How to prevent Sportivo Gearbox crunching issues?

[charlizetivo]

I've heard from friends, YouTube, forums, etc. that the Sportivo gearboxes are extremely notorious for crunching gearboxes. It's now got me paranoid. Right now my gearbox drives like a dream and runs smoothly. For what it's worth, I've got a 2005 model and I'm not sure if Toyota revised the 2zz-ge engine and gearbox from 2003 and 2004.  What are some preventative measures I should implement to keep this from happening to me in the future? Is it worth investing in a MWR synchro set? Cheers.

[Tony Prodigy]

Hi Charlize,

Depends on how you drive it I guess. You have to remember, it's still a Corolla and not a race car so you still need to have some mechanical sympathy and not abuse it all that often. It will handle the occasional spirited run but day after day abuse I don't think it will handle that without breaking something.

Perhaps you can look into changing the gearbox fluid with something more up market. I'm not familiar with these so I can't recommend anything. Others here may do so.

Have a great day 

[Squalled]

Honestly mate, to begin with the C series line of gearboxes aren't exactly strong but when handling the sort of power the 2ZZ puts it out, it shouldn't really be an issue. Common causes of failure are flat shifting and quicking shifting which will destroy the synchro's and cause crunching. Of all things to happen, this would be the best as the synchromesh themselves aren't as expensive as replacing an entire gear. Another common cause for failure is axle tramping/hopping. Usually bad engine mounts make this a lot worse and from what I've seen over the years, that can cause gearboxes a lot of stress and destroy them.

Speaking from experience, I've owned my Sportivo for almost 6 years. I've rebuilt the gearbox and had to replace a 6th gear as well. The problems with them as honestly worsened by human error. I made the mistake of buying one with a bad and worsening 2nd gear synchro and driving it in the early days like I did didn't help 3rd and 4th gear synchro's either so I paid the price and had them replaced. All these people that buy multiple Sportivo's and complain about the gearboxes cruching or say they're rubbish are usually the ones that spend every minute of the day on limiter and flat changing LOL.

The MWR carbon lined synchro's are largely untested here, I don't think they're worth it IMHO. I've seen a whole heap of mixed reviews when it comes to carbon lined synchro's, especially with a lot of the Honda guys using them around the world. A few too many "Look what happend to my synchro's" pictures and videos really put me off them. Can't go wrong with OEM synchro's.

Some preventative measures you can take other than having mechanical sympathy:

- Invest in good gearbox oil! (I use Royal Purple Synchromax. Have never crunched a single gear and it's perfect when cold too. It is pricey but well worth it)

- Invest in some good engine mounts if yours are worn out (Brand new OEM if you don't want vibrations, BRD solid engine mount inserts if you want a solid upgrade)

- Extended pushrod (this basically ensures that the slave cylinder fully engages and disengages the clutch and has solved a heap of gear crunching issues)

- Clutch pedal master adjustment (A lot of gear crunching in the early days of the Sportivo's realease was because of the master cylinder been out of adjustment and not fully engaging and disengaging the clutch. There's a DIY in the forum on how this can be done)

 

[charlizetivo]

Thanks for the help, Tony and Squalled. I drive my car every day, I do drive it hard often but am also careful with my shifting. No limiter bashing or flat shifting or anything like that, just upshifting at 8k rpms  when I want to have some fun. Clutch seems to be fully engaged when clutch pedal is all the way down (using Exedy HD), although I find myself having to use a little bit more strength to get it into 2nd when in lift. Would I still need to buy the extended pushrod? 

[Squalled]

17 hours ago, charlizetivo said:

Thanks for the help, Tony and Squalled. I drive my car every day, I do drive it hard often but am also careful with my shifting. No limiter bashing or flat shifting or anything like that, just upshifting at 8k rpms  when I want to have some fun. Clutch seems to be fully engaged when clutch pedal is all the way down (using Exedy HD), although I find myself having to use a little bit more strength to get it into 2nd when in lift. Would I still need to buy the extended pushrod? 

The engine is fine to take to the rev limiter, I mean it's there for a reason after all. If you sit on it for a long time constantly, I'd say you just need to service the engine more regularly. The extended pushrod is like an insurance basically, even if you're not crunching gears or anything it's a cheap mod that has little to no side effects. I've had mine in for around 3 years or so and never had a single problem since.

[charlizetivo]

On 7/8/2021 at 11:04 AM, Squalled said:

The engine is fine to take to the rev limiter, I mean it's there for a reason after all. If you sit on it for a long time constantly, I'd say you just need to service the engine more regularly. The extended pushrod is like an insurance basically, even if you're not crunching gears or anything it's a cheap mod that has little to no side effects. I've had mine in for around 3 years or so and never had a single problem since.

ahh, cheers matey. that gave me some peace of mind LOL. Legend 👍