would become available, look at domestic rwd stuff, at one time used ford toploader parts were gold....Now you can build one from all new parts.....The demand was there and the suppliers responded. There could even be a better trans option that isn't a full on dogbox, but most guys think a $900 rebuild is too much... You can buy new T10's for $2k, and mcleod developed a new muscle car 5 speed for $3k. There is no reason there can't be a a $3k bad ass 600 ft*lbs trans available. DSM guys would just have to quit bitching, parting cars, giving up, and actually spend money.
 
Thank You bastard for responding and being one of the few who personally love and support this platform, I’m not afraid to spend money, I’m about to drop a few dimes this fall on a nice paint job for my car so I can cruise it and show her off, these cars are getting old but not no less awesome, I love my car as much now as I did in 2013 when I bought it, the trans is just one part that hasn’t broke yet LOL. It’s nice to know there’s still guys out there still taking care of us
 
DSM guys would just have to quit bitching, parting cars, giving up, and actually spend money.

I feel like in my 10 years on these forums I have seen this changing. I think Bobby's suspension parts are a good example. Small volume sure but there is a demand for quality parts that are not cheap.
$3k for a strong trans seems extremely reasonable to me. My biggest fear is that the car I've spent a decade building will become a garage show piece due to lack of parts. I hope enough people stay interested in these cars that as Mitsu makes stuff obsolete the aftermarket can step in. Only time will tell.
 
A hub and slider can be replicated by a competent machine shop, but there will be big costs to whoever commissions them (i.e. having to pay for a few hundred of them up-front). If a business does go ahead with having their own parts made, please support them by buying a rebuild, or the raw parts themselves. It would be so sad to see support for our transmissions die because some minor parts go obsolete and it would also threaten to remove the PAR synchronized gearset from the market, as there won't be parts to build those. People will get by on harvesting core transmissions for a while, but eventually people start fighting over those and paying way too much (it's started happening years ago for Evo 123 transmissions). Worst case, your Staged build costs a couple hundred bucks more from an aftermarket hub/slider, but you'll have a reliable product. Vote with your wallets and get the aftermarket rolling, let's keep these cars alive.
 
In my personal opinion the 90 gearset is the strongest of the OEM gears, perhaps the slight different pitch has something to do with it.

That being said, they all die if you don't keep things in spec. Worn bearings and heat are the biggest killers of these transmissions. Keeping the gear preloads in spec is key and both these things effect it directly. When the preloads are off the stresses get moved from the root of the teeth to the tips, think of a lever, the further out, the less pressure they can take. We need to keep the stress at the root where they are the strongest. Bearing wear from high mileage or improper lubrication effects this directly. Heat also is a big factor, the aluminum case expands at nearly 2x the rate of the gear clusters, loosening the preloads, so keeping the trans temps down goes a long ways.

I run a 90 gearset in my 2g with a 4 spider center diff, I pull it bi-annually to inspect and re-shim it, it's been going strong for years, with many mid 10 second passes and low 1.5 60's.
 
Wow, thank you for the response Jason! I’ve seen just about all your YouTube videos LOL, your car, work ethic and info in your videos gives us all a nice standard to shoot for with these cars. I always wondered what gearset you ran/currently we’re running in your ten second beast:hellyeah: Are you still on the modified fp red?
 
Thank you Jeremy, I try to pay it forward with the info I've gained from others over the years.

Yes I'm still running that turbo.
 
Just happened to be on tmz’s awd rebuild page and noticed he no longer offers his stg 3/4 buildOMG. I understand parts are simply becoming non existent, i know Jack’s dropped their evo 3 Ultimate Ratio build a year or so ago, it just sucks for 5 speed guys in the 400-600 hp street car range. I can’t justify 8 grand on a transmission built for 1,000 horsepower when I’m making half that. I’m sure I’m on borrowed time with my 130’000 mile stock 90 trans at 35 psi with a 35r,

Check Tim Zimmer's Facebook page for what he has to say about the hub and slider disco. Here's a little bit of it:
"Currently I am trying to find an availability solution for the now obsolete DSM 90-92 HD 3rd/4th hub and slider assembly. This is affecting around 20 transmissions at the shop and I am looking into the cost of manufacturing the component."

