transmission questions
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Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 21
transmission questions
sorry im a noob, just got my wrx a couple months ago, there were 2 previous owners and the guy i bought it from told me that its on its 2nd tranny, first one was replaced at 13,000 miles (God knows what the guy did to it) now it has 40,000 miles and it has grinded 1st gear a couple times since i got it, does it mean the trannys about to go out? right now its stock but i plan on doing a lot to this car, such as a VF34 turbo upgrade, ECU upgrade, FMIC, a boost controller and exhaust and downpipe, would the stock tranny be able to handle all that? and if so how long? idk much about the tranny on this car but ive heard its bad so i just wanna know how much id have to spend on a tranny if i did all those mods, please post back, thanks a lot in advance, and sorry if the questions are stupid lol im new to this car...
Registered User
Joined: Feb 2005
Posts: 2
From: San Diego, CA
Car Info: 02 wrx
weak tranny
The subaru wrx tranny is sh*t I've broke 2 in my experience with mine. Its same trans that was designed for the non turbo subarus that had about 120 horse. If you going to push a lot of horse do yourself a favor and get some better gears before you break them. I'm running sti ra gears right now and there a good ratio for racing but not for running 80 on the interstate everday. They can handle 300+ whp I bought mine from gruppe-s for about 1400 dollars.
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Grinding can also be attributed to the type of fluid in the transmission. I noticed you said it grinds going into 1st, is that at a stop or while moving? These transmissions don't like to go into first while moving. Some will say that it's because of a poor design. The fact of the matter is they do not like going into 1st while moving because of the steep difference in ratios between 2nd gear and 1st gear. If the car is moving over 5-7 MPH you're asking the transmission to synchronize a speed that's really to fast for the 1st gear ratio synchros to handle well.
If it's grinding while moving, my advice is to stop trying to hit first while going too fast, hit 2nd and rev higher and slip the clutch a bit in order to create some load on the motor to get a little boost up. If it's grinding while stopped, then you probably have a bad synchro and if you can't afford to have it looked at and/or fixed right now, save up some money and be careful with it to get it to last.
In either case above, I would use synthetic fluid in it. There is a world of difference between a good synthetic and the off the shelf crap that Subaru uses (no they don't use anything special). Use Redline 75-90NS. Use specifically that fluid. People will come on and say that Redline is crap, most of those people tried it but used the wrong weight of oil. Most of them tried using Redline MTL, which IS too thin for our transmissions. Make sure it is 75-90NS and not just the 75-90, as the NS is GL5 certified and the non NS is only GL4. Subaru reccomends a GL5 fluid. The same stuff can also be used in the rearend. The trans take 3.8 quarts and the rear take ~.8, so 5 quarts would be needed to drain and fill both, or just 4 for just the trans.
Hope this write up helps.
BTW: My transmission is the stock trans that came with it, it's an 02. It's been living with 250WHP for 2 years now. With proper maintenence and driving style, they can last a decent amount of time. I'm just starting now to get a little bearing noise from it, but shiftability and driving haven't suffered. It also has about a dozen drag strip passes on it. Some of the people who have blown the stock trans either don't know how to drive an AWD car well, or don't care and just beat the sh** out of it like it's a Muncie or a Jerico or something.
If it's grinding while moving, my advice is to stop trying to hit first while going too fast, hit 2nd and rev higher and slip the clutch a bit in order to create some load on the motor to get a little boost up. If it's grinding while stopped, then you probably have a bad synchro and if you can't afford to have it looked at and/or fixed right now, save up some money and be careful with it to get it to last.
In either case above, I would use synthetic fluid in it. There is a world of difference between a good synthetic and the off the shelf crap that Subaru uses (no they don't use anything special). Use Redline 75-90NS. Use specifically that fluid. People will come on and say that Redline is crap, most of those people tried it but used the wrong weight of oil. Most of them tried using Redline MTL, which IS too thin for our transmissions. Make sure it is 75-90NS and not just the 75-90, as the NS is GL5 certified and the non NS is only GL4. Subaru reccomends a GL5 fluid. The same stuff can also be used in the rearend. The trans take 3.8 quarts and the rear take ~.8, so 5 quarts would be needed to drain and fill both, or just 4 for just the trans.
Hope this write up helps.
BTW: My transmission is the stock trans that came with it, it's an 02. It's been living with 250WHP for 2 years now. With proper maintenence and driving style, they can last a decent amount of time. I'm just starting now to get a little bearing noise from it, but shiftability and driving haven't suffered. It also has about a dozen drag strip passes on it. Some of the people who have blown the stock trans either don't know how to drive an AWD car well, or don't care and just beat the sh** out of it like it's a Muncie or a Jerico or something.
Last edited by ReXoRaMa; Feb 10, 2005 at 09:24 AM.
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