163: ZF 8HP: The Automatic Everyone Wants?

If you told me three years ago, I'm going to tell people to put

out a medics in their car.

I mean, like, you lost your mind?

Yes, I totally agree.

But that's how it is.

I have a FADM3 manual, my dream car.

It's slow.

Sorry, it's a cool car, but it's slow.

Like, I'm already thinking about putting a ZF in.

Welcome to the HPA TuneIn podcast, I'm Andre, your host and in this episode

we're joined by Greg from TurboLamac USA.

TurboLamac is arguably the go-to controller if you're considering an 8HP gearbox swap

into your project vehicle and we wanted to find out why this is such a popular option,

why it's necessary in the first place, and also dive a little bit further into what the

8HP gearbox is and why it has become so, so popular over the last few years.

In short, that 8HP gearbox is almost the perfect combination between the speed of shifting with

a aftermarket dog engagement gearbox but with the reliability and ease of drivability of

an auto if you just want to switch it into drive and let the controller do all of the

hard work.

They're also seemingly close to bulletproof, able to handle huge amounts of torque with

little fuss.

On top of this, they also don't sap very much horsepower, so again, kind of almost the

perfect option.

Getting the gearbox to actually change gears when you want it to though and do all of the

other things that a transmission needs to do reliably and consistently is the key when

you are performing a swap like this and that's where the TurboLamac controller comes in.

We talked to Greg about what the TurboLamac controller is, how it was developed and what's

involved in actually installing it in an 8HP gearbox.

We then also discussed how this needs to be integrated with the other electronics in your

car and interestingly this controller is workable regardless whether you're using an

aftermarket standalone ECU or interfacing with a factory ECU and only actually needs

a few inputs in order to be able to do the job that it's designed to do.

We also talked about the torque modelling inside of the TurboLamac controller and this

is really critical because the controller or the gearbox really needs to accurately

know how much torque the engine is producing so that it can provide the correct shift

pressures and hence the correct or optimal shift strategy.

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Alright enough with our introduction, let's get into our interview now.

Alright welcome to the podcast, Greg, thanks for joining us and as always let's start by

finding out a little bit about your background and specifically how you got interested in cars.

So I grew up in Europe and Poland specifically so at a young age there was a hill climb

race maybe 20 miles from my house and I remember it was 14 years old.

We saw these motorbike modified old Fiat cars just racing up the hill.

I remember it was like a 5 series BMW.

That was my first exposure to racing and we're talking communist Poland with pretty much

Russian made Lada's and other garbage and you're 14 year old or something like that

and then you get exposed to cool German cars or other modified vehicles.

So that was my first thing.

Then at the age of 19 I moved to United States and immediately fell in love with Subaru.

Subaru back then in 1998 had a commercial but it was a 3 series BMW at one of the famous

actors and there was a Impressa 2.5 RS and the guy pulls up to the parking lot and

there's the BMW guy if he wants to race down the mountain and he just gave him a look.

So you know obviously knew what rally was, we followed what rally championship in the

Asia Pacific and you know obviously rally New Zealand was one of the best rounds.

So I immediately went and bought a set Impressa 2.5 RS only to get disappointed 10 minutes

later where I couldn't do a donut because it was making 160 horse.

Maybe the advertising was a little bit misleading.

Yeah, I'm a cool car.

It shaped my entire life.

Everybody I met, all the rally guys and pretty much all the friends I have till this day

are because of that car.

And back then you saw another Subaru, you would honk, turn around and became friends

with that guy.

I think the first year Subaru did the Impressa 2.5 RS in the States, it was 600 units or

something like that.

So they're pretty rare.

I beat the snout out of that car, you know, multiple head gaskets and clutches but I had

it for years and I loved it.

You know, whenever it was wet or gravel, that was the best car.

I still think in a winter, you know, Subaru symmetrical all-wheel drive is probably one

of the best-handling, you know, drivetrains, you know, low sort of gravity.

You know, there was always a debate, Subaru Evo.

Evo's were great and making great power.

Obviously that engine is legendary.

But for handling, I think Subaru was pretty spot on.

I've got a dog in that fight and I kind of tend to go the other way.

But when I was getting into drag racing and stupidly at the time just showing my lack

of knowledge of drag racing, I thought, well, four-wheel drive is obviously going to give

a massive advantage and of course the reality is nothing could be further from the truth.

At that point, I didn't really have a massive preference one way or the other.

But we were sort of comparing Mitsubishi Lancer Evo III or GC8 Subaru STi and back

then the five-speed gearbox in the GC8, as everyone knows, is basically made of glass

whereas I think I ran nine sixes and there was that point where the reliability of the

factory Evo gearbox started showing up.

So that's why I went that way.

It was just gearbox strength.

I still love these TUIs as well.

Yeah, for us gearboxes were in the issue because we were making 160 engine horsepower.

Evo's were not sold in the US till 2002, even though I was exposed to Evo IIIs and

fours and fives, you know, import from Japan.

Side note, in Chicago we had a company led actually by two Kiwis, a TAD Motorsport.

So we had Evo's before Evo's were thinking of states and I helped out on the rally team

for years.

Bill Morton is actually back in New Zealand in Auckland running.

He's the head of the Rally Art New Zealand.

So that's how I got my start.

So my roots with cars were kind of tied to New Zealand and those two guys definitely

did a lot to help me.

Back then, you buy a Subaru.

There was no tuning.

AEM I think just became a company so you could get like an air intake.

All these guys are already tuning cars and Evo's and I think early days Link ECU's,

maybe it was something before.

Or maybe there was a Pactel, maybe had a plug and play for like an Evo IV or something

like that.

But that's before internet and massive knowledge, you know, we're talking probably 30 years

ago.

Tuning was different.

People didn't know how any of this worked now.

Now we have endless resources and obviously people like yourself that educate the masses.

It definitely was a more difficult time to learn those skills.

And yeah, you're absolutely right.

The resources just weren't there.

There were a limited number of people that were tuning stand-alones.

You know, there's a lot of plug and play sort of chips for ECU's and you didn't really

have a clue what you were getting.

But yeah, as you say, the knowledge just wasn't there.

Yeah, even back then I remember they would get an email with the tune, you know, God

knows from where, no knock sensors, no any real tuning.

They would just get a map, flash it and hope the engine lasts.

