ZeroShift Transmission
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From: San Jose
ZeroShift Transmission
The Holy Grail of gearbox design is reduced shift time ultimately leading to no discernable break in power delivery at all. While any decent racing box measures its shift times in milliseconds, to an engineer it represents a huge gap during which any application of power to the road is prevented. Take the time for one shift, multiply it by the number of up changes in a race or even a qualifying lap and the resultant time the car spends just coasting is enough to make a race engineer weep.
If changes could be made not only without cutting the engine
If changes could be made not only without cutting the engine
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From: San Jose
On the road, according to the ZeroShift team, the performance is `amazing`. ZeroShift spokesman Phil James describes it: `What you get is acceleration, acceleration, acceleration through the gears. That`s instead of acceleration, declutch, yaw, acceleration, declutch... in a conventional manual; or acceleration, slur, acceleration... in an auto.
`The difference in performance and feel is very noticeable with the TVR Cerbera where, with the conventional gearbox, the violent acceleration through the low gears really emphasises the yaw of de-clutching between first and second gear accelerations. With ZeroShift, the car just keeps accelerating - it`s pretty addictive! You lose no momentum or sense of thrust through the gear-changes. Two ZeroShift gear-changes between standstill and 100mph are worth more
than a second.`
A standard Cerbera 4.5 has been timed at 8.4 secs to 100mph, so McLaren F1 drivers should not be complacent if they see a chrome ZeroShift badge on the car beside them at the lights. To wring the best 0-100 time from the F1 needs deft gear-changing skills - the ZeroShift driver will have optimum shifts, every shift. This will be the badge to look out for!
ZeroShift is about much more than going faster, though. The performance advantage is a factor of the efficiency of the system that provides other benefits too, including emissions reduction, lower fuel consumption and smoothness. Bill Martin: `Emissions and fuel consumption are spiked by conventional gear-changes because the off-then-on action on the accelerator pedal momentarily enriches the fuel mix. ZeroShift does not need the off-and-on gas action. The smoothness issue is one of the ZeroShift system`s strongest suits. Shifts are imperceptible, other than noticing change in engine note.`
ZeroShift is able to modify existing transmissions for rapid introduction to the market. But a gearbox developed to fully exploit the ZeroShift system would be considerably smaller and lighter than whatever gearbox it is designed to replace.
Unlike other `revolutionary` gearbox concepts, a ZeroShift transmission is based on a donor manual gearbox, albeit with extensive internal modifications. No changes to the clutch or bell housing are required. As a consequence, a ZeroShift gearbox can fit straight into a car. Furthermore, ZeroShift can be operated by a conventional stick shift, by column-mounted paddles, or it can be fully automated to work like a conventional automatic. The development car is using its standard H-gate stick shift.
Phil James: `ZeroShift is smooth for luxury cars, fast for supercars (including motorsport) and economical for minis. With the same engineering element at its core, only the shift strategy changes to suit the application. We think you will see a variety of new supercars offered with ZeroShift from as early as 2005.`
Reference: Racecar Engineering - Feb 2004
http://www.racecar-engineering.com/content...t/this/this.htm
`The difference in performance and feel is very noticeable with the TVR Cerbera where, with the conventional gearbox, the violent acceleration through the low gears really emphasises the yaw of de-clutching between first and second gear accelerations. With ZeroShift, the car just keeps accelerating - it`s pretty addictive! You lose no momentum or sense of thrust through the gear-changes. Two ZeroShift gear-changes between standstill and 100mph are worth more
than a second.`
A standard Cerbera 4.5 has been timed at 8.4 secs to 100mph, so McLaren F1 drivers should not be complacent if they see a chrome ZeroShift badge on the car beside them at the lights. To wring the best 0-100 time from the F1 needs deft gear-changing skills - the ZeroShift driver will have optimum shifts, every shift. This will be the badge to look out for!
ZeroShift is about much more than going faster, though. The performance advantage is a factor of the efficiency of the system that provides other benefits too, including emissions reduction, lower fuel consumption and smoothness. Bill Martin: `Emissions and fuel consumption are spiked by conventional gear-changes because the off-then-on action on the accelerator pedal momentarily enriches the fuel mix. ZeroShift does not need the off-and-on gas action. The smoothness issue is one of the ZeroShift system`s strongest suits. Shifts are imperceptible, other than noticing change in engine note.`
ZeroShift is able to modify existing transmissions for rapid introduction to the market. But a gearbox developed to fully exploit the ZeroShift system would be considerably smaller and lighter than whatever gearbox it is designed to replace.
Unlike other `revolutionary` gearbox concepts, a ZeroShift transmission is based on a donor manual gearbox, albeit with extensive internal modifications. No changes to the clutch or bell housing are required. As a consequence, a ZeroShift gearbox can fit straight into a car. Furthermore, ZeroShift can be operated by a conventional stick shift, by column-mounted paddles, or it can be fully automated to work like a conventional automatic. The development car is using its standard H-gate stick shift.
Phil James: `ZeroShift is smooth for luxury cars, fast for supercars (including motorsport) and economical for minis. With the same engineering element at its core, only the shift strategy changes to suit the application. We think you will see a variety of new supercars offered with ZeroShift from as early as 2005.`
Reference: Racecar Engineering - Feb 2004
http://www.racecar-engineering.com/content...t/this/this.htm
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Joined: Jul 2003
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From: Dallas
My friend has the new Audi TT with the dual clutch gear box or wahtever. It has a launch mode which freaken blasts the TT out of the hole. Awesome technology, Im just waiting for the relibility issues if there is any to surface.
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Anything that makes you faster is great, but. . .
There's something fun about manual transmissions, slow as they are in comparison to these new technologies. Especially when the gearbox in question is as good as the S2K's.
I was shopping for an M3 convertible recently, and as cool as the SMG II is, I just realized I would "miss" shifting, rev-matching and heel-toe-ing.
There's something fun about manual transmissions, slow as they are in comparison to these new technologies. Especially when the gearbox in question is as good as the S2K's.
I was shopping for an M3 convertible recently, and as cool as the SMG II is, I just realized I would "miss" shifting, rev-matching and heel-toe-ing.
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From: La Habra
Like I said when I saw this on vette boards, I'll believe it when I see it. Think of the driveline or engine stress if there's no time to rev-match. We're still waiting for a price on modifying a T56 tranny...
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