Hey guys, I found the limits of the W58 last friday night at the local drag strip(1houraway). 6500 clutch drop in first with some 275/45/r18 tires air'd down to 20 psi.

I'll start off with why i thought i was safe I had some 255/45/r18s i could basically drift with. I actually went racing around a go cart track that's almost a mile long and my cool down laps were practice drift laps. I 6500 clutch dropped on those 255 tires at least 25 times. I was running 13.9s at the track spinning them out of the hole with a 5-6k clutch drop launch....

Anyways new tires more grip i launched at 5k rpms the first time and they spun alittle but then i bogged down to 3k rpms and ran 14.2 for my first pass of the night. Thats when i said i'm going low 13s! air'd down the tires and ramped up the rpms in the launch only to hear a very loud metal pop sound when i let her rip...

To what everyone wants to see pictures! If anyone has a dead W58 for a different reason than first gear synchronizer hub i'd like to put them together and make a good Frankenstein W58 as the pieces i need are discontinued...

 

 

 

Thanks for the info, I'm thinking of an r154 swap. i definitely need to upgrade. The t56 magnum looks so nice but my wallet doesn't agree with 6k

 

depending on your power goal and looking at the prices of a new R154 and a new T56 magnum , the latter will be a better choice and just save till you get it all not unless you badly need the car now. It will be probably be the last manual transmission you will ever need. With R154, you will still have that limitation and problems associated with them depending on your power.

 

^^ Though I am a happy R154 owner I have to agree with Gerry. As to his emphasis, I am running nowhere near the amount of boost you are against my R154, scsexy (12psi max at the moment and probably never more than 15psi later) and as such I'm not concerned about the limitations inherent in the R154 at roughly 500 ft-lbs of torque let alone the limitations of my long departed W58. I'm not pushing my car in any competitive situation.

But... the T56 Magnum, for all the upfront costs associated, is on another level and has been said to be superior even to the V160. Costly to buy and install but one of the most overbuilt manual transmissions ever made with very recent R&D. The R154 went through some improvement over the years but its original design dates back to 1985. It can be good, yes, depending on your desired power level but the modern step above it that removes all limitations is the T56 Magnum.


If you do still consider an R154:

With an old one... it's good to rebuild it with upgraded billet shift forks (Driftmotion and/or Marlin Crawler), heavy duty bearings and an upgraded billet front bearing retainer and upgraded chomoly 1st gear thrust washer. And you need to specify a good clutch setup which all adds to the total cost.

A new old stock tripod R154 isn't cheap either. It doesn't need to be upgraded but it also can be for the best power holding it can achieve. You need to be pushing some good power to see the internal pressure limitations in these gearboxes and the tripod versions do have better shift feel than the earlier versions.

Although speaking only for myself my 1989 era R154 shifts fine and could be compared to a new old school 1980's Fox Mustang Tremec T-5 5-speed. Really... the R154 is superior to those. I'm just trying to think of a similar comparison that was made during the same era of the mid-80's. This is all subjective but to me having grown up around 60's muscle cars this shift feel or the speed at which it can be achieved isn't any mark against the R154).