And it didn't a lot of times, yeah.

Well, the other problem back in that sort of era as well was access to dinos was difficult

if not impossible.

And even things that we take for granted now like good quality wideband FU ratio meters,

they just didn't exist.

You couldn't buy something for less than probably about $3,000, $4,000.

And that was sort of starting to get towards more laboratory grade stuff.

So it was cringingly expensive.

Different days.

Yeah.

All right, so what direction did you go with this?

It sort of sounds like you were interested in the driving aspects.

You've sort of alluded to maybe getting involved with the tuning side of things.

Bring us up to speed.

Actually, no, I actually never got into tuning.

Believe it or not, first of all, I get carsick really easy as a passenger.

And then we had friends that were tuners.

I have multiple friends that I've never had to pay for a tune.

So my career has kind of stayed on ready cars.

I drove a little bit for a period of years.

Then I had a company building ready cars in the States.

Then I was a crew chief on another team.

So we always kind of, you know, we always were and I was always in that sort of environment.

You know, I understand how tuning works.

I understand how car needs to be prepared for tuning from fresh fuel pump, you know, plugs,

you know, the basics that a lot of car owners, you know, kind of omit.

I always understand that setup is extremely important.

And I always point out that tuner isn't always the guy who messes up your engine.

There's a lot of common misconception that, you know, my engine blew up because of a tuner.

You know, nine out of 10 times, it's, you know, you got bad fuel, you got lost fuel pressure.

People don't understand that.

So I kind of know what needs to happen for the car to work.

I'm pretty decent with wiring.

You know, I'm a customer, we have a couple, I have four or a couple of your courses.

But I never venture to tune.

I'm good with configuration setup sensors.

I know what needs to happen but I don't actually, never had a need to tune.

Yeah, I mean there's also nothing wrong with that.

Sometimes sort of knowing where your strengths lie and not trying to do everything is also sensible.

Just coming back to something you said there about, you know, engine failures and the tuner

always has the finger pointed at them.

And that's absolutely correct.

The problem I think when you're tuning professionally for a career is you're going to end up tuning cars

that have been built elsewhere, either by the owner or by other workshops.

And the tuning is obviously the very last part of the puzzle.

And you're relying as the tuner that everyone else has done their job correctly.

And sometimes you sort of find the hard way that something has been left out, admitted, done wrong.

And that can be hard to come back from sometimes.

But yeah, the problem is when there is an engine failure, it always ends up being blamed on the tuner.

So it's a bit of sweet situation to be in.

I kind of, I know how it works.

Yeah, I always felt bad for tuners because you don't know, a car might have said for a year it has old gas or bad blocks.

And it's just not fair for tuners.

But yeah, with that said, you know, I can always hang out around cars, typically Japanese cars.

Now when I'm, you know, older, I mean, I own a Jcer, but now I own a couple of BMWs.

So, you know, obviously love how, you know, everything, you know, evolved from, you know, let's say 15 years ago,

5600 horsepower was amazing.

Now everybody asks for is a 1000 horsepower car and amazing what technology, computers and knowledge can do for the car community.

But with that, you know, obviously cars make more and more power and it's easier to make power.

So now we have an issue with the gearboxes.

CD09 was a popular swap for years.

Now you can see these gearboxes are exploding.

So naturally people started looking for better gearboxes, faster gearboxes, stronger gearboxes and, you know,

8HP looks to be a very popular choice.

Yeah, OK, so let's talk about that.

I mean, the 8HP is definitely nothing new.

These swaps have been done for years now, but I think it's the popularity is definitely exploding more recently.

Now if I sort of think back to when I was a bit younger, a few years ago now,

and the Holy Grail was always a sequential dog box.

And you know, I would still say that driving around in a car fitted with a sequential dog box

makes you feel pretty cool.

There's nothing quite like that feeling of pulling that lever.

Yeah, but how fast does that wear off?

Real quick.

So yeah, the two problems with a motorsport styled dog box is they're noisy.

Straight cut gears typically, they're very noisy, the clunks on the shifts.

More importantly though, if you want to keep one of those things alive,

every shift has to be super fast and super aggressive otherwise you end up rounding the dogs.

And yeah, your super reliable, strong dog engagement gearbox all of a sudden needs a rebuild quite frequently.

Those boxes are great when you're beating up on a car and they absolutely suck in my opinion

if you're cruising around town slowly, that's not what they're designed for, they don't work.

So yeah, once you've had experience with those, the glamour kinda wears off I think a little bit.

They're built for a purpose, they're great for that purpose but yeah, modified road car, absolutely not.

So then if we thought about automatic gearbox conversions into something that maybe originally

had a manual gearbox and it would have been a hard no.

My opinion of the automatic gearbox is crushing despair coming out the output shaft

because you put 800 or 1000 horsepower in and most of it disappears into the black magic

that's happening inside of it, the heavy, big torque converter, slow shifts,

not a lot to really kinda get excited if you're a car guy or a car girl.

8HP though seems to have really changed or addressed at least a lot of those aspects.

So what is it about the 8HP that makes it such a special gearbox?

Well, first of all, ZF or ZF, however you wanna call it, obviously it's a very well known huge corporation

that's been around for 100 years.

So with that said, they have a vast amount of experience in building gearboxes for not only cars

but industrial equipment, mining equipment.

With a company that size, obviously you have resources and you have engineering that can improve

and obviously Germans are very proud of their work and I believe a lot of that got driven by emission standards.

So these gearboxes are more efficient in a road car application,

whether you're in Europe with your Euro emission standards and in the States.

You know, this is where they save miles per gallon.

A lot of that stuff comes from the engine and obviously all the sophisticated systems with the engine

but a lot of that comes from the drivetrain.

So you make a more efficient gearbox.

You know, when you put it in a race application, a street application, you'll notice that also gives you an advantage.

And ZF initially started this with the 5 speed and then 6 speeds and 8 speed is obviously an evolution of those gearboxes.

And there's an engineering YouTube channel where the guy takes automotive products apart and there's an episode on the 8 speed gearbox.

And this gentleman that's very, very well educated engineer, he could not show the flow path of power through the gearbox.

That just tells you how complicated they are and how, you know, he takes it apart and he's unable to tell you what happens in each gear.

And quite frankly, I have no idea.

