I wonder if my 2nd gear is still alive after over 30 passes at the strip is because I never do a hard roll from 2nd gear? When I'm at the drag strip and go into 2nd the car already has a lot of momentum so it's less "dead weight" that 2nd gear has to move?

I don't know, I may be completely off but I think slowly rolling and hammering it in 2nd gear puts a ton of stress on it.

 

What exactly is breaking 2nd? The gears are stripping off or what?

I broke a countershaft in my 99 Si once, it was from wheel hopping though.

 

Strips the teeth off the gear for second; this was my tranny when I took it apart:

 

Wow I must be pretty lucky. I'm making about 430whp and 300wtq. I've been doing 1st and 2nd gear pulls for over a year now. Maybe 4-5 times per month. 17psi. I do my highway racing starting in 2nd too. No issues yet, well besides not being able to get into second but I feel as if that is driver's error. I hope my luck remains. I feel as if I should stock up on another transmission.

 

I'm at 462whp/468Nm. I do pulls from first and second all the time, maybe several times a day (I don't have this car with this hp to cruise around at 30mph)... No issues so far after a few thousand miles at least. My transmission is still the original one from when the car was new, and has about 112000 miles on it. It has taken a lot of abuse from before the car was turbocharged as well. But I don't do launches from standing still or something, and I don't slam gears.
I do have a spare transmission for if/when my stock trans goes out though.

 

Awe, ok. Doesn't look to bad to fix. I'm sure the bearings/etc are ok, you could just press off the gears, and press new ones on.

I bought a press for that very thing when I broke my tranny in the SI. Bought a used countershaft for $60 bucks, replaced a couple bearings while I was in there, and fixed the whole thing for <$100.

Back on the road in a weekend.

 

At what level does the case split? Meaning, at what point will a drop in gear set not be worth it? I've read that S2King ran a drop in gear set when he was dipping into the 8's. Anyone have additional (tangible) info?

 

I heard 650 -750? I want the PPG dogbox because it sounds awesome and you can really slam it in there but holy shit are they expensive!

 

Had a PPG setup in my first WRX and loved it. Nothing like being able to beat on the car and not worry of the trans breaking.

 

Unfortunately, after eliminating the transmission as a weak point; comes the diff.