actually there are a few race camps using the f20c and powerglide....

 

Gday Guys, Its the first time I have visited this forum and must say there are some fantastic rides and a wealth of information that passes through this site every day it seems. I am the am the Marketing/PR manager for Pfitzner Performance gearboxes (PPG) located in South Australia.

Unfortunately I have been directed to this site to try to clarify some incredibly misleading, ill-informed statements made by one member.honda9krpm

First of all I would sincerely like to thank Mr Dan Tran aka honda9krpm for the many praises he has sung for PPG in posts prior to this one. In fact when I did a search for PPG on the forums, it came up with some fantastic positive feedback, even from Mr Tran himself.

I and PPG are a loss as to why Mr Tran has posted such mis-information about his gearbox troubles, but I will endeavor to clarify the whole situation for all of us involved and the many people who have viewed this thread.

Firstly Mr Tran's Honda transmission:-
This is a Skyline gearbox which has a PPG gearset installed. The set is brand new and is the same as the hundreds we have sold that find there way into 8 and 9 second GTR's , 300zx and other vehicles all over the world, in fact the majority of the top ten GTR's in Australia are on our books and some have over 1000hp running through these boxes reliably.
This particular gearbox had a bellhousing modification done ELSEWEHERE, which involved welding the honda and skyline bellhousings together to adapt one to another. The honda casting does not lend itself to being welded to the skyline material and hence this has failed with the bellhousing breaking completely around the circumference of the casing. Once again, I want to mention that PPG did not make this part . In fact the engineering company performing the work had expressed concerns over this modification when it was done and took all due care in performing the modification that was requested by Mr Tran. The result of the bellhousings separating under power was that the PPG input shaft was the only thing supporting the gearbox, and did so under misalignment with the engine trying to rip the input shaft out of the gearbox. The bellhousing failure has resulted in the input shaft failing and causing a complete clutch failure aswell.

Secondly Mr Tran's Nissan GTR gearbox:-
This vehicle has a long and happy (up until this point) history with PPG. The previous owner bought one of our first dog engagement gearsets many years ago but could not afford at the time to put the billet selector forks we manufacture , in the gearbox.
The car has done many tarmac rallys and drag and circuit racing type events with over 420kw at the wheels. Just prior to Mr Tran purchasing this vehicle, the owner had broken a STANDARD NISSAN selector fork in the gearbox. This has in turn dropped the broken fork into the gearbox and locked the gearbox up. When this happened it has obviously stressed the input shaft as you can imagine. PPG did not rebuild the gearbox but merely supplied parts ordered by the company who re-built the gearbox. The gearbox was apparently re-built with new parts but the stressed input shaft was retained and has hence failed as a result of being twisted when the gearbox locked up due to FAILURE OF THE STOCK NISSAN SELECTOR FORK.

In both the scenarios' above the PPG manufactured parts did NOT cause the failure."The owner is a dickhead to deal with and provided zero warranty on faulty parts"... I am sorry Mr Tran but we cannot warrant resultant damage caused by something we did not manufacture. For example its unfair to ask the clutch company for a new clutch in the Honda which was also destroyed when the bellhousing broke apart. The clutch did not cause the failure.


Next we must tackle the following quotes:-

"The PP gears feel great with street, circuit and drag driving but the metallergy is not strong enough for high power engine. I've seen too many failures from mid to high power engine from owners who know how to operate the box competently

We arguably have the best heat treatment and metallurgy in the country . Please visit our website www.ppgearbox.com.au to see how we incorporate computer controlled heat treatment into our product.
I think its best to just quote a few successes that PPG has, rather than argue each point. 1st of all. John Shepard 7.9 seconds Mitsubishi Eclipse in USA. Fastest 4wd 4cylinder on earth. Running one of our EVO dog boxes in a standard casing. That car is making over 1200hp and has a weight break to meet when racing. This car has not had a gearbox failure when racing. The entire field of NZ V8 Tourers (equivalent of Aust V8 supercars) run a PPG gearbox as the control gearbox.... Asia Pacific Rally Champions, dozens of front running sport compact drag racers here and abroad. We even make gearsets for the Toyota Factory race teams in Japan which are prepared in NZ.
For an unbiased opinion , please visit other forums such as wrx.com.au or nasioc.com, nissansilvia.com etc .

Finally:-
"A couple of my good friends had bad results as well. My friend bnr32 broke the output/main shaft. He had the box repaired and then gear snapped and destroyed most of the box when he was at Mallala. Another friend had so much problem with his Evo PP gears as well. WRX owners also don't have much luck with PP gears. Most of the local pple are not happy about PP.