Lukas, the owner from Poland, tried to explain that to me but he lost me pretty quick.

Well, I think the important thing here as well is we don't necessarily need to understand the intricate inner workings of an 8 HP gearbox

in order to do a swap and get the advantages of it.

Right. Oh yeah, of course, yeah.

So the gearbox is extremely complex.

Believe it or not, it's easy to work with.

With basic tools, we have customers, there's companies selling kits to make these gearboxes even stronger.

There's billets, baskets, there's, you know, Dutson makes a kit.

There's plenty of companies that make stronger clutches and stronger plates.

So even though it's a very sophisticated gearbox, it's very user friendly.

So for example, the middle of the pack is the 8 HP 70 or 75.

We can send almost 1000 foot-pounds of torque to these gearboxes stock, which is almost double the amount that they rated for.

That's wild.

But we have customers running 1600, 1800 foot-pounds with just, you know, minor upgrades, some billet parts.

So that's another testament to these gearboxes.

Not only they're, you know, very efficient, but they're very, very strong.

And the rating from ZF, you know, it's a very, very modest, you know, rating.

I think when they rate these gearboxes, they need to take an account that this is going to work in different parts of the world

and that it's going to last you, you know, four or 500,000 miles.

With that said, it's, you know, this is why we concentrated on 8 HP ZF.

It's got a very good track record.

In OEM application, it doesn't really go bad unless you, you know, unless you really try to burn clutches.

Other competition gearboxes, like the 10 speed and 7 speed, they all have different quirks and they all have different weak points.

Like, you know, some have off-body issues, some have clutch issues.

We've concentrated for many, many years on these as they seem to be very robust and most importantly, very abundant.

And I think in 2022, ZF made 3 million of different variants of 8-speed.

So here in the States, they're at every single junkyard.

Dodge exclusively has every single Dodge product or Mopar product is on 8 HP.

So, you know, kids crush them, they're everywhere and we love it.

From drifters, from drag guys to classic, you know, muscle cars, everybody's putting one in.

Yeah, it definitely appears that way.

Now I just want to come back and just sort of clarify one of the points you've made there.

So you've been talking about efficiency and it sort of comes back to what I was saying earlier with the traditional automatic transmission.

We get some torque converter slip and basically it's going to, between that and just literally spinning the gearbox the way it works internally,

it's quite power hungry.

So with the 8 HP, that efficiency, you're not losing as much power between the back of the crankshaft and the tail shaft.

That's correct.

Yeah, we're almost as efficient as a manual gearbox.

So that's fixing one of the real big downsides of the traditional automatic transmission.

Now granted, it still does have a torque converter.

So you've still got quite a large, heavy torque converter that's going to be bolted to the back of your crankshaft or your flex plate.

And the gearbox itself, I am going to assume here is still going to be heavier physically than a comparable manual transmission?

Yeah, correct.

And it takes almost nine liters of fluid.

Converter is heavy.

So since we're talking in a converter side, there's actually an option that you can eliminate torque converter.

Lots of our road racing customers develop the adapter that just sends the oil through.

So with our technology to use clutches, they are able to bypass the torque converter and you can get the car going using the clutch.

So a conventional clutch in place of the torque converter?

No, no.

Instead of a torque converter, it's an adapter that just kind of centers the input shaft and sends the oil through.

These gearboxes have internal clutches, several clutch packs.

Some are used as brakes, some are used as clutches.

So we take an advantage even, you know, ZF never designed it to be that way.

We control one of the clutch packs so you can drive like a normal manual.

You can come from stop, you can get going on these clutches.

It's a multi-disc wet clutch pack like a motorcycle.

Yeah.

We can do burnouts.

That's how drifters, you know, drifters use it.

We have, you know, we have customers, for example, Duarte from Drift HQ.

He's got a 2JZ BMW with an 8HP70 that he clutch kicked 56 gear on like a 275 tire and they're still happily taking that.

So that's one of the aspects of this gearbox that is very appealing to a lot of customers.

That's very unique, very interesting.

On face value, that gets rid of one of the other issues I guess I've got with the automatic transmission

is that torque converter being big and heavy and bolted to the flex plate.

It's going to basically affect the way the engine will respond to throttle input.

It's going to be slower to rev up.

It's just like having more mass on your clutch and flywheel.

So what are the downsides with removing that torque converter?

Because at the moment it's sounding like a great deal.

Yeah, you have to drive.

So the upside is the road race is likely because not only weight but also a heat.

There's a lot of heat in these torque converters.

So you eliminate the weight and eliminate the heat.

But the downside is you have to drive it like a manual.

You can no longer slip the converter.

So you have to have a third pedal.

It's a drive by wire clutch.

Just think exactly like drive by wire throttle.

And it's a 0 to 5 volt signal that we have to see on the TCU and we'll slip the clutch.

We'll let you burn it if you want.

It really acts like a standard clutch.

That is really interesting.

I know.

We tried to explain it to ZF engineers at the PR I show.

And they were like, and then this year he came back.

He's like, hey, I told that to the guys in Germany and they didn't believe me.

And I was like, I'm sorry, what do I tell you?

Yeah, so that's Lucas.

Lucas is the genius in Poland.

We touched on the question how did this all become.

It's very simple.

15, 12, 15 years ago, almost.

Lucas and his brother, they're just two brothers that like to race cars, drag race cars.

Obviously, sequentials are very expensive.

So they start looking at the six-peats.

Lucas is an electrical engineer.

So he started thinking they developed a very crude system to kind of bang the gears.

And I mean, it's not that difficult to figure out which combination of solenoid gives you what gear.

But then they found out that it needs a lot more finesse.

They were breaking a lot of these gearboxes.

And the six-peats weren't as strong as the eight-peats.

So they've done a couple years on that with a decent success.

But basically when they went to eight-speed, they found out that the gearboxes are much stronger.

They completely redesigned the system.

They changed entirely the way they control the solenoids.

They discovered that the way they were controlling it prior wasn't the right way to do.

And then they just start, you know, the last 12 years is basically refining how they control the gearboxes.

And they started refining how many different ECUs we can talk to, you know,

expanded the CAN bus system, and the rest is history.

This is 12 years of everyday hard work.

And early, they started basically having some success in drag racing in the European scene.

