Transaxle Buggy Questions

[Muckin_Slusher]

I got a '12 civic manwell that whacked a guardrail and needs enough parts to not be worth fixin. 180 000 kilometers on the clock. I've never built a buggy before, but would like an excuse to buy a notcher and bender.

Between "fuck pirate" and stupid photobucket, I'm not finding a ton of info or examples of transaxle rigs.

Links to non-pirate build threads?

I'd like to build a near $0 budget turd

My questions:

I believe I need to weld the diff. Standard procedure as for a solid axle?

What transmission does a '12 civic use and where can I find exploded views and gear ratios?

Is it a cable actuated shifter or linkage shifter?

Did JR4X ever build the transaxle buggy he was talking about on the old site?

What axles should I be looking for?

If I just gooberfab driveshafts onto the CV axle stubs that poke into the transmission, will they stay in place or do I need something else to retain the shafts?

Are they all moon buggies or can you front/rear engine them without a t-case?

....and pics because erryone loves pics.

 

[MoparMan]

https://www.hardlinecrawlers.com/posts/672733

https://www.hardlinecrawlers.com/posts/689389

This ^ is 2 different build threads for the same buggy. The first one might not be very helpful. But the 2nd one seems to have alot of good info.

 

[JR4X]

Unfortunately I didn’t get further than the research and planning phase. I had Toyota axles and an engine/transaxle still in the car. I let it all go without even mocking anything up. The Honda engine and transaxle make things the easiest but I don’t know where to begin culling the wire harness and deleting VATS etc.

 

[Muckin_Slusher]

Unfortunately I didn’t get further than the research and planning phase. I had Toyota axles and an engine/transaxle still in the car. I let it all go without even mocking anything up. The Honda engine and transaxle make things the easiest but I don’t know where to begin culling the wire harness and deleting VATS etc.

Yeah, I haven't even delved into what would be required to make the motor run in a buggy. Just assumed because it's a Civic and all the aftermarket/race cars etc. they'd have all that fingered out.

 

[JR4X]

I’ve seen it done for sure so I know it can be done. I was going to attempt to use a ford escort 1.9L and transaxle which was going to require flipping diffs because the engine turns the wrong way.

If you pop the hood of any car the engine is on your left transmission is on your right. But in your Honda the engine is on the right side transmission on your left. So in a rear engine application the drive shafts spin the correct direction for un modified Toyota axles. Any other engine/transaxle combo in rear engine configuration the driveshafts spin the wrong direction.

 

[Byro]

They haven’t used linkage shift in Honda’s for some time. I’ve always thought about doing something similar. Weld the diff tranny and t case are now one unit. Hodgepodge a shaft to the end of the CVS, they have retainer clips in the trans that keep them stuck in. Only issue I could see is if you bent a driveshaft and mangled up the slip it might yank the CV out.

Biggest issue is going to be gearing, I feel like portals would be a must, even if you went with 9” axles you can only go to 6.50s I believe, which I still don’t think would be enough.

My pipe dream moon buggy is air cooled Vdub->2 spd Powerglide->D300->portal 609s.

 

[JR4X]

They haven’t used linkage shift in Honda’s for some time. I’ve always thought about doing something similar. Weld the diff tranny and t case are now one unit. Hodgepodge a shaft to the end of the CVS, they have retainer clips in the trans that keep them stuck in. Only issue I could see is if you bent a driveshaft and mangled up the slip it might yank the CV out.

Biggest issue is going to be gearing, I feel like portals would be a must, even if you went with 9” axles you can only go to 6.50s I believe, which I still don’t think would be enough.

My pipe dream moon buggy is air cooled Vdub->2 spd Powerglide->D300->portal 609s.

you can get 9” gears in 7.33:1. That’s plenty low for a transaxle buggy. The guy on the old board that did the Honda buggy used 5.71’s and it worked just fine at moonrocks with 39” sticky’s.

 

[Byro]

you can get 9” gears in 7.33:1. That’s plenty low for a transaxle buggy. The guy on the old board that did the Honda buggy used 5.71’s and it worked just fine at moonrocks with 39” sticky’s.

They go that high on 9”? Damn is there only 3 teeth on the pinion?

I always thought that for a motor that doesn’t make much torque you’d really need to go deep on the gearing.

 

[JR4X]

They go that high on 9”? Damn is there only 3 teeth on the pinion?

I always thought that for a motor that doesn’t make much torque you’d really need to go deep on the gearing.

6 pinion teeth as do 6.50 gears. 5.71’s have 7. I did some digging and if I understand my transaxle workings correctly, 1st gear is 15.25:1 so with 5.71 Toyota gears it would have a crawl ratio of 87:1. That’s not bad.

Stick some 7.33 9” gears in it and you get 113:1.

Jesse Haines hummer portal axles using 4.10 diff gears with the 1.92 portal reduction is 7.87:1 so 120:1 in first gear. Seems like that would be quite usable as a cheap crawl toy. High range will be non existent but who needs a haul ass single seat moon buggy? Attached is the gear ratio and final drive numbers of the manual transaxle.

 

[TrikeKid]

Trans code for the '12 1.8/5spd trans is SY2M. Car transmissions are pretty simple, if you can build a rock buggy you can tear one apart and put it back together.

If you pop the hood of any car the engine is on your left transmission is on your right. But in your Honda the engine is on the right side transmission on your left. So in a rear engine application the drive shafts spin the correct direction for un modified Toyota axles. Any other engine/transaxle combo in rear engine configuration the driveshafts spin the wrong direction.

Late model Hondas have gone away from the reverse rotation, K and R series engines that the new ones run all spin the "wrong" way for a buggy.

 

[JR4X]

Trans code for the '12 1.8/5spd trans is SY2M. Car transmissions are pretty simple, if you can build a rock buggy you can tear one apart and put it back together.



Late model Hondas have gone away from the reverse rotation, K and R series engines that the new ones run all spin the "wrong" way for a buggy.

So a 12 would be like every other front wheel drive car?

flipping diffs isn’t hard it’s just a little time consuming. Still worth doing for a cheap transaxle. I’d still like to try building one making a concerted effort to make it as light as possible

 

[Muckin_Slusher]

So a 12 would be like every other front wheel drive car?

flipping diffs isn’t hard it’s just a little time consuming. Still worth doing for a cheap trans axle. I’d still like to try building one making a concerted effort to make it as light as possible

Yeah, I read your earlier post and thought I was somehow looking at the car wrong. I guess not. Transmission definitely on driver's side.

So, would simply making a right side drive buggy help with the packaging? Motor on the left, driver on the right, shifter in the left hand just like England.

Do all trucks have driveshafts that rotate counter-clockwise when driving forward and viewed from behind?

 

[JR4X]

Yeah, I read your earlier post and thought I was somehow looking at the car wrong. I guess not. Transmission definitely on driver's side.

So, would simply making a right side drive buggy help with the packaging? Motor on the left, driver on the right, shifter in the left hand just like England.

Do all trucks have driveshafts that rotate counter-clockwise when driving forward and viewed from behind?

My apologies for the confusion. I didn’t know Honda had switched back to the regular way. Honestly I have no idea why they did it backwards when they did. Here’s a picture of an older one with the engine in the drivers side and the transmission on the passenger side.

 

[No way]

Absolutely possible to make a compact buggy with a front mounted transverse setup like that. You just gotta shove the engine as far back as possible.
Euro-crawlers have been made like that for decades, even on Mogs with the super long diff housing. Wheelbases as low as sub 95".

I'm going that route next. Mogs, transverse turbo 4 banger and 40"s.