I thought he said somewhere in that thread that he was going to ask for bids from a few machine shops to build these parts. An initial lot size of 50 is what he had in mind. Now I can't find that part of it.
His Facebook is at https://www.facebook.com/tim.zimmer.35?__tn__=,d-]-h-R&eid=ARC9Du6EUW1f_DkZrnuRryWlRwq07KsjDbxMURsDVkMyfbCP2A0SjKkIqgksfGDS1ySwKl93t75xKtHY

.... and the date of the post is August 9.

On my car running “low” boost at about 550 whp, the stock ’91 rebuild transmission didn’t last long (that was not a TMZ rebuild by the way).
It was street only, no launches. All I did was an occasional hard pull to redline in 2nd gear. No hard shifting. I wild guess it went through about 30 or 40 hard 2nd gear pulls, plus all the dyno pulls and road pulls it went through at English Racing.
So after that experience, I ordered a PPG dogbox from TMZ.

I really like what bastarddsm said, “if the demand for a solution was there, the parts would become available.”
Canadian_CD9A said “If a business does go ahead with having their own parts made, please support them by buying a rebuild, or the raw parts themselves.”
YES! I mean buying the raw parts, for spares, or whatever. It would spread the financial load and maybe the small production lot size could be bigger, lowering the cost.
Also, even before these hub and slider parts became unavailable, you still needed basically an unbroken core transmission to start from, because of a few other parts that were no longer available new.
So if these parts become available, get that puppy rebuilt before it breaks, not after!

The best core I could find was a JDM tranny that I bought from a place called JDM Florida. Talk to Miko the owner. I got a healthy dose of Japanese politeness from Miko which I really like, and the price including T-case was only $400, and no issues with shipping. It was from apparently a 6G72 car, and right-hand drive of course, so the bell housing was all wrong. But the rest of it was very good and fits the proper DSM bell housing which we already had.

You can still get a PPG dogbox, or a Liberty faceplated dogbox same as before. In fact Tim says on his Facebook that the cost of the PPG gearsets has come down a little from what it was. Don't know how much.
 
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I see there’s defenantly still options out there, thanks for the info:thumb:, by the way, is your dog box equipped car street driven? How do you like it?
 
I see there’s defenantly still options out there, thanks for the info:thumb:, by the way, is your dog box equipped car street driven? How do you like it?

I don't have it yet! Yeah, it takes a long time to get through the whole process.
But that is my plan. Street only, no track. Which it has been all along.
People used to say "track only" for dog boxes. I'm not worried about it. I don't use this car for transportation. I don't rely on it for any useful purpose. I won't drive it in heavy traffic. etc etc.

I thought that either English Racing or Tim would try to talk me out of it, knowing full well how I use my car. But they didn't at all.
I kind of cleared my mind of most of the horror stories by watching the video posted on YouTube by Mr PPG himself in 2007, where he shows how to drive it on the street, with 2 different cars.
I also talked a lot with @DSMPT about his experiences with it, and that helped a lot (using the private messages here).

I will say though that I really like the DSM 5 speed gearbox and 91-94 OEM shifter. The one I had that was a rebuild was the nicest shifting gearbox I've ever had in any manual car. That includes BMW, Toyota, and I don't even count Subaru because the only Subaru I've ever driven has a very vague shifter which would give you no end of trouble on a dog box.
Actually my Toyota also has a really nice shifting gearbox but I never stress it.
Here's a link to that video:

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I don't have it yet! Yeah, it takes a long time to get through the whole process.
But that is my plan. Street only, no track. Which it has been all along.
People used to say "track only" for dog boxes. I'm not worried about it. I don't use this car for transportation. I don't rely on it for any useful purpose. I won't drive it in heavy traffic. etc etc.

I thought that either English Racing or Tim would try to talk me out of it, knowing full well how I use my car. But they didn't at all.
I kind of cleared my mind of most of the horror stories by watching the video posted on YouTube by Mr PPG himself in 2007, where he shows how to drive it on the street, with 2 different cars.
I also talked a lot with @DSMPT about his experiences with it, and that helped a lot (using the private messages here).