And that was enough to supply customers and, you know, allow them to kind of finance the company while they're developing.

And the last, you know, maybe four years, it just blew up.

The whole eight-hp swap scene exploded.

There were some bad players on the market that kind of set us back.

There was a company that kind of rushed to the market that their equipment wasn't as good.

But now we're fixing it all and we generally have very happy customers.

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Alright, let's get back to the episode.

A couple of follow up questions on that.

The first is, you just mentioned that in the last four years the 8HP swap market has exploded.

I've seen that as well firsthand.

What has changed?

Why is it now, because these gearboxes have been around for a long time,

why is it now that everyone's wanting to do these swaps?

So it seemed like it peaked for the moment, but again, there was another supplier

that their computer would work and then all of a sudden the wooden people would not leave home without a laptop,

some hardware would smoke, all of a sudden.

So a lot of it, people got scared.

For a moment, there was a part where people thought that these swaps didn't work,

that they were just another gimmick.

But I'd like to think we partially repair that name.

We don't have any hardware issues.

Our installation maybe isn't the friendliest in the world,

because you have to go in a gearbox and bypass the factory TCU.

But once you configure everything and set up, it works absolutely amazing,

especially on the modern car where you have drive-by-wire throttle, we can do blips, cuts,

we can very well integrate with pretty much all major ECUs.

So when we have a modern car, it absolutely works.

On older cars, shift times are a little slower.

If we can do a con or a blip, obviously the speed suffer,

but it's still compared to a normal automatic or even a manual gearbox, it's night and day faster.

But generally, now I think people started to see that the swap works,

and I have customers in a classic car, a less engine,

that we've done a bunch of cars, we've done some YouTubers.

It just takes a while to promote the product.

Obviously, in the drag world, in the States, we have probably 10 cars,

like for example, Mark V Supra, B58, every single team that switches to our controller improves their times.

The gearboxes last longer, factory TCU doesn't do funny things,

there's no gear changes where they shouldn't be, so they get more consistency.

Especially in drag world, one guy does it, and if it works, then everybody else jumps on it.

Yeah, yeah, does same that way.

We have the words quickest, Mark V Supra, we have words fastest, Mark V Supra, same goes for BMW.

We're going to venture soon to some fast Mopar cars, because from our point of view, the hardware is exactly the same.

I don't care if it's a Mopar HP 70 or 90, or if it's a BMW gearbox,

our controller is the same, we just change the can communication to talk to the car differently.

So it all takes time, and I've been only a distributor here in the States for two and a half years,

and I think it's going great. I literally closed my other business, and this was supposed to be a sidekick,

but their sales are incredible. I can't keep these things in stock.

It's always a good sign when the side hustle becomes the main hustle.

Yeah.

Just because you've just mentioned your world records there, what sort of ETA mile an hour are we talking here?

I knew you're going to ask me that. I'm not a drag guy.

Did I tell you we do rally cars? But look up, this new record happened at the Haltech World Cup finals in fall of last year.

Mike from EOS, Evolution of Speed, was one of the cars, and then from his team, Jesse's car did the other record.

Okay. Just while you're talking there, I'll try and do some research.

Yeah. You're going to look it up on the world's slowest internet. I know you guys.

I mean, this is from ChatGPT, so take it as you want. Apparently, 7.9 at 176 mile an hour.

Yeah.

Yeah. And then we also have the fastest 8HP car in the world, which is in Europe.

That's the team that Lucas and your Turbulamic Poland sponsors.

And that happened at the race in UK last fall, 6th with some change. Again, not a drag guy. Sorry.

I like rally cars.

Fair enough. All right. So coming back to the other question I had was around the swap.

I thought you've sort of talked a little bit about this anyway, but we'll elaborate on it.

So obviously, part of the swap would be the physical bolting the transmission to the back of the engine.

So for a lot of the popular engines now, as I understand it, there are kind of off the shelf

conversion kits available to make that part easy. You know, make up a transmission mount

and then probably a tail shaft as well. So you've got the thing physically fitted,

but it's the electronic integration that's probably the scarier part.

And that factory TCU would normally talk via CAN communication, I assume with the ECU running the engine.

So you've kind of got two way communication there. So that kind of gets upset and broken

if you're putting that transmission into a different vehicle with a different engine

and probably with an aftermarket standalone ECU. So this is where Turbulamic comes in

fixing this now broken communication path so you can actually run the transmission.

So you've mentioned that you need to remove the factory TCU.

So you're not actually integrating with the factory TCU or transmission control unit.

You are now completely and directly controlling everything to do with that transmission.

Advantages and disadvantages of that technique versus integrating with the stock TCU?

So advantages is we're not worrying about torque limiters, you know, factory safeties.

The biggest one in my opinion, well a lot of people maybe not find that important,

but we're not infringing on ZF intellectual property.

We're as far as they're concerned, we're the only company that ZF as a company is called with

because we're not messing with their software with their coding.

Our competition is typically based on the Ken Gateways and a modified factory software.

So as far as ZF is concerned, that is a big no-no because you're taking somebody's software

and then you're modified selling that for a profit.

So no lawsuits coming your way?

No lawsuits, yeah. We're actually supporting a factory ZF race team.

But that's another story for another day.

But we basically are approaches, we don't want any limitations,

we don't want any copyright infringements.

We are 100% controlling the gearbox from A to Z as a full standalone.

The downside is you've got to pull the Mechatronics unit out of the gearbox,

which is super simple, couple torque screws and we physically open it

and then we start our one of these, we start our little jumper board.

Basically, all that does is connect every single solenoid speed sensors and attempt sensor

to the plug at the transmission.

The data is being sent to our standalone TCU.

We obviously talk to the engine, we do need some engine data.

We process the data and then we send the signals back to the solenoids to control the gearbox.

So obviously the benefits are every single aspect of the gearbox is adjustable.

We can do proper transbreak, we have full control of the gearbox.

We're not relying on factory software anyhow.

We do some things in a similar fashion like adaptations, for example.

But other than that, we are 100% responsible for every function of the gearbox.

We talk to shifters, we talk to the CAN modules, we talk to the ECUs.

A lot more development on our end compared to a simple CAN gateway, like a piggyback.

I call them piggyback because that's all they are.

So from a sort of an end user perspective, is this a DIY installation

or does it need to be sent out to a shop for the installation of the two-by-limit controller?

