hi has anyone used or using a 6speed elite gearbox?
i,m after any info /advice please
hi has anyone used or using a 6speed elite gearbox?
i,m after any info /advice please
i no someone that uesd one in a national hotrod behind a redtop vauxhall and they loved it said it was better than the quaife one
Can you shed some light on this gearbox please?...I'm looking for one to run on a vauxhall
The way to my heart: German and RWD!!
I've co driven in a group4 escort running a red top and elite sequential.
It's a great box and goes through the gears amazingly quick.
Driver's only criticism was that they don't hold much oil and it blew during Jersey 06 in a big way!!
He hasn't had it rebuilt yet becuase of this so if you want to buy one for a rebuild then i'm sure he'd sell it.
Yep, I've been running one in mine for the last year.
An excellent box cant fault it at all and their customer service is excellent unlike a certain well known gearbox manufacturer.
What do you want to know about it?
Cheers
Steve
heard they are good,my mate bust one of them in a westfield duratec ,,cost him a fortune to fix,, so i went and purchased a quaife sequential, YES IT IS FOR SALE,[change of plans],will take £3600 for it , think it is a better unit than elite,tel 07949647864 if you are intereted,
Got mates that have used elite boxes & from what I have heard..............
Great customer service
Good gearboxes 'in use'
A bit fragile
Do you know which model gearbox it is?
I spoke with Quaiffe and Elite at the Autosport show, and the difference was unbelievable!
The Quaiffe person really didnt appear to give a toss about answering any questions, and even joked about 3-month turnarounds for service work!
Meanwhile, the Elite guy couldnt have been any more helpful - asking lots of questions about the car, demonstrating the gearbox operation, discussing service lifes, custom bellhousings, prop-shaft requirements, special deals etc. He even admitted that they had had problems with some of their boxes, but that they were resolved now.......seemed very honest indeed
I guess one question I have for Elite users - are the ones that have broken all relatively early units? Could it be that the ones for sale now are modified/better?
Cheers,
Paul
I think that its a shame that Quaife appear to have such a poor reputation for service, you get the same story about Quaife on many other forums.....
Good customer service is one of the cheapest ways of keeping customers
The Quaife & Elite boxes are like chalk and cheese. The Elite box is a bespoke true sequential box whereas the Quaife box is a converted conventional ‘H’ pattern box and you can still find neutral between the gears, not what you want when braking hard or accelerating hard which could result in a blown engine! Whereas the Elite IL300 box only has one neutral position between Reverse & 1st gears and its impossible to get neutral between1st to 6th its either in one gear or the other. The Elite box also has drop gears which can be changed quite easily, which at £200 a set is easier and cheaper than changing your diff/final drive ratio
I personally would never use a Quaife box again given that their customer service is appalling and the gears they use seem to be made of chocolate given the length of time they seem to last. I recently phoned up Quaife to order some spares for my axle kit and they said we cant process anything unless we have an email or fax from you stating what you require WTF are you supossed to do if you don’t have access to a pc or fax machine.
On the other hand I have found Elite to be very helpful, yes their early boxes did have problems, which you would expect in the early stages of development and these have now been ironed out. A couple of things they have had problems with is poor quality bearings and also the early ones had hollow gear levers which allowed the cables to run up the inside of them which resulted in a few snapped levers. They now have solid levers, which are also quick release.
As I only live 5 miles away from Elite, I have popped in a few times and they have always made me very welcome and given me a tour of their premises and had the box and workings explained to me in detail. They even took my box back to do a update on it free of charge. I also brought my prop from them, which was a good price.
I have been using it for nearly 2 years now and not had any problems with it, but I do change the oil in it regularly.
Cant argue about Elites customer service, heard nothing but good stuff. My mates gear boxes broke but Elite did try & put it right
What about some of the other brands though?
