Venom: H6 Gen2 Liberty GX

Venom · Post by **Venom** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 4:50 pm

I think a clutch pack is better since you can adjust it to have greater breaking strains etc. Carbon fibre ones have a much longer service life, like 50X longer than metal plates. Cost is about 1200 though. But if it means you can leave the gearbox in for 100,000kms then thats worth it. Geared LSDs have a weak locking strength and are slow to lock. Saying that though i think it still takes a dump on an open front diff.

Guess i'm just getting itchy and thinking about the next step, my drivetrain is good but i think it could be improved. Some extra washers in the rear LSD is definitely on the cards. I'm dissapointed it doesn't work when one front and rear wheel is lifted.

YouTube · Post by **El_Freddo** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 8:37 pm

Venom wrote:Carbon fibre ones have a much longer service life, like 50X longer than metal plates. Cost is about 1200 though.

*Falls off chair!*

Venom wrote:Guess i'm just getting itchy and thinking about the next step, my drivetrain is good but i think it could be improved. Some extra washers in the rear LSD is definitely on the cards. I'm dissapointed it doesn't work when one front and rear wheel is lifted.

Yeah but if an LSD would lock up a wheel when it's in the air I reckon we'd all have one and there wouldn't be a call for a locker - I know it's just the rear Taza's looking at but I reckon once there's a rear option a front one *shouldn't* be too far away if the rear can't be modified to fit (yes, I've already thought about this!).

Cheers

Bennie

Venom · Post by **Venom** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 2:08 pm

2 week wait for a new roof from Japan.

ScubyRoo · Post by **ScubyRoo** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 3:30 pm

eeeek! What are you driving in the mean time?

Venom · Post by **Venom** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 9:14 pm

MY wagon, got a picture of it in this thread somewhere.

NachaLuva · Post by **NachaLuva** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 10:11 pm

The CF clutck pack sounds good but crikey! Thats a lotta moulla!

If you can tighten up the rear LSD a bit I reckon that would make a big difference with the car's weight leaning back going up a hill.

Thats gonna be a long 2 weeks!

Venom · Post by **Venom** » Wed May 30, 2012 10:10 am

Ugh F&^!. Still not finished. I knew this panel repairer was SLOW, but original estimate was 2 weeks. I thought slow would drag it out to 3 or 4 weeks. Now going onto 11weeks!! Valid delays to some extent, roof had to come from Japan, panel beater off with hearnia, then two painters off with the flu, now bumpers been repaired at my request so they match the car (they weren't fixed under the claim). Sure the bumpers had taken some punishment, but i asked them bumpers to be fixed 2 weeks ago, apparently the specialist repairer they use for bumper repairs is part time? F$@!.

If i have to be a passenger this weekend at Mt Cole... well i guess i can drink to my hearts content in that case. Not as good as driving my own car though.

YouTube · Post by **El_Freddo** » Wed May 30, 2012 1:05 pm

Venom wrote:Ugh F&^!. Still not finished. I knew this panel repairer was SLOW, but original estimate was 2 weeks.

He must be a pretty easy to get along with laid back kind of fella!

Venom wrote:If i have to be a passenger this weekend at Mt Cole... well i guess i can drink to my hearts content in that case. Not as good as driving my own car though.

Don't worry, been there, done that - at Mt Cole no less

I'm hoping it'll be there, I want to see how well RS challenges your lib, or vice versa...

Cheers

Bennie

Venom · Post by **Venom** » Sun Mar 03, 2013 12:27 pm

Bored at work, so a little update.

In the end it took my repairer 3 months to get my car back to me after the Christmas 2011 hail storm damage.

Defects I've found with the repairs so far:
2 hail dint's still on the body.
2 paint runs, one of the rear wing and one under the rear passenger door.
Paint was still wet when they put the roof bars back on, so it creased the paint.
Panel alignment on the front passenger door, bonnet and front passenger guard is awfull.
The bump strips on the two front doors are peeling away.
Can see the line in the paint from the masking they did on the rear door.