It's absolutely DIY.

We probably, 95% of our customers do the modification themselves.

You drop the oil pan, you drop the mechatronics, you open the low enclosure,

you sever the low wire connections, you put the board solder in.

As long as you're clean, you don't have metal shavings.

There's a procedure we check for any shorts to the case.

As long as you do a clean job, soldering, that's all it takes.

I can do one in 15 minutes.

Then we have an option of either potting it with the epoxy

or we have the low covers that we put over the enclosure.

You just seal that with the high temp silicone.

At that point, you're done with the gearbox.

You can fill it with oil, you can fix it in the car.

The wiring part is pretty easy.

We need constant power, switch power, ground, two can bus connections

if we're talking to a modern ECU and a brake signal.

There's some optional stuff for clutch, for pedals, for sequential shifters,

just another, you know, it's basically pedals, two inputs and a sensor ground.

Or you can use one of the OEM shifters from BMW, Jaguar, Mopar.

We have already a part of the loom.

You can just plug that in and it gets recognized and all the functions.

Like if you're driven a modern BMW, you have all the sport modes, you know, park.

If you shut off the car, the shifter will park itself.

So everything from the can bus communication has been figured out for these shifters.

And as far as talking to the factory TCU, you will have to set some settings in the software.

Just purely because we talk to everything from Motec to Link to Haltec to, you know,

Hali, HP tuners.

Everything.

Even, you know, like older stuff, AEM, anything pretty much in anything.

And even if there's an obscure ECU made in Lithuania, as long as we get a can data,

you know, typically it's can standard and we just add that to our support list.

We typically at very minimum need three things from the engine.

RPM, map sensor and TPS.

And based on that, we calculate torque internally and that allows us to, you know,

to control the gearbox because we need to know very, very accurately how much torque

at any given moment the gearbox needs.

Let's just talk about that because that's kind of the be all and end all

of keeping these gearboxes working and shifting nicely.

So if you're only taking, I mean, there are a handful of ECUs that are in the

aftermarket standalone world that are torque based and will actually output an accurate.

That was my next sentence.

Okay. Just beat you to it.

I'm sorry about that.

Yeah.

So like if you, if we work in with Amtron, for example, we absolutely will take their

torque model because it's going to be superior to what we do.

And yeah, we, we, that's the beauty about being a small company and understanding,

you know, what, what each company does.

You know, if you do something, you know, exceptionally well like Amtron,

we will absolutely take your torque value.

If we're on a factory, you know, BMW M3 that's tuned on a factory DME that only

reports to certain number of torque and then the rest is just, you know,

BS number, we will absolutely either provide our own torque number or we can,

we can basically scale to be accurate.

That's the biggest problem with those high horsepower BMWs.

None of the data coming from a DME is accurate because they're all cheating,

you know, to stop the ECU from protecting the engine.

That's a whole bunch of work around.

So the actual torque number that it's reporting could be anything.

Alright, so let's talk about the ECUs where you're not getting a torque output figure,

which will be the majority of aftermarket standalone.

So you're on a Haltech or a Link and you said you need throttle position,

manifold absolute pressure and engine RPM.

I mean, just looking at that, the combination of RPM throttle position

and manifold pressure on a naturally aspirated 4AGE, for example.

I mean, no one's going to put an 8HP behind one of those,

but let's just take that as an example.

Could be, will be very, very different to the same combination on a 4L twin turbo V8.

So what's the process of the internal torque model that you're making?

Yeah, we have torque tables that we can adjust and make sure that we're reading correctly.

But there's definitely ways of adjusting that whether we're, you know,

depending if we're talking with 2J with the big cams or a low E36 or something like that.

So we have, in our software, you can make these adjustments

and then we have ways of verifying that we are seeing torque correctly.

Okay, so this is where I was going with this.

This is sort of something that the end user, when they're setting up the turbo limit controller,

there's going to be some input required there to get that torque model to suit the engine.

Correct. Yeah, typically when the car is already ready to be configured,

we obviously make sure that we see the cams, there's no error messages.

So that's a side note, we do have internal diagnostics.

So we want to make sure there's no errors, cam communication is good, shifters connected,

and then the torque settings need to be adjusted to make sure that,

depending what we're talking to, that we have the accurate readings

because like you said, that's absolutely crucial.

Now I guess there's two ways of looking at this, with a piggyback controller,

I'm going to assume not having done any of these myself yet.

I'm going to assume that probably from the end user perspective,

the setup and configuration is probably a little bit easier

with your controller having complete control over everything, pros and cons here,

complete control, but also I'm going to assume probably a little bit more work

and a few more parameters and tables that need to be set up by the end user.

Yeah, correct, but it's like with everything.

You can look at the OEM reflashes we had back in the day versus a standalone.

Obviously standalone is going to give you more power,

but it's going to be more time consuming to set up.

So for that, we have pretty good startup maps,

and then we also offer remote help that is free of charge.

So when you do buy our system, either myself or one of Lucas's team

will jump in anywhere in the world,

and they will make sure that the settings are correctly,

make sure that everything should be working.

And at that point, granted you have sufficient amount of oil in the car,

you can start driving and the car will go through adaptations

and learn the gearbox just like the OEM would.

Could you explain the adaptation process

and what it's actually learning and what it's doing?

Yeah, so basically we are always monitoring clutch pressure, shift times,

whether there's any flares,

and the software will adjust the clutch pressures

and how the solenoids are working to make the shifts as good as possible.

So it's actually very interesting when you have a new installation,

and it sounds like you guys are going to have one soon on your Volvo.

You will see first couple shifts are going to be kind of clunky,

but you will see our display gives you like a low A.

That means it's doing adaptation.

So the gearbox learn itself,

monitors every shift just like the OEMs would,

and it always strives to have the quickest,

well not always the quickest, depending which mode you are.

Smoothest maybe is the right word,

unless you're in a sequential mode then it's probably prioritizing speed.

But we always kind of monitor the shift and how it's happening in the shift quality.

And that process never really stops

because one day you're in a winter and the oil stick

and then next thing you're at 30 degrees.

So we never give up the process throughout the gearbox life.

Adaptations are always monitored and corrected if needed.

There's too many variables starting from your battery voltage to oil temperature,

ambient temperature, your clutch thickness, where everything plays a very important part.