The PP design is great. However the metallergy and heat treatment process are not up to par. If you are lucky then you get a good set of gears if you are not then something will let go. The sad thing is there is absolutely no warranty or fault acceptance for these expensive stuff. "

Mr bnr32 broke an output shaft YES.. that is a STANDARD NISSAN PART and not a PPG component. That car is also making over 1100hp. We are unaware of any problems with our EVO or Subaru gears and sell dozens of these every month to customers all over the globe that break records, not gearsets . Our business has grown nearly 300% over the past 3 years, this is due to one thing only.. a great product. Without that we would be going nowhere.

I will close in saying that PPG has an enviable reputation in the industry and we have invested millions of dollars into our facility that enables us to design and produce gearsets that exceed limitations set by other manufacturers and create unique componentry that others simply cant do. We DO have the results... at the track ,all over the globe, in terms of reliability and performance.

We do warrant our product against manufacturing faults.

 

Yes, There is a Sub Zero cryogenically cycled 01 tranny running around Tampa in a car making 500 rwhp on 93 octane. All it is used for is racing and it has been a year now.

Jerico Transmissions were in 2/3rds of the Winston Cup winners in 2000. All Jerico cogs, shift levers and gears are cryogenically treated.

The more people know about it the more they realize that it really works. It may not make it as strong as a powerglide or a Skyine tranny but it will make it the best a S2000 transmission can be.

 

Thanks for your input PPG. It's good to hear the other side of the story.

 

thanks for the input PPG and for the record of this thread i love the syncro set i have for my S2k.

 

ppgearbox, Good post. there are always 2 sides or more to every story.

 

I dont think cryo treating will make a s2000 tranny the best it will ever be it will still have those week parts and tiny teeth on every gear. IMO PPG makes what a high powered s2000 would need in any situation. Just look at the difference between my stock counter shaft and the PPG.



and heres what happend to my second gear

 

Would you care to show me how to drive a dogbox or where in my technique is incorrect? Have you ever seen me driving a dogbox before casting your qualifying engineering guess? Who would you recommend to train dogbox driving? I am not going to brag here but I am so careful, accurate and gentle with dogbox engagement and my component still break. Do you have any other guess for my component failure beside the consumer fault?

PPGgeabox/Tim Possingham and Simon Pfitzner, you can say what ever suit you and your sale. As always it's never your fault or any engineering/production problem. It's the consumer's fault or inability to drive. We had this discussion before and don't think we wil progress from that. If you want to test my ability to shift a dogbox you are very welcome to do so at your cost for my time. I won't even bother to clarify where you are incorrect in your statements. Have you got a clue how many things I changed to the BNR32 to get the power up from 320kw to 420+kw? These changes were made after your input shaft broke and left my car stranded for 3 months. First you claimed that the input shaft broke because of wear and tear and can not provide warranty, now you claimed that the incident stresed the input shaft and inproper installation by the other workshop. The selector broke and stayed in only one gear, the second gear. It did not jump and lock multiple gears otherwise that would be the end of that box as this happened at redline of 2nd gear. I am sure you could estimate what speed that was and the catastrophy if another gear was locked. A stressed input shaft from such big incident is too wishful thinking Tim. Tell that to your next customer but please don't repeat that with me or people who know something about gearbox. All components were cracked tested prior to rebuild. If you told me this was the reason you denied warranty I would have a case against you at the time. What ever it is, it's only $990 for the input shaft and I did not want to waste my time with it at the time. However I did not like the way I was treated, especially with all my support for you guys. There are other incidents too but no need for me to list them on a public forum to justify my "medico diagnosis" of PPG owner .

My previous statements originates from well known and reliable engineers in your industry. I hope that you can deliver what you're promising one day. I have certainly been misleaded and not happy with the service that I paid in full price for. I hope that you, Tim Possingham, double check your information and withdraw your made up comment regarding what happen in the the other workshop

Am I still the first one in the world with a broken PPG input shaft for a RB26DETT? Also can I have my honda s2k gearbox back (the one without the front cover that I lend to you for research for the past 1 year)? Give me a call and I will send a courrier to pick it up.

 

Tim,

thank you for your response and follow up. I am certain an educated consumer will undertand your dedication, commitment and product. It has been exemplified here in the States with John Shepard and Ali Alshafar continuously breaking records. Now, make us a dogbox and allow us to see what it can accomplish on the s2000....

I am sorry for the dissagreement between Dan and PPG and hope thay can resolve the issues at hand. At least you guys have one thing in common: the love of cars!

Best Wishes.

 

[COLOR=red]Now, make us a dogbox and allow us to see what it can accomplish on the s2000....
[COLOR=red]

That was my wish too but I couldn't wait any further and took the short cut with my gearbox setup.

[COLOR=red]I am sorry for the dissagreement between Dan and PPG and hope thay can resolve the issues at hand. At least you guys have one thing in common: the love of cars!

Best Wishes[COLOR=red]

Thanks Blue. However there is nothing meaningful between us to resolve.