Shannon's have told me to go to another repairer to get an assessment done to fix it all up, and the assessor put me onto someone they highly recommend.

In other news i broke my gearbox. My own fault for not locking the center diff in the sand. Pretty silly really, but for some reason i thought i should be using as little as possible when i should have had it switch on basically all the time off-road.

Oh well, onto better things now. The gearbox is out and at my the builders place been put back together.

I have a DCCD centre diff and cover plate arriving in the mail soon. Changing to a 4.11 ratio from the 3.7 i was using.

It's going back together with new KAAZ 1.5 way front LSD. Also got a matching 1.5 way rear LSD. After reviewing some video footage my gearbox builder reckon's my rear LSD wasn't doing much for me, so i'm hoping this new unit will make a big difference.

Probably nothing wrong with the OBX torsen unit i already had, but its cheap chinese stuff and i don't trust it. So while the opportunity was there i've decided the KAAZ will be better offroad, as well as a much better quality product with proper after sales support etc.

Going with a DCCDPro Auto controller for the center diff.

Done a few other little things as well. Replaced the bushes on both ends of the rear trailing arm mounts. Replaced the engine stay brace because the old one was flogged. Replaced the steering rack bushes. Going with aussie made Superpro stuff.

The custom lengthened tailshaft i had made up to suit the locking centre i'm going to have shortened back to factory length. It's got brand new greaseable uni joints all through it so i may as well use it.

I've also got onto a set of Audi A3 15" rims which fit over the 4 pots. Going to be looking into some MTR's for the Audi rims and using two sets of tyres/rims.

So DCCD, 4.11 and brand new KAAZ front and rear LSD's should be a whole lot of awesome. Can't wait!

ScubyRoo · Post by **ScubyRoo** » Sun Mar 03, 2013 11:47 pm

Hey Venom, what a sh*t to have to wait so long only to have issues with the work (not) completed. Hope you get it all sorted soon!

vincentvega · Post by **vincentvega** » Mon Mar 04, 2013 10:11 am

vincentvega wrote:I will be watching with interest to see how long that gearbox lasts. You obviously like to give your car a bit of stick offroad so it will be a very good test. Hopefully you get lots of life out of it.

Sorry to hear your gearbox went bang. What exactly failed and why did you think locking the center would have helped?

This unfortunately reaffirms my view that there is no such thing as a bulletproof 5MT. In the meantime my auto is still putting up with regular abuse. It just survived another flogging on stradbroke island over the weekend.

AlpineRaven · Post by **AlpineRaven** » Mon Mar 04, 2013 10:18 am

Venom wrote:Bored at work, so a little update.

In the end it took my repairer 3 months to get my car back to me after the Christmas 2011 hail storm damage.

Defects I've found with the repairs so far:
2 hail dint's still on the body.
2 paint runs, one of the rear wing and one under the rear passenger door.
Paint was still wet when they put the roof bars back on, so it creased the paint.
Panel alignment on the front passenger door, bonnet and front passenger guard is awfull.
The bump strips on the two front doors are peeling away.
Can see the line in the paint from the masking they did on the rear door.

Shannon's have told me to go to another repairer to get an assessment done to fix it all up, and the assessor put me onto someone they highly recommend.

In other news i broke my gearbox. My own fault for not locking the center diff in the sand. Pretty silly really, but for some reason i thought i should be using as little as possible when i should have had it switch on basically all the time off-road.

Oh well, onto better things now. The gearbox is out and at my the builders place been put back together.

I have a DCCD centre diff and cover plate arriving in the mail soon. Changing to a 4.11 ratio from the 3.7 i was using.

It's going back together with new KAAZ 1.5 way front LSD. Also got a matching 1.5 way rear LSD. After reviewing some video footage my gearbox builder reckon's my rear LSD wasn't doing much for me, so i'm hoping this new unit will make a big difference.

Probably nothing wrong with the OBX torsen unit i already had, but its cheap chinese stuff and i don't trust it. So while the opportunity was there i've decided the KAAZ will be better offroad, as well as a much better quality product with proper after sales support etc.

