Sequential Gearbox Upgrade

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PostPosted: Mon Mar 15, 2021 8:30 pm
Very Sad Day for me to hear this news of a $12,500 gearbox , Time to quit racing again, I was looking forward to many years of racing but this is insane! I felt ripped off bad enough with the straight cut gearbox self destructing.
No place for this kind of a gearbox in this class in my opinion. What is SCCA thinking??????
I'm up in Canada and can't even cross the boarder to sell my car!

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PostPosted: Mon Mar 15, 2021 11:04 pm
Glenn, I would wait a while to see how this new transmission is included into SRF3 race group.

A lot of people are going to voice concerns of, transmission cost, car values, and cost of parts. Plus it appears a shift of age the of drivers racing in this SRF3.

Your SRF3 can be sold in BC or for sure in the East, like Ontario or Ottawa

Hang in there

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PostPosted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 3:49 pm
Well I just recently bought my SRF but it looks like I will be selling it and heading back to Spec Miata. Spending 30+k for a car then immediately having to spend 12k put it out or reach. It also seems to be a kick in the face that you have to pay for it up front. As I understand it you give a $1000 deposit to get on the list then you need to pay 5k by April then the remaining $6500 45 days prior to the transmission shipping. This also does not include the ECU and throttle body upgrade so currently no auto plip downshift. That will all be extra.

The other thing to note, is based on the initial cost of the boxes SCCA e is making about $2500 using my money and funding none of this project. If we have to pay for it up front then we should in my opinion be charged accordingly.

This thread is very interesting as it seems that people are split right down the middle. Does that mean the class will be split down the middle? If so, that doesn't sound so good for the class.

It just doesn't seem like this was very well thought out. Very little information and then bam. In reading earlier posts it was initially thought this would be the Gen 4 upgrade but now it is being billed as a reliability upgrade not a performance upgrade. How is that going to be the case? It would appear to me that if the cars are no faster (either by adding weight or ECU tuning) after people pay 12k for a transmission they won't be happy but if people don't spend the 12k and it turns out that the transmission is a performance enhancement those people won't be happy. Seems like a no win situation.

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PostPosted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 3:57 pm
At the Road Atlanta races this past weekend the SADEV and 5-speed cars all ran together without obvious differences. IMO it is more about reliability than performance and that's a bit of a surprise to me. I think if you're seriously competing for the podium or price shopping for a car it matters, but most people that have the podium in reach are planning on going to the runoffs and don't want to upgrade before then.
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 6:00 pm
Unfortunately, the Gen3 upgrade really demonstrated the weaknesses in the driveline (got a box of broken clutch discs, broken gear sets, and clutch "upgrades" (still need to "invest" in the latest version based on my clutch slip at the last event.)) It will be interesting to see if the new transmission resolves or exacerbates these driveline weaknesses.

I would expect a good Gen3 transmission is still worth $4-5k, so I expect the "early adopters" may benefit from selling these to others in the current classes (Gen2 & Gen3). Wouldn't it be nice if "Enterprises" offered a "trade-in" program? If they really want to sell people on the SADEV, that could offer more incentive than "full retail". That actually would help many in the class avoid the upgrade if there's an adequate supply of working/rebuildable transmissions (and continue to provide Enterprises with a revenue stream from "rebuild" Gen2/3 transmissions, something they've been leaving to other providers in the market.)

IMHO, the reason Enterprise is approaching this unusual early deposit model is cash flow, and volume commmitment. I don't expect they have $1.5m in cash just hanging around or the credit line to cover a long lead time R&D project with SADEV (whom I expect would want a pretty firm commitment before committing production resources to a custom project.) With the Ford, there was a promise of a better price for the early adopters, I haven't seen any similar incentives for this program (I assume due to the slim margin on the product.)

I think they've set the expectations reasonably low (not touting a performance enhancement, like the Gen3 upgrade), I guess the justification is that if you would ordinarily "nuke" two transmissions at some point it would be a "break-even" proposition. If it turns out to be a significant advantage, there could always be adjustments either to equalize the performance (e.g. engine settings / weight) or creating a measurable advantage (could I have 1,000 more RPM on the engine, please?) since this upgrade would mitigate the current "worst case" scenario associated wth the 3rd to 2nd "upshift"; the engine definitely does not like 9,300 RPM!
Bob Breton - SRF 51 - San Francisco Region

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PostPosted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 8:05 pm
I missed the part where SCCA Enterprises is holding a gun to your head forcing you to order a sequential??? As others have mentioned there will be some 5 speed gearboxes available for sale from the early sequential adopters so if you would like to go that route and keep fixing the 5 speeds when they break, then go for it.

I just spent another day driving one last Saturday, yep still mega cool.

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PostPosted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 10:48 pm
Thanks Bob for NOT injecting a dose of sarcasm into the discussion. As always well thought out and stated.

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PostPosted: Mon Mar 22, 2021 11:39 pm
A quick note: as far as I can tell the SADEV is a mechanical shifter, not fully electronic, so it will simply do what you tell it to, with no slow clutch release to save you from your mistakes. It's still completely possible to money-shift it if you push instead of pull for an upshift! The electronics are only there to help you shift by blipping or cutting throttle position to unload the transmission. They won't save you from a mistake. You also need to mindfully wait until you have slowed to downshift. If you're in the habit of changing gears as soon as you start braking, and delaying the clutch pedal release to make it work, you're 1) missing out on engine braking and 2) are forming a habit that can bend a valve with a sequential box.

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 23, 2021 11:30 am
enzo wrote:Thanks Bob for NOT injecting a dose of sarcasm into the discussion. As always well thought out and stated.



No sarcasm here, just sticking up for SCCA enterprises and the staff that constantly bend over backwards working on doing what is best for our class. Their work is always quick to be judged and thats not fair to all involved.

AND also the network of CSRs and prep shops that put their OWN money and time into R&D projects.
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 23, 2021 1:06 pm
My Enterprises experience with the Gen3 transition and support from Mike Davies has been outstanding, especially in comparison to the Gen2 transition. Did they get everything right? No, but they worked through the transition issues to get us to a reasonable point of reliability and consistency. The Gen3 communications was pretty clear throughout the early development and official deployment, as well as the on-going evolution/development of the product.

I do believe they could have done a better job of communicating to the customer base on the SADEV transmission development. They appear to have relied heavily on the CSR network, but that often leaves out the independent shops and drivers out of the communications loop. Not a single bit of official information was published by SCCA-Enterprises that this was coming, until a letter asking for deposits. Even now, you'd be hard pressed to find any useful information on their web site about the class, other than the occasionally published tech bulletin, never mind a lack of official social media presence.

I'm thankful for the individuals who stepped up on Facebook and Specracer.com to bring many of us into the loop for the first time, well into the development process, which is much appreciated. I hope to see Enterprises move toward "over-communicating" to the customer base to ease the anxiety inherent in any transition that can have a significant impact on the class (financially and competitely). Evolution is a necessary element of any racing class that's been around for 35 years; let's hope this is as positive as the earlier Gen3 experience.
Bob Breton - SRF 51 - San Francisco Region
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