I've heard people raving about the Drenth boxes & there are Tractive & Selholm too
Search 'Drenth' on britishrally.co.uk
These are from some of the threads:
"I don not think you will find anything that will not break at sometime but i have a customer running a Tractive in his manta, Usual red top. t/b etc and only does irish events and its just like the works type box, very little effort and movement to change gear.Not had any trouble at all, prior to this he was breaking an Elite every event"
"We do have a Tractive box and it is fantastic. We have only done two events so far but one of them was Jersey which if you don't know the event it is lots of tight twisty country lanes so plenty of changes up and down the box.
Fingers and toes crossed but this is the only box that we have had that Stu has not broken.
The gear change is night and day to our old Quaife box. We did buy a decent prop to take some of the strain from the box but it was ordered locally. Tractive were superb to deal with, no messing and delivery on the exact day that they quoted. If we had bought one years ago I think we would have saved thousands of pounds."
I know too many people with elite boxes & they seem to break all the time. Yes customer service is good but there comes a point where you just get fed up taking the thing in and out of the car all the time.
I did notice on the Mull rally last year that the proprep escort did actually make it to the finish this time. This was running the heavy duty version, not the cheese one that all the kit cars use in sprints & hillclimbs. Yes reliability seems to have come on a bit in the last year but I would still not be confident to spend my own money on one.
Quaife have a new heavy duty gearbox out now that is a direct replacement for the type 9. Previously they had an adapted h pattern gearbox running that barrel shift thingy on the back. I know several people running the old sequential unit & their reliability has been good. They are putting their new box in a few race series cars this year so we will see if it is reliable or not.
Out of the H pattern (budget) dog boxes that are available the Quaife one comes out top in my opinion. I have used one for several years on a 250 hp VX engine & it has not needed a rebuild yet.
If I was looking at spending upward of 5k on a box i'd be looking at the Quaife one. If I had more money to spend then the Tractive, Drenth or Sadev units would be one of my choices.
thank you for your help chaps.
i'm looking to buy abox to go into grp4 escort running 20xe
i have spoken to all at autosport aswell getting the same reponse's anwsers. quaiffe told me there new box had only been tested on the back of a jag circuit car ! what good is that when your intenting to put it a rally car! and when i said it was still in need of testing/development he said wait for acouple of months iethe one that buy them first do the testing! how good is that!
sorry not going for quaiffe even when i'm close's to them .
has anyone tried the tran x sl72 dogbox?
cheers
its usually the smaller il200 box thats getting broke and seems to be used beyond its limit, not the bigger il300 that sideways is using,the il300 is able to handle more torque,its more expensive than the il200,so people go for the cheaper one and hope,customer service aint great,its like they dont want to sell anything,ive been waiting 3months
4 speed dog box from quaife is just the job. Tried and tested over a couple of decades. Just make sure you get the ally case version. I've been running one in mine for ages with 20XE power no problems. Its also light so if you need to do a clutch at service it is easy to take out.
You won't need 6 gears with the engine anyway, 20XE has bucket loads of torque to overcome this. Why do you want to waste another 3k on 2 more gears & a poncy shift? That's better spent on a season's worth of tyres.
You could try an Altezza 6 speed box, apparently they are used by the drift guys and take some hammer. Mike Storrar has one in his rally anglia mated up to a toyota 1600 twin cam with 160 bhp. He had a few problems on Mull with the clutch linkage that he made, but the gearbox is awesome. I know he didn't think much of quaife.
your right windy,QUAIFE, i have one here for saLE,STRONG BOX,
About 2 years ago when i started my Duratec spaceframe Anglia project i decided that i needed a sequential box. I spoke to quaife a couple of times but they seemed quite uninterested ant not at all helpfull.I then spoke to Elite and they were very helpfull.They invited me to visit the factory and try the box on the test bench.Even though it was 200 miles each way i did this and was made most welcome and loved the feel of the box and ordered the IL200/6.A week or so later they rang to advise me that the box would struggle with the torque of the 2.3 and suggested i go for the bigger IL300/6.The then built this for me with the ratios i needed for road use and even delivered it for me.A few weeks after that they rang to say that they had been having trouble with a batch of faulty bearings and they would like the box back to change them.As i live only 40 miles from ipswich stadium they suggested that i go to the world hotrod finals and they would be there and take the box back to the factory and replace the bearings.They did this and again delivered it back to me.I could not ask for better service.Superb bunch of guys.Sad thing is that the car is taking so long to build that i have not even tried the box or the 260 bhp Duratec yet.Hopefully soon.