Going with a DCCDPro Auto controller for the center diff.

Done a few other little things as well. Replaced the bushes on both ends of the rear trailing arm mounts. Replaced the engine stay brace because the old one was flogged. Replaced the steering rack bushes. Going with aussie made Superpro stuff.

The custom lengthened tailshaft i had made up to suit the locking centre i'm going to have shortened back to factory length. It's got brand new greaseable uni joints all through it so i may as well use it.

I've also got onto a set of Audi A3 15" rims which fit over the 4 pots. Going to be looking into some MTR's for the Audi rims and using two sets of tyres/rims.

So DCCD, 4.11 and brand new KAAZ front and rear LSD's should be a whole lot of awesome. Can't wait!

Not good that you had to wait for 3 months and not completed! Before the panel beater hands over the keys - did they get you to go over the car before you signed it off?
Happened to me once as the panels wasnt correct, un-painted a section and i refused to sign it off before getting the keys - the panel beaters wasnt happy as they wanted handover and get the $ from insurance, few weeks later they went broke! - now you wonder why - they cut corners.
Cheers
AP

Venom · Post by **Venom** » Mon Mar 04, 2013 12:06 pm

AlpineRaven wrote:Not good that you had to wait for 3 months and not completed! Before the panel beater hands over the keys - did they get you to go over the car before you signed it off?
Happened to me once as the panels wasnt correct, un-painted a section and i refused to sign it off before getting the keys - the panel beaters wasnt happy as they wanted handover and get the $ from insurance, few weeks later they went broke! - now you wonder why - they cut corners.
Cheers
AP

I never signed off on it? Picked it up at 7.30 at night in the rain on a Friday night, desperate to get the car after 3 months without a vehicle. I'd already missed out on 2 Suby trips.

It wasn't even clean inside, covered in sanding dust. My black interior was white/grey. Didn't really notice untill i was back in Melbourne the next day.

They're in Ballarat and i had moved to Melbs during the repairs so it was just too hard to get back there to resolve the problems.

Hopefully Shannon's lets me sort it all out with another repairer in Melbs.

vincentvega wrote:Sorry to hear your gearbox went bang. What exactly failed and why did you think locking the center would have helped?

This unfortunately reaffirms my view that there is no such thing as a bulletproof 5MT. In the meantime my auto is still putting up with regular abuse. It just survived another flogging on stradbroke island over the weekend.

No such thing as a bullet proof transmission, auto or manual.

I don't completely understand what happened but i'll try to explain...

With the vacuum locking FT4WD gearbox the centre differential can slip inside it's housing when unlocked. This chews it out and the gears in the centre differential become loose. I was driving around in sand with it unlocked, the H6 easily over powering the unlocked centre sending all power to the front with the centre slipping and eating itself. Yum yum. Gearbox full of metal.

When locked it can't slip. I should have had it locked the moment it went off the black top. Especially with the H6 since it was over powering the center pretty easy on gravel, in the rain etc.

My gearbox builder has had a locking centre in his car for 14 years and reckon's its as good as gold, of course he has it locked all the time offroad. He did tell me that, but i got my wires crossed later on. Oh well.

Operator error in the end.

Auto is great and i seriously considered it. BUT my car is a conversion already and it would be a major dash out and partly rewire to go to an auto since i don't have a TCU (Already asked AMauto about it...). I'm not going to do that myself. I don't want to pay for that, and even if i did i wouldn't trust anyone in Vic to do the job properly. annnnnd if it needs a rebuild then there goes 2 grand easy on top of it.

YouTube · Post by **El_Freddo** » Mon Mar 04, 2013 6:29 pm

vincentvega wrote:Sorry to hear your gearbox went bang.

It didn't quite get there, but if Venom kept driving it the centre diff would have let go eventually...

Venom, great to hear you're on your way to a better setup. Looking forward to getting out there again!