I will say though that I really like the DSM 5 speed gearbox and 91-94 OEM shifter. The one I had that was a rebuild was the nicest shifting gearbox I've ever had in any manual car. That includes BMW, Toyota, and I don't even count Subaru because the only Subaru I've ever driven has a very vague shifter which would give you no end of trouble on a dog box.
Actually my Toyota also has a really nice shifting gearbox but I never stress it.
Here's a link to that video:
Yeah I’ve seen that video, have you seen that TRC video with the silver 2g tagged “toretto”, that guy’s favorite part of his car was the dog box LOL. He recommended it to anyone looking to upgrade as oppose to going the oem route. It’s a very expensive decision, however everything about going fast is expensive, and if your making the power why not
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I see there’s defenantly still options out there, thanks for the info:thumb:, by the way, is your dog box equipped car street driven? How do you like it?
Drivability of dogbox with straight cut gears on the street is depending how much you can accept/stand the whine noise and the shock from straight cut gears and dog engagement. You can shift like stock transmission, just do not hesitate to go into gear when you shift but no need to force anything.
Maybe it would annoy you if the car is very daily, used very often or for long distance. But in my case, I don't drive often and the car is heavily modified with all mounts are solid, loud exhaust, multi plate clutch, etc etc. The car is already noisy and harsh enough anyways, so I don't really mind about that.
The video in the link below is very close to reality. It shows more how it's gonna be. Mine does almost the same noise. (The sound volume is low, should use a headphones or bigger speakers)
Since PPG is Australian, the value of the US dollar also affects the US price. Around 2009, it was US$7000ish. A couple years ago they priced down to $5,300 and now $5,500. Let's hope it won't price up again.
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Drivability of dogbox with straight cut gears on the street is depending how much you can accept/stand the whine noise and the shock from straight cut gears and dog engagement. You can shift like stock transmission, just do not hesitate to go into gear when you shift but no need to force anything.
Maybe it would annoy you if the car is very daily, used very often or for long distance. But in my case, I don't drive often and the car is heavily modified with all mounts are solid, loud exhaust, multi plate clutch, etc etc. The car is already noisy and harsh enough anyways, so I don't really mind about that.
The video in the link below is very close to reality. It shows more how it's gonna be. Mine does almost the same noise. (The sound volume is low, should use a headphones or bigger speakers)
Since PPG is Australian, the value of the US dollar also affects the US price. Around 2009, it was US$7000ish. A couple years ago they priced down to $5,300 and now $5,500. Let's hope it won't price up again.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.

That is good to hear. Is there any concern with wear life of a dog box that you know of? I have mentioned dog box and street car to some people with the reaction of "have fun rebuilding it every 2000 miles" or similar. My car is not a daily. It will see about 2000-3000 total miles a year. But a rebuild of it yearly doesn't sound fun to me.
 
Dude the video of the owner driving their gtr had 20’000 miles, and was literally made to crush the myths. What I’ve gathered so far is people who haven’t personally owned a ppg trans say it won’t work, but those who actually have them say otherwise. It’s like oem or not it will still break, but I’ve read more results of those constantly rebuilding there “stage whatever” rebuilds do to some factor part breaking
 
That is good to hear. Is there any concern with wear life of a dog box that you know of? I have mentioned dog box and street car to some people with the reaction of "have fun rebuilding it every 2000 miles" or similar. My car is not a daily. It will see about 2000-3000 total miles a year. But a rebuild of it yearly doesn't sound fun to me.
If the transmission is properly built, you don't really need to rebuild yearly or every 3000miles. You just need to change the gear oil every 5000km/3000miles to have the best longevity, that is what I was recommended by PPG.
 
If the transmission is properly built, you don't really need to rebuild yearly or every 3000miles. You just need to change the gear oil every 5000km/3000miles to have the best longevity, that is what I was recommended by PPG.

Any thoughts on the dogs wearing? Have you had yours serviced? If so, how many miles in?
 
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