thanks again for your info chaps
i think i'm going to have to bite the bullit and get il300
fingers crossed it will last as i'm intending to do tarmac championship and take car to jersey rally this year.
parra what ratio's does your mate have in his box?
cheers
I think that with all things you take your chances, i know people who have got Quaife (Inc me) and have never had any trouble, i also know people who have had Elite and have had no trouble.
I have noticed that the Elite boxes were quite weak at the beginning and they had a spate of the gearsticks snapping off. One guy i know with a Darrian had Elite repair his gearbox overnight on the Rockingham Stages a couple of years ago afetr it broke on the saturday, then it broke again on the sunday after they repaired it.
Now it seems that the products themselves seem to not be the problem, but the customer service is what most people seem to be concerned about.
With regards to the SL72 Dogbox by Tran-X, hmmm, i know a mate had one in his Mk2 and was getting through two of them at each event, and eventually gave up with it.
The key things with sequentials is that you ideally should use a flatshift device as you can never be fast enough to slow the dogs down manually.
Anything to do with Motorsport will break at some point, its how you use it and is it fit for purpose???
If it gets a right thrashing then it will break at some point. How many people change the oil in the engine after a rally/race but don't change the oil in the box or diffs?
Quaife 6 speed with flatshift from Geartronics is awesome tho, had a few niggly setup issues but not anything serious.
You get what you pay for in this life and if you want the best then get a Drenth or Tractive, if not then you take your pick from either Quaife or Elite.
Quaife are shit at customer service, but even when you have a new box and it breaks, how do you get this through warranty? Simple fact is you don't. You can kill a gearbox in 5 minutes, wrong oil, overfilled, not enough oil, too many revs, wrong gear selection by not being firm enough (Quaife suffer from this unless you bang it in hard!!)
If you have a sequential then you do need to budget for a rebuild every year. Even if it is just to do a basic service, seals, bearings etc... it does need to be done otherwise it will fail big time!
I take mine to T2 Performance, Alan who i have known for years, used to be the product manager at Tran X and now has his own company and does a great job at the right price.
Why bother with Quaife on service work, when it won't have any real warranty anyway, and you still get charged?
Better to take it somewhere else and get it done when you want it done.
Just my thoughts
Can I bring this thread up again to see if anyone has had any further experiences with the Elite Sequential?
Thinking of buying one, but cant find people that have used them?
Cheers
I'd be interested in this info too. Am considering a spend-up, but want to do some more homework on these first :
Tractive RD906
Quaife 60G
Elite IL3006S
DB400
Others?
Cheers,
Paul
G force from the states
http://www.gforcetransmissions.com/tran_gt-5.asp
Old skool forever
Just don`t tell the wife
how much it really costs!
In rallying just about anyone I've heard talking about sequential boxes recently has been saying you really cant go wrong with Tractive.
I've not first hand experience of Tractive but supposed to be very very reliable, low drag & good company support.
On the Elite range, they might well be better now but I do have some recent first hand experience with these.
Serviced at a rally for someone with a 250 BHP escort with an Elite 6 speed box, he's just given up on it after reliability problems and ordered a 6 speed tractive.
I think Elite give good support (unlike Quaife) & the 'new' boxes may be better now
I'd go down the service park on the next rally & ask anyone with a 'trick' escort what they think
I've recently had experience of an elite kit in something else and it was poorly manufactured so it went back.
I think the general consensus with elite is yes they have good customer service but they definitely need to have because they rely solely on the customer doing the development for them. In this day that is just not acceptable. I wasn't prepared to do this with my gear kit - that's why it went back.