We need to hit up Robe again - or continue exploring the Big Desert area

July holidays are looking like the best time for us at the moment

Cheers

Bennie

vincentvega · Post by **vincentvega** » Tue Mar 05, 2013 11:58 am

I have no understanding of how the L center diff lock works, but that sounds crazy. Its an open diff. Why would all the power going to the front wheels fry anything? That's like saying that your front or rear open diff died because one wheel was slipping. It just doesn't happen.

An LSD or set of clutches being overpowered, forced to slip and failing makes sense. I did this to my stock auto. But in an open center there is nothing to "slip".

I am only trying to understand what went wrong here as I have toyed with the idea of a 5MT many times. I get bored driving my auto to work every day, but put up with it because offroad it is bulletproof which is important in some of the places I have taken the car. The only 2 options I would consider for remote area touring are an auto or an STI 6MT. Thats as close as you can get to bulletproof in a suby.

Venom · Post by **Venom** » Tue Mar 05, 2013 1:14 pm

Just to clarify i'm talking about an imported Fulltime 4WD gearbox center differential. It provides variable amounts of drive to the rear wheels at all times, with a selectable 50/50 lock. Not just a regular L series front wheel drive/50-50 lock type.

The situation i'm describing which caused the damage is essentially the equivalent to running different sized tyres front and rear.

Not going to debate the strength of 5MT's or auto vs. manual in my thread. Simply put I'm fully aware of the pros and cons and made an informed decision (subject to a uni students cash flow at the time and my specific vehicle) to go the way i did in the first place, same same for this second incarnation. This second build is basically the way i would have preferred to do it in the first place.

Suffice to say this failure was operator error and not necessarily an intrinsic weakness of the components. Any more than a viscous center in a manual or the clutches in an auto are subject to damage from say mismatched tyre sizes.

The DCCD is going to address the problem and be better in a number of ways.
1- because the FT4WD is super rare, and even if i find another it's not guaranteed to be any better than the one I've trashed.
2. It's an inherently more rugged design since its specifically meant to handle STi power in rally/race conditions.
3. With the DCCDPro auto controller i should have excellent grip on road with the active variable power transfer. Plus i still keep the 50/50 lock option via the manual switch and thumb wheel controller.
4. Back to Liberty transfer case/rear diff housing. So factory gearbox mounts, linkages, and tail-shaft. This also means if i ever have another failure a stock box with bolt directly in.

d_generate · Post by **d_generate** » Tue Mar 05, 2013 2:51 pm

Good luck with the DCCD, my son just got his 5speed with DCCD going in his road car and thought it was shagged because it was so clunky, he did a YouTube search and found that they were all like that, strictly 35/65 for bitumen unless racing by the sound of it.

vincentvega · Post by **vincentvega** » Tue Mar 05, 2013 3:50 pm

I always thought the L series AWD boxes were a completely open center with a vacuum operated lock. Obviously i was mistaken. What controls the variable torque split in these boxes?

Your point #4 is a good one. The ability to put a stock gearbox and diff in if you blow a gearbox in the middle of nowhere is important.

I am looking forward to hearing how you find the early DCCD setup after the post above. I have only played with the later 6MT DCCD (which works beautifully)

YouTube · Post by **El_Freddo** » Tue Mar 05, 2013 6:51 pm

vincentvega wrote:I always thought the L series AWD boxes were a completely open center with a vacuum operated lock. Obviously i was mistaken. What controls the variable torque split in these boxes?

No, no VV! You've got it right. What Venom means is that in the wet or on sand the H6 will put all the power to the front wheels and thus work the spider gears in the centre diff more than they should have been. There's no controlled variable torque split anymore than what's naturally at play.

Apparently the L AWD locking centre diffs have a soft metal for the diff housing (not the rear casing) where the carrier gears and spider gears are. The spider gears chew into the casing and this creates slop until the housing goes bang or the gears chew out and go bang.

I hope this clears it up for you and Rhys: that you don't mind me dropping this in here!

Cheers

Bennie

vincentvega · Post by **vincentvega** » Wed Mar 06, 2013 3:23 pm

thanks mate. makes sense

Sounds like the DCCD setup will solve the problem nicely then.