5 speed with a 3.6 drivability
 

Long story short, I ordered a 3.6 that will be showing up shortly, but I have come to find out that the 6 speed I purchased, isn't in the best shape and another 6 speed isn't really in the cards at the moment. I still have the 5 speed that I took out of my car, that works perfectly well.

The reason I wanted to go with the 3.6 6 speed combo is that I wanted to make the car a little more highway cruisable, while not sacrificing get up and go when I install my turbo setup.

My question is this: How would drivability be with the 3.6 and the 5 speed? Looking at FM's gearing calculator it seems like it would make for pretty tall gearing. Im concerned it would be too tall the the little 1.8 to handle.

Yuck. Save it for when you get a 6spd you're happy with.

Probably a good idea. I've also considered just running the 6 speed I have now and just sending it. I mean, its not like im going to do anything else with it....

At least for me, driving with a not so great gearbox taks all the fun out of driving; I'd put the 3.6 on the shelf for a future, happier day, when you have a crisp shifting 6-speed, and leave in whatever diff you had before the long diff purchase.

What’s wrong with your 6 speed?

I agree, I have had cars with long gearing and they aren't quite as fun.

Unfortunately, the 6 speed I have shifts great, its just really noisy. I ended up tearing into it to see if I could find a problem, but I didn't find anything conclusive. I covered the problem a bit in my build thread and a few other threads. In short, it was knocking after the first test drive, then stopped knocking but had a substantial amount of bearing noise. I have it sealed back up and i threw it back in the car last night. I'm going to try and play with different gear oils to see if that wont' quiet it down, since i couldn't find any obvious problems.

Isn’t bearing noise likley a bearing? On my six, sixth gear is noisy and vibrates slightly compared to the rest. I put up the car on a hoist and ran it though the gesrs while listening with a stethoscope. First five, nice and quiet, sixth, not so much. Easy to indentify, not so easy to change. Replacing it is beyond my abilites and time at the moment. If it gets bad, the car will become a five speed until I have time to address it. What did you do in the end?

a 3.6 on a 5 speed will work, and will actually be better at highway speeds than a 6 speed (6th on the 6sp is shorter than 5th on a 5 sp)

BUT, it will be slow as hell.

I drove an NA8 with cams and headwork, dyno'd at about 100rwkw on the factory 4.1
he then swapped in a 3.6, for some reason.
The thing felt stock, about the same as my untouched NB8A (factory 4.1)


so yeah, it will work, but will make the car feel slow as shit.
should cruise great though