And my understanding is from what Lukas told me, they're very, very, very sensitive.

Even to the point where we have a customer that's putting turbo-lamics in a military equipment

and he requested a 30 centimeter longer lead cable to the gearbox.

And Lukas told me, just remind me when we're tuning it to take that into consideration.

I'm like, what is 30 centimeters of cable going to change to a tune?

And he says, yeah, your app draws to the solenoid changes

and he takes even something minute like that into account.

So I was kind of blown away by how important every aspect of this algorithm

that is happening on the shift, how important that is.

I never thought a longer cable would affect how your gearbox is shifting.

No, I wouldn't have thought that either.

Obviously, you've just mentioned that the adaptation process is ongoing.

But in terms of your first shift, as you said, might be a little bit clunky.

How long does it sort of take before it's essentially driving like it?

A couple of minutes.

Right, so very fast.

Yeah, yeah, a couple of minutes.

Most of my customers, including the Mike from EOS and the guys from Drift HQ,

when I went there in person to help them install it because they're like high-profile customers,

their first startup, the car is on the hoist, they put a reverse

and they're like amazed that they didn't do this huge,

because that's what they were used to with some other products.

And I'm like, just drive it, it's ready to go.

It's just how it should be.

It's not going to be brutal.

We're pretty close when we started.

I mean, we're not trying to damage a gearbox or anything like that.

But it doesn't take long.

It takes a couple of minutes.

And you don't have to drive aggressively.

Actually, aggressive driving is, those are the easiest shifts

because you just bang the gears in.

It's the normal slow speed matching RPMs and that's the difficult part.

The slow driving is the most difficult one to be smooth and gentle.

Alright, let's talk about communication the other way.

We've talked about what you need from the ECU.

How about, I'm assuming here you've got the ability to do torque reduction for upshifts

and you've also mentioned about throttle blips of downshift.

So that obviously requires some communication the other way

from the turbo-lamic controller into the ECU.

So what ECUs can you currently achieve those sort of functions with?

So we obviously, all our data is available on a CanStream 2 to your device

from program, shift card, request, gear, temperatures, you know,

spoke speeds, converter speed, output.

Everything is available.

Any modern ECUs and some factory ECUs.

The rule of thumb is if you're like, let's say you're working with the OEM ECU

because we can also talk to a lot of OEM ECUs from GM to many others.

If your factory ECUs support blips, then we can do it.

And with the aftermarket ones, I think the only one that is kind of limited currently is Holley.

Holley historically never had a need for a blip.

So even though they offer one, it's very, very conservative.

It's about half of the throttle opening that we would need.

So hopefully that'll change with some of the future updates,

but all your mo-tex, you know, Haltex, we can do a blip.

It's a shift flag that's sent over CanBus,

or we can send it through an analog 0 to 5 to request that.

Yeah, so we have obviously different ways of requesting data or sending the message.

The same goes for, you know, everything like vehicle speed, for example,

CanBcast can be analog, you know, shift cuts, blips, you know,

like your launch control, for example, can be either way.

Typically we have, so first of all, we have eight different drive modes on the ECU.

You get the little rotary switch so you can be from, you know, normal auto to sequential, for example.

Each of these modes can be set to either launch control or trans-brake.

So you could have your map 1 trans-brake, but you can have your map 2 be a launch control.

So the way our procedure works for launch control and trans-brake is you basically grab a gear,

and if you hold it, it's instantly in a trans-brake mode.

There's no procedure, you know, we let you do it whenever you're worried about it.

But at the same time, for example, for launch control, we can send a call message to your ECU

so you don't need to dedicate a button or switch for your launch control, for example.

So you hunt the lever, we go into launch control mode, but so is your ECU.

So, and again, that can be done different ways.

That message can be sent different ways.

Let's just talk about the difference between launch control and trans-brake.

So trans-brake, as I understand it, you're basically engaging first gear and reverse simultaneously.

So the second gear in reverse.

Yeah, typically these gearboxes, you start with second gear.

Even in OEM application, if you look at BMW or Mopar, you can always get going from second gear.

You can downshift, but it's so short that it's fairly loose.

So yeah, we apply a second gear and reverse at the same time, which locks up the gearbox.

You give it some juice and, you know, build power.

And then when you're ready, you let the shifter or a paddle and then that just disconnects one of the clutch packs.

That's responsible for the reverse and that's how we launch.

The difference between trans-brake and the launch control is trans-brake is basically you lock the gearbox.

It's not creeping forward. You have to obviously have your tune right and converter has to be the right size to make some boost.

The way launch control works is basically like if you're launching from a clutch.

So your car will, you know, move forward a little bit.

You can free rev and as soon as you let go of the shifter, it's like if you dump the clutch.

We obviously have limits on RPM and then I can work in conjunction with your ECU.

Sure, so with the launch control, really I guess you'd say it's acting more like having a manual gearbox

and you're reliant on the launch limiting, RPM limiting being done inside of the ECU.

If we come back to trans-brake, one of the problems we sort of see with again the traditional automatic transmission

is then your sort of really, the match of the torque converter to the engine has to be correct

because otherwise if you've got a very tight converter, a small engine with a big turbocharger,

you're not making enough torque to actually build boost.

Loose converter, yep okay, you're going to get high enough in the RPM to build boost

but then the thing drives horribly on the street because the converter's slipping all over the place.

So explain how you get around that with 8HP.

So first of all 8HP torque converter is, we control the lock up.

There's actually three states, there's open lock and then like a slipped stage.

So the biggest problems are if somebody like say, for example, if it's a diesel box with the big heavy torque converter

and they have a 2GZ with a huge turbo, that makes no power at 2,500 RPM.

So that is important, the way you can go around it, there's obviously companies making custom torque converters

like Circle D, more and more companies offer torque converters in the states.

In Europe, they're being a little more dangerous so they'll do anti-leg or spray some nitrous.

There's a way of making that barrier kind of get overcome.

Yeah, it is important to match.

Typically, if you're fitting a gasoline 8HP-70, you typically will not have a problem with spooling up with the tighter torque converter.

Okay, but it is still a consideration.

Yeah, we get a lot of BMW 8HP-70's diesels in the states and those seem to be the ones that cause problems with customers

that they cannot spool up the engine at low RPM.

