Anyone ever used one in a mild 400 horse application? Are they weak? Good or bad for a drag racing manual trans?
A muncie or T-10 will shift better and hold the horsepower. I've got a sginaw cluster gear with the 2nd gear gone, looks like a used corn cob. jery
saginaw will hold up in a 400 hp application if you aren't planning on drag racing it, and you drive sanely on the street. You can tear them up...or you can make them live... how you drive it has a lot to do with what happens
Clunky bunky boxes! It's hell to try to speed shift one of those 90 pound monsters! Get a real box;....Muncie, top-loader Ford, Borg Warner T-10, etc;
Awww come on guys they're not that bad.... they're ok for street, I wouldn't drag race one though. they are super great for swapping out that 3 speed in old GM stuff....
I did drag race a saginaw, it lasted a few months before 2nd got to grinding into gear... that's in a heavy vehicle with a mild big block
saginaw car trans shifts fine, and the best part is you can pick them up cheap, i'm running a sag. 3 speed and would like to pickup a 3 speed with overdrive and a 4 speed and make a 5 speed OD with them. 90lbs i dont think so, maybe a truck sag. would weigh that much.
Saginaw is a weak piece of shit, plain and simple. Go dumping the clutch in a 3000lb+ car and it'll fail once a summer, even with the larger input bearings on a "V8" unit. 406 or 383 in a falcon gasser, might as well just put a diaper on it so you're not constantly oiling down the street or track. DON'T EVER BUILD A CAR AROUND A SAGINAW. And if you do, then you deserve to deal with the repercussions. Don't say you weren't warned. Anybody who says they're OK isn't using them hard, or has that one in a thousand transmission that won't fail. Guarantee you won't have their luck. And saginaw is a cast iron case, so they are heavy pieces of shit, in addition to being weak pieces of shit. But hey, they're cheap. Don't know what else good to say bout em
I got one in my big block (very OT) for here vett. Its tubbed and has a street radial, wanna go for a lame ride, i have never posted a vid so bear with me. BTW I say go for it on the trans Ive had very good luck with them and my uncle had a mid 12 sec. 65 Chevelle with slicks and he beat that pretty hard. Never mind on the vid... cant make it work
I have one I put in my big block pickup after I knocked first gear out of the muncie.It works good.I've only beat it a little but it shifts great.It has a competion plus shifter on it.I bought it at a swap for 100.00 with the shifter.It's taken more than the muncie did.But the muncie shifts nicer.I have had all of them and the muncie m22 is my favorite.The saginaw will work.I know an old guy that swears by saginaws he likes the heavy cast iron ones.Go for it
I had one that came in a 67 Big block chevelle ( i bought it new) . beat the hell out of it, slicks etc for years , never broke. Traded car in for a 70 Nova ss muncie car , broke the trans first week i owned it. I use one now in a 322 ci gmc model a. Like a couple others said anything can be broken. Muncie 900 plus bucks, saginaw 50-100 bucks ? Use the saginaw!
Never was a worse trans than a Muncie....synchronizers were total shit-always grinding or broke... I have some Saginaws and I dont act an idiot with them and they are fine [with a better Hurst shifter]. Id say in a light car you can get by....al these "racer" wannabees just have to have what the other kids are using.
none ! all sag's are cast iron.. and we eat em for lunch on the dirt track....but... yeah, try and find a muncie that is not priced like 24 k gold or broken all to heck ! so, we use the sag's and replace often... dave
i have two truck muncies and i plan on running one of them in my 28 chevy, i wont be draging it but i'm sure i wont be blowing it doing a few burnouts, yes i have to put a slip joint in the driveshaft, yes it weighs 90lbs, but it comes with a nice tall shifter and that sweet crusher whine.
Guess I drive like an idiot - I ran a Saginaw for a while- tore out 1st gear (admittedly being an idiot) so rebuilt it with new gears and then took out third several weeks later on a hard shift. That is behind a 401 nailhead in a 2700 lbs car with (at that time) a 2.75 posi. Now have a Muncie. It always shifted well and just did not hold up for how I want to drive from time to time. Rodshop
I've been running Saginaws for 5 years behind my small block Ford (350 hp maybe) in a 3000 lb car that launches at 5000 rpm with slicks and runs 11.60 - 70's. They only last me about half a season with the failure being the synchronizer teeth on 3rd and 4th gear. I have crash boxed all of them and have never hurt 1st or 2nd (with the exception of the syncronizer hub inserts) but I finally stepped up and bought a really nice ST-10 ( 400.00 on Evil Bay) because even with the Saginaws being cheap I was spending a great deal of time & money repairing & modifying them. If your just going to cruise I'd say it would last, BUT if your going to punish it I'd reccommend a Super T-10.
There is a kit you can buy to upgrade the endplay bushings. Disassemble tranny and have some minimal machine work done. Replace bushings with Torrington bearing kit. Very effective, low buck. Makes it shift and last. Not too sure about 400 HP, though...Good Fix, otherwise
you guys with the saginaws could just ship 'em to me..... wouldn't want those heavy old things taking up your valuble shop space
Hot rods are about finding the limitations, and removing them so it can be run even harder. If you can't pop the clutch or speed shift your hot rod, you're not hot rodding, you're posing. We are talking about a falcon gasser who's owner has been asking about 383s and 406s that are gonna make 420+ ft-lbs. My experience is a saginaw lasts a couple months in that scenario, and if it wheelhops, it's lifespan will likely be measured in days or weeks. I totally respect Linders' opinion/experience on the previous page, and he's a sharp guy. But my experiences couldn't be any more different, must've broken a dozen of those junk bastards behind mild small blocks. Good luck with your saginaw, I suspect you'll need it.
Uhhh... you're calling anyone a poser then mention it's a gasser. Dude gassers are nothing but posing, period. Luck, well I don't need it, I run Saginaws where they are aren't a problem.
I ran a 4-speed Saginaw behind a flathead for years.....it wasn't a bad transmission for that sort of power. Anything more than 200 - 250 hp though and I'd recommend a Muncie or Borg Warner. I just dropped $800 on a Super T-10 for a nailhead build. Not cheap, but at least I won't have to worry about grenading gears. -Lee www.atomicpinup.com
A BIG factor is which one you use. If you get one from a Vega for instance, it has a very low 1st gear (around 3.20 or deeper). The drive gear is so small, it sacrifices surface area, making it weak. Otherwise, they're just as tough as most the others. Saginaw 4 Speed-lines on input shaft 1st 2nd 3rd 4th No Lines 2.84 2.01 1.35 1.00 1 Line 2.54 1.80 1.44 1.00 2 Lines 3.11 2.20 1.47 1.00 3 Lines 3.50 2.47 1.65 1.00
why, do you think you CAN'T break 'em? hey, just for the record, i never had a problem with muncies under full power, just short-shifting on the street.... M22's were about 2 years old when i was doing all this and to my knowlege, only 1 guy in town (small town NE) had one. in an LS6 chevelle..... but he was a big sucker that LITTERALLY would snap off a hurst shifter. not the mount, the lever.... now, i have NO experience with t-10's or super t-10s so if somebody wants to eddykate me.....
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