Question for Jake (fspGTD)

[VWRacer]

Jake, was your car originally a diesel Rabbit? I ask because I got to thinking about a post Dr D made a while back in which he was whining () about how his gasser tranny always had his 1.6l TD buzzing at high revs. Anyway, does your tranny match the diesel engine, or are you having to twist it pretty hard on the street?

Finally, do you think a 1.6l TD would match up okay to a A1 GTI, or are the gears way too steep?

Thanks! Stan

[fspGTD]

Yes it was.  '81 Rabbit Diesel L model with the 1.6lNA, 12mm head bolts, FF tranny with the .71 fifth, wide ratio 1st-5th, and 3.89 final drive.

I am currently on my 3rd iteration of transmission mated with the 1.6lTD motor.  First was the stock FF - did OK both autocrossing and freeway cruising but not the best for either.  The engine was wound a little high on the freeway.)  The second iteration was a really low number final drive that is now in Mr. Dave's posession (I think 3.42 ratio) with the FF 1st-5th gearset.  What I observed going to a really tall ratio was that low speed performance, in particular acceleration on the autocross course, suffered.  But I loooved cruising on the highway in that thing.

My latest iteration is moving the oppostie direction - I went with a close-ratio "4K" (84 GTI) transmission, however since I drive my car on the freeway to and from events I put in a .71 fifth to keep freeway cruising reasonable.  (I justify this as a "comfort and convenience modification", but the rules don't allow customizing ratios, only swapping entire transmissions as a unit (differential excepted.))  Anyway, I made some other changes at the same time (lightened flywheel, racing clutch, peloquin torsen LSD) and all combined, these transformed how quick the car was able to launch and accelerate at autocross speeds - up to about 60mph.  The "gap" between 4th and 5th is about a "gear and a half" and so might be a little odd for street driver, but it works just as I expected for my purposes.  For autocrossing racing it is useful having a small gap between 2nd and 3rd that the close-ratio tranny affords.  I find I use 3rd the most and only downshift to 2nd on the corners that are quite slow.

Now I'd like to beef up my torque curve around 2500-3000RPM more, so I can just leave it in 3rd and pull through those slow corners with good torque, the goal being to eliminate my need to do much shifting at all!  

For a street car, I'd recommend as tall an overall fifth as you can get.  I'd probably also recommend a wide-ratio gearset as the close-ratio leaves you doing extra shifting.

Dad's daily driver '84 Rabbit 1.6D has a really neat 4 speed with a very tall 4th (also known as the "3 plus E" - I think its fourth is as tall as the tallest 020 5th - or at least really close.)  It actually works really well for a street driver and I think we might be keeping it when we turbo his motor.