Okay, that kind of actually brings up another important question there.

And again, for those who are very fresh to 8HP, we throw that term around but it's actually a family of gearboxes

you've kind of already mentioned, used by a number of different manufacturers.

So is there kind of a go-to model, a vehicle that you would recommend someone looks for an 8HP from one of these?

Yeah, there's a couple of things in the cruiser.

First of all, make sure you have an adapter for your engine for the gearbox you look into use

because if you have like a Toyota engine and then you're like,

oh, I'm going to fit an Alfa Romeo gearbox because it's $300 on eBay.

It doesn't mean Toyota to Alfa Romeo adapter exists.

So one of the things that you're going to take into consideration is does the adapter exist?

And second, my first question is how much torque you're making?

Because if you're going to tell me, oh, I'm making 500 foot-pounds of torque,

then I'm just going to tell you, go with the small frame, BMW, F-Chassis,

where everybody has an adapter.

These gearboxes, not only they're smaller, so they're a little more responsive due to rotating mass,

but they're available and they're cheap.

You know, here in the States, everybody wants a 1990, 95 because, you know,

demons and track hooks have it.

And then I ask, like, how much torque you're making?

Oh, 600.

Total Ivaco.

Complete waste of time.

Not only these gearboxes are like four grand compared to like, you know,

$600, $700, you know, like a Dutch charger gearbox.

I always tell them bigger isn't always better and I always hit a wall

because they want the best.

They think it's huge, doesn't fit in half the cars and it's heavy and rotating mass.

We recently had a very famous YouTuber put it on a Dutch charger with the K24 swap

and he's telling me, oh, I'm going to try to spin it to 11,000 RPM.

I'm like, those are V8 boxes.

They're never designed to spin that fast.

I'm like, it's going to rapidly dismantle itself.

Rapidly dismantle?

I like that.

It's going to blow up.

Yeah.

So yeah, V8 box, you know, you don't spin it 10,000 RPM.

You know, don't put a demon gearbox on a 600 foot-pounds of torque,

unless most popular ones are, oh, sorry.

The next, the third limitation is if you're building a drift car,

try to stay away from the small frame gearboxes.

Not that they cannot take the torque.

The planetaries are small and it's usually a weak point.

Sweet spot is typically for most people is a 8 HP 70 or what the second gen would be 8 HP 75.

Again, almost 1000 foot-pounds of torque, massive abuse.

We have customer, we have a guy in Poland that's been drifting one for seven seasons,

20, 30 events a year.

And he finally cracked the case, but we think that was due to a vibration from a drive shaft.

They're incredibly strong.

So 70 or 75 is a sweet spot for most people.

Okay.

So just from a selfish perspective, we've got a project lined up that,

in typical HPA fashion, probably isn't going to happen for another three to five years,

but still, when we put a twin-turbo 1000 horse LS into a 1966 C10,

which model should I be going for on that?

70 or 75.

So even if you go over 900 foot-pounds of torque, they're very easily upgradeable.

Sonax makes clutch plates, there's billet baskets, there's billet input shaft.

I also want you to have a 70 over 90, 95 that can take a lot more power,

just because you're going to have a better time from responsiveness and shift times.

Again, I rarely see an application for 90, 95 unless you're building like a Baja truck that sees a lot of loads and shocks.

Most people don't need it.

Unfortunately, the case in the States is there's a lot of wealthy customers that just money's not an object.

These shops build these $200,000 cars and they just order these things new from $10,000 gearbox.

I let them because it doesn't matter, those cars will never get driven hard.

They're just cruising, they'll still get their fast shifts and they'll enjoy the cars.

But a 70 or 75 is, I always call it a sweet spot.

And here in the States, Dutch charger challenger, they made million of them and kids are crashing them left and right,

because they're powerful, we will drive.

Every city has a junkyard or Facebook marketplace.

I know we and I have a lot of jealous customers.

They're like $600 in the States.

I haven't gone deep enough down the rabbit hole at the moment to start looking into the prices here in New Zealand,

but suffice to say they're not going to be that cheap.

Slightly more, slightly more from what Andrew tells me the market in Australia is.

Yeah, I think it was talking maybe in the $3,000 to $4,000 Australian dollar vicinity.

Well, we'll just put a couple of the pallet and we'll just send it your way.

Alright, coming back to some of the aspects of configuring these.

In terms of upshifts under full load, do we require a shift cut or some kind of torque reduction from the engine?

Or is there a point above which in terms of the engine's making X amount of torque at that point,

if you want to keep the clutches alive, we do need some kind of torque reduction?

No, obviously it's ideal to have a torque reduction with any gearbox, it's still making a change.

Although we do see a lot of customers with older cars that don't have any capability to use it without it

and we don't see any particular problems.

There's different ways we can do a torque cut.

We recently had a gentleman that had an older carburetor car but had an ignition box.

We were able to achieve that through an ignition box.

We always recommend it, but I don't know if it's the end of the world if you don't.

Same goes for blips. Obviously we'll speed up the downshift.

It'll just be smoother and nicer on the downshift with a blip, right?

Yeah, correct. And then generally when you drive in anger, those shifts happen so fast

that the gear change is going to happen regardless.

In terms of the shift speed or shift time, how does that compare to a conventional manual gearbox,

maybe a conventional traditional automatic gearbox and a dog engagement style racing gearbox?

Yeah, so obviously with the manual transmission and a classic automatic, it's going to be a day and night different.

I think shifts on under power, I think we're seeing, I mean, it depends, you know, 120, 150 milliseconds.

I don't know how that compares to a dog box with a load cell.

You can get those under 100 milliseconds, but there's a lot, I mean, it depends on so many things.

Yeah, so obviously probably sequential is going to be faster.

DCT is going to be slightly faster, but we don't like the headaches that sequentials do and DCTs do.

Sequentials have their place on a track, absolutely amazing, but we have a more all around solution work

where in one mode you're fine on the street and then you can still have a sequential light gearbox on a track.

Yeah, I think also just to regurgitate information we've already discussed in a previous interview

with Andrew from 8 Speed in Australia, as you've referenced before,

I just think it's important to reiterate during this discussion as well.

I think sometimes a little bit too much is made of fast shift times

and I experience this with drag racing as well with a manual transmission.

