[DeTomaso] 485.8 RWHP & TRIPLE DISC CLUTCH????

[MikeLDrew at aol.com]

> > "P. Rimov" <rimov at charter.net> wrote: Didn't the GT-40 program 
> > suffer a lot a transaxle failures with the
> > big block power and torque?
> 

In a word--no.   In fact I can only find a single reference to a ZF failure 
putting a GT40 out of a race.   They had a hell of a time with the original 
gearbox, used in the '64 and early '65 seasons, which was a total piece of crap 
Italian Colotti four-speed transaxle.   Ford paid ZF to conjure up an all-new 
gearbox specifically for the GT40 program, which later morphed into the gearbox 
we all know and love.

By the time the gearbox was finished, Ford had moved on and decided the 
big-block was the way to go; the engineers felt the ZF wasn't strong enough to live 
with those levels of torque for extended periods, and they weren't about to 
write another big fat check to the Germans.   Instead they cooked up their own 
gearbox in-house, using the known bulletproof internals of the standard Ford 
Top-loader four-speed, with a specially-designed transaxle case and integral 
differential; this four-speed transaxle was called the T-44, and they are 
currently in (re)production, costing about $30K a whack or something totally 
ridiculous like that.

The first-generation T-44s all blew up at Le Mans, because in their haste to 
assemble them, they forget to harden the gears!   But once that (major) goof 
was overcome, they were stone reliable.   There was brief experimentation with 
a two-speed automatic transaxle, and one GT40 Mk II even raced in that 
configuration (Sebring I believe), but it wasn't a successful program and Ford soon 
abandoned it.

The post-Ford GT40s (the John Wyer team cars that won in '68 and '69) used 
302-inch motors and ZF gearboxes again.

Mike


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