Say you had a mid engine configuration, but instead of the traditional transaxle, the engine/full size trans were mounted backwards (ie: tail shaft pointing towards front of the car) longitudinally. Assume engine rotation is unchanged, the power is now spinning counter clockwise from the tail shaft. In order to transfer power back to the rear wheels in the correct rotation, a conversion is needed in gears.
What is the easiest way for this to be accomplished? I was thinking that a splined shaft would take the place of a driveshaft, with a 1:1 machined gear housed underneith it, changing the direction of power. this gear would also have to have an output shaft and splined surface for a conventional driveshaft to transmit power to the rear wheels. There a normal IRS rear could be used to power the wheels.
Is there any hodgepoge of parts that can be assembled from current parts (I was thinkinking the 4WD crowd may have something, or AWD people) without having to design a housing and machine up gears? Any ideas?
How are you going to run the drive shaft from the front housing back to the rear wheels?
Are you going to just run the drive shaft back up under the trans?
If so, are you sure clearance isnt going to be an issue running a drive shaft from the front housing, under the trans, and then into the rear differental?
That sure does sound like alot of parts stacked on top of each other.
It will have to run under the trans/oilpan yes. It will have to be protected, and the center of gravity will be raised because of the engine height. But, it's do-able. It is many parts stacked up, but I do not see a way to it with a transaxle without sacraficing a ton of space (V10 is pretty long). I mean, it is the most simple solution, but we'll see where this idea goes. It may not be possible, but worth looking into.
If you trashed the plantery gears and forks from a transaxle, and put it into a smaller steel case... I bet that would work. Betcha that would work well! Weld up the other side closed. Wonder what the smallest TC avilable in trucks is...
Yeah, they are used in marine apps. Same idea i'm going for, except the output shaft is angled down for props. I'm sure you could use a combo of driveshafts to overcome this and go strait back, but i'd rather not.
I'll keep looking. A strait setup would be great, since they use gears not chains for the drive. I've seen the units out of drag boats before [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
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