It can upset the traction through the shift.

So sometimes a slightly longer smoother shift which you'll get with the automatic transmission keeps the tyre hooked up.

Correct, we absolutely have a way of fine tuning the engagement.

Even for example, for downshift we can make it more aggressive like drifters like it

because it locks up the rear end and they can initiate the turn,

but we can make it smoother or harsher and there's a lot of settings that we have control over.

Okay, so basically complete flexibility to suit your personal preferences.

Yeah, absolutely we can fine tune all the aspects.

Okay, so where do we go to from here with this product?

I mean it sounds like it's fairly comprehensive, well proven.

Is there further room for development here?

Absolutely, so there's a third generation of gearbox which what for example,

flagship BMWs are using.

So it's a third gen 8 HP, for example, Mark V Supra uses 8 HP 51.

So 45 would be the first gen, 50 would be second, 51.

We don't have a native control for those.

We do have a workaround, but we don't have a native control.

And then like your M3, M4, X3M uses the mid-frame 8 HP 76.

Those are the latest and greatest.

They completely redesigned the valve body and how it's controlled with the solenoids.

So we currently can round these gearboxes, but you have to replace the valve body to the second gen.

It's kind of downgrade to the second gen.

So we control the 51s and the 76.

So we are working on natively control those gearboxes with the next evolution of turbo-lamic.

I think we sacrifice a little bit of speed when we go to the second gen valve body,

but that also adds additional cost for the customer.

So all those Supras and all those M3s you see in the stage drag racing,

they all are running the latest gen gearboxes, but with the second generation valve bodies.

We obviously still add new features.

We work with different ECU manufacturers on improving what options we have.

There's couple drag racing specific firmwares with Motec.

We're designing just to make the configuration easier and just add functionality.

But generally, we want to support more and more applications.

Currently, we're working on can communications for some Toyota platforms for their V6 and V8, like Toyota Tundra.

We have a lot of requests for customers wanting to swap these gearboxes into those vehicles.

Nissan platform, the VRVQ engine.

We have adapters, but we are currently working on can communication with those cars,

because it's one thing to control the gearbox.

But any of these modern cars, as you may know, as soon as you unplug the gearbox, they freak out.

They won't even start.

So we have to figure out what is the factory communication and we have to replicate that.

That's what we did for all the BMW platform.

BMW, you unplug the shift, the car won't start.

You unplug the gearbox, the car won't start.

So we actually monitor with the OEM car, we put a can sniffer.

Lukas actually has a fancy can network hub of sorts that monitors all the communication.

He can record all the frames and he can play them back and decipher what each one of them do.

And then he incorporates that to our firmware.

So for example, when you put a turbo-lamic controller in 2025 M5, it acts like a factory car.

We send the same communication from the shifter.

We send the same communication from the gearbox.

And that's very important, so the rest of the systems in the car work.

So that is a very time-consuming task.

So we currently, from the big players, we have all the BMW platforms.

You can put our ECU in the new cars and all the more parked cars.

But there's a list of other vehicles we want to develop because customers keep asking for it.

We're working on a GR86.

There's an adapter developed in Sweden by Damiworks.

You guys are familiar with Damiworks.

So he's almost done with the F824 and the EGA adapter.

So we think that's going to be a popular swap.

But obviously mounting the gearbox is one part.

We have to have a communication for Toyota and Subaru.

I imagine it's going to be exactly the same.

But we're in a process of developing that.

I would have actually quite enjoyed that swap a few years ago.

We've actually sold the car since.

But our original, it was the original generation Toyota 86.

And we had the stock FA20 engine in that with a turbo kit on it.

Had a little Borgwana EFR turbo running on E85, MoTeC control.

And I mean that thing, we limited it to about 380 wheel horsepower.

And it was an absolute great car on the racetrack.

So well behaved and that turbo was so well matched to the FA20.

You give it to someone and they probably wouldn't even know it was turbo charged

the way the power was delivered.

The problem with it of course was fourth gear.

And the only way I could actually keep fourth gear alive was to pull all of the boost out of it

and fourth which you'd go from third to fourth and it felt like someone had pulled

a couple of coils off it.

And then you'd sort of short shift it straight into fifth and the power was all back.

And we researched gearbox conversions for that and there were no options.

There was nothing, they would have been great.

Yeah I think it's going to be a great selling item because they're great cars.

The manual, not the greatest.

The CVT is just atrocious.

And they're slow with those.

And I think you know with the 8 speed it would definitely feel a lot more peppy

especially if you put a supercharger or a turbo on it.

I've driven one on the, and I remember I was getting on the highway ramp.

So I'm going downhill and I'm like...

And I'm like what is this Honda Civic in 1996?

It's just such a great platform but it needs like 100 horsepower.

Yeah a little bit underpowered unfortunately.

Yeah I always said 100 horsepower and a decent gearbox and it would have been

one of the greatest tri-cars.

Yeah I guess and we're definitely getting a little off topic here but I guess

they're trying to make a car at a certain price point.

And I also, you know, the number of people who would keep saying

oh the next generation 86 is going to come out with a turbo or supercharger.

And having gone through turbocharging one and honestly the amount of work

that went into then keeping the temperatures under control,

it's a very very large job and the car would have probably ended up being

50% more expensive so that's I guess why there isn't a turbocharged Toyota GR86.

Yeah who's the market for the car?

There's no rule, you can sit in the back.

It handles great but that's about it.

It's a $40,000 Sunday car that is slow.

Yeah yeah and you know what you're getting yourself in for.

Interesting to sort of get a feel for our other automatic transmission manufacturers

sort of working towards keeping up with ZF.

It seems that at the moment ZF have a clear advantage over other autos.

Yeah I believe so.

I think it's so, you know, obviously Toyota has some of, you know, eight speeds of their own

but I don't think any of them is quite fast as the ZF8 and they, you know,

obviously each iteration is better than the last one and the best example for that

I always tell my customers tell me why flagship BMWs are no longer DCT.

That's a really good point.

Okay even though DCT was technically faster, you know, not much, 10-15 milliseconds,

but it was horrible at low speed and they were always in service.

They're easily to do the damage and no drivability at low speed.

So now the third generation ZF caught up with speeds.

They're simple, they're bulletproof.

You know somebody in BMW did their numbers and ditched the DