Thoughts on the Mendeola Transaxle SDR5 4.11 and 3.55

[72442conv]

After putting over 500 miles on my GTM I have some thoughts on the Mendeola SDR5 that may help some in the future. I have the 4.11 geared one. I bought this car finished, but if I were to build one I would definitely go with the 3.55 final drive gear. The 4.11 in my opinion is too much for highway driving. I drive the car mostly on the turnpike, 80 MPH is average speed for me, and believe me in South Florida at that speed there will be quite a bit of people passing you by even though the speed limit is 65 MPH. At 80 MPH the tach is at 2,800 RPM's with 335/30/18 tires. That is way too much for comfortable driving. At 90 MPH you are easily over 3,200 RPM. Noise is high and gas mileage (if that matters to anyone) is in Cuda Hemi territory. At 60 MPH you are a little over 2,000 RPM.
If you just drive around town, this is a race car, or you just do not plan on driving it much then sure buy the 4.11 geared tranny. If you actually plan to really use the car, it seems like 4.11 is too much especially for highway driving. The transmission seems to work fine, but the shifter action sucks. This car has the FFR billet shifter (which some seem to not like very much) and cables. Transmission goes into all gears, with what seems to me to be a too much force.
You take the car out put it in first gear, and if you do not think about it, it will go fairly easily (although with a little much effort IMHO) into 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th. Now after you are on the highway lets say you want to downshift to 4th, haha good luck finding it... 3rd almost as difficult but you may get lucky. To go into 4th at highway speed, I pull the shifter all the way as if I was going to go into 2nd and start pulling it into 2nd without actually going into the gear, that gets me "into the gate", I then just push it out of the gate and find the gate next to it (which is 4th) and pull it in. Most modern shifters if you put the car in neutral and pull straight down, you get into 4th gear and straight up you get into 3rd gear. On this shifter the 3rd and 4th are not like that, if you are in neutral, both 3rd and 4th are offset to the driver when in neutral. 1st and 3rd and 2nd and 4th are very close together on the shifter. At some point I will try to see if I can adjust the cables better, but I do not think that will make a huge difference. I have no idea if there is any adjustment on the shifter, will be looking into that...

[Shoeless]

Not really an answer to your question, but just wondering if this is Jeff in Jupiter?

[72442conv]

No, I live in Homestead FL and my business is in Miami.

[Shoeless]

Oh ok thanks. That makes 3 GTMs not including mine (still in build) that I know of on the road in S FL. I live up in Palm City.

[Roger Reid]

...Transmission goes into all gears, with what seems to me to be a too much force...

Too much force to shift might not be the transmission's fault. Are the shift cables routed near the exhaust? Are the shift cables insulated? If the cables get hot, shift action suffers. Getting the heat out of the engine bay also helps keep shift cables cooler.

[72442conv]

Shifter cables in one place get close to the exhaust, maybe about 3 inches away, but the exhaust has insulation. I was just reading a thread by Kempo that seems to address the issue by changing where the cables go to the transaxle, I will be trying to move them.

[Jake From State Farm]

4.11 is super aggressive. Personally I shoot for the numerically lower option on most vehicles if they're not being used in a high demand/high performance (read: not street) application. When you're sitting on big power, you'll usually run out of traction before you run out of torque - at least until after you've reached the speed limit. I'm not a Mendeola expert so maybe someone else can chime in here - is re-gearing a viable option in this situation? Us truck guys do it all the time.

[VRaptor SpeedWorks, LLC]

In my experience, the Mendy's are always a pretty "manly" shifting transaxle......they require a lot of effort compared to anything else you're used to. As far as finding the gates, sounds to me like it would benefit if you can go to a longer lever-arm at the transaxle end for your right-to-left shifter motion. I think there are 2 possible linkage locations on the linkage at the transaxle. Maybe there is also some adjustment at the shifter to change the ratio of motion to the cable?.....seems like the FFR shifter had a few different pivot holes to choose from? That should make it easier to find your gate if you can get the lever ratio correct to require more movement of the shifter left-to-right in order to get to the different gates.

[crash]

I'm not a Mendeola expert so maybe someone else can chime in here - is re-gearing a viable option in this situation? Us truck guys do it all the time.

One of the great things about the Mendeola is that it is regearable. Their website lists all the gears that are available...

http://www.mendeolatransaxles.com/about-us.html

I do realize that those are listed for the S4/S5 sequential boxes, but the SDR is designed almost the exact same way and is regearable. You won't like the cost of a full stack regear, but it is possible due to the splined main shafts.

Give Ian or Mike a call and discuss it if you REALLY want to change gears.

[Perkster029]

I should be getting mine delivered here pretty soon, and I was able to get a 3.88 from them.

[72442conv]

I should be getting mine delivered here pretty soon, and I was able to get a 3.88 from them.

I had no idea they offered a 3.88 on the SDR5. Probably will still be bit too high for comfortable highway driving.