Hi all, my name is Russ and I'm with Eggboy Racing. We've been having issues with our 1990 Taurus SHO MTX-IV transmission.
We are endurance racing the car (7, 14 and 24 hour races) on various road courses (Road America, Gateway, VIR, Heartland Park etc this year). We're very limited by the rules of the series to what we can do performancewise on the cars. We've done very little to the motor so we're running near stock hp/trq. numbers. Weight of the car is about 2700 lbs. Stock clutch. 180 treadware tires, so nothing very sticky. No standing starts or anything like that.
We've been eating transmissions. In an effort to solve problems we've welded the internals of the diff. We've secured the diff pins by placing a aluminum ring around the diff, over the pins and then welding the ring to the diff itself. That mod alone worked great and we almost got an entire season out of the last transmission. At the last race however, it was combination of circle track and road course with ~ 4 hours in each setup. Needless to say the transmission ate itself after about 18 hours. The case was so hot it melted the plastic clutch fork bushing as well as the vent.
Up until that point we had been using various ATF's with the last fluid being Royal Purple. The fluid was toasted. All of the internals of the transmission looked as if someone took a belt grinder to them. Only the diff was salvageable.
We initially planned on adding a cooler/pump to the next trans case. We've added a trans temp gauge and tapped the bottom of the housing to pull the fluid and plan on the return going in the filler opening. We've also tapped the vent hole and plan on adding an expansion tank and overfilling the case.
We've had a local trans guy suggest running Mobil 1 5w20 in the trans and that any sort of ATF will not last due to what we are doing with the car. Not being transmission guys, the thought of engine oil in a trans that requires ATF/thin fluid from the factory causes most of the team some hesitation. My research on the subject has brought me to BIOTG and I've learned a lot! Would you also suggest Mobil 1 5w20 or is there a different fluid you would use?
Thanks in advance for ANY advice you can give and thank you for your time!
We are endurance racing the car (7, 14 and 24 hour races) on various road courses (Road America, Gateway, VIR, Heartland Park etc this year). We're very limited by the rules of the series to what we can do performancewise on the cars. We've done very little to the motor so we're running near stock hp/trq. numbers. Weight of the car is about 2700 lbs. Stock clutch. 180 treadware tires, so nothing very sticky. No standing starts or anything like that.
We've been eating transmissions. In an effort to solve problems we've welded the internals of the diff. We've secured the diff pins by placing a aluminum ring around the diff, over the pins and then welding the ring to the diff itself. That mod alone worked great and we almost got an entire season out of the last transmission. At the last race however, it was combination of circle track and road course with ~ 4 hours in each setup. Needless to say the transmission ate itself after about 18 hours. The case was so hot it melted the plastic clutch fork bushing as well as the vent.
Up until that point we had been using various ATF's with the last fluid being Royal Purple. The fluid was toasted. All of the internals of the transmission looked as if someone took a belt grinder to them. Only the diff was salvageable.
We initially planned on adding a cooler/pump to the next trans case. We've added a trans temp gauge and tapped the bottom of the housing to pull the fluid and plan on the return going in the filler opening. We've also tapped the vent hole and plan on adding an expansion tank and overfilling the case.
We've had a local trans guy suggest running Mobil 1 5w20 in the trans and that any sort of ATF will not last due to what we are doing with the car. Not being transmission guys, the thought of engine oil in a trans that requires ATF/thin fluid from the factory causes most of the team some hesitation. My research on the subject has brought me to BIOTG and I've learned a lot! Would you also suggest Mobil 1 5w20 or is there a different fluid you would use?
Thanks in advance for ANY advice you can give and thank you for your time!