On the other hand the new dedicated Quaife sequential seems to be very good. I've not heard any stories about reliability yet so it seems at least quaife have done their testing before releasing their boxes to customers.
I've just had the need to finally pull my Quaife 4 speed dog box out for a rebuild (after 5 years!!!) - 4th dog teeth rounded off (as they do). Phoned them up for spares, very helpfull and everything in stock.
So my experience of quaife poor customer service is a myth it seems.
The quaife 4 speed really is a very simple unit to service by yourself so there are no issues for me getting it rebuilt. I would imagine the same is the case for their new sequential - i.e. it is simple.
If your budget is for elite / quaife, I'd go for the quaife.
If you have more money then tractive seems the way to go.
I have spoken with Elite and they recon they have ironed out all the issues with the Il300 box,
Would love to know of someone who runs one.
Windy, which Quaiffe box are you sugesting? is it capable of handling 450 lb-ft
Cheers
I had Quaife service my 5spd sequential type 9 box a couple of years ago - which I'd bought 2nd hand.
It cost about £200 including VAT and parts. They even replaced a number of parts for free as they'd been superseeded with newer components. They took a week, which is what they told me it would take. I may have been lucky, but my experience with them has been first rate so far.
Last edited by windy; 30-06-2009 at 14:17.
to update
i went for the elite box as i didn,t have the £10k for a tractive (much better box well worth it if funds permit)
got mucked about by them (dean) long story so not going into it.
spoke to alot of people both here and ireland all said quaife g60 box was best at the mo.but as i was about to order one a heavy duty 15g came up at the right price so brought it.only down sides being alot heavier than a type 9 extra work to put in but able to take 450 instead of 275bhp
works atreat well happy.
cheers
great news with your,e box, i got a glebe unit g6 6 speed seq, not fitted it yet,but suposed to be strong,wonder if anyone has any rumours abojut this box,good/bad
I contacted G-force Transmissions to see wheter their box would be suiteble for my MK1 With tiny 1.6 Sigma engine.
My options seems to be quite limited because the ragulations do not allow me to use sequential boxes. Otherwise I'd be screming for the light elite box.
I may be forced to go Tran X way or the finnish made Toyota dog boxes (have to be forced hard for that one)
What is this glebe unit?
Thread revival.
Does anyone have any further more recent feedback on the Elite boxes? The IL300 is a very strong box which is specc'ed to take a large amount of torque.
Good money too in comparison to some others.
Have a watch of this !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=nawzhPQEfvk
Looks ok to me
I've heard that the elite Drains masses of power from the engine.
This would explain why some people say they are so much louder than the others (?)
That is rubbish. We have run both 200 series (too small) and 300 series in a Darrian. The 300 series has a different bearing arrangement and actually absorbs LESS power than the smaller, smaller, lighter, weaker 200.
Actually we were amazed how LITTLE power the gearbox absorbed.
Hi,
Does anybody have experience with FWD250 6S?
I would like to mate it with Duratec NA 220lb/ft which seems to be well within the torque spec of the box.
We are having several young drivers, for whom it will be the first un-synchronised dog-box, so wondering how well it will stand their mistakes.
Tractive is probably more robust, but how expensive it is?!
Uli ring Mike at Saenz transmissions, the gearboxes are bullet proof and anyone can service them, I would never have had the confidence to pull a box apart but theses only need an Allen key and sirclip pliers
Hi Moisty,
thanks for the saenz link, I would like to write to them, I guess their GT transmission coud suit me. Do you know about it? (I ask because you obviously use not that model for your car)
I would like to refer to you in the mail if you don't mind?
What is your name?
Hi uli
I am in Australia and went over to Ireland and met mike and had a look at the tt3 6 speed and had a run in a car with one in it and bought one. Mike is very helpful and we went to the west cork rally and I met Ed ocallaghan who has been running one for a few years and plenty of rallies and has had no issues at all
Send him an email and I'm sure he will give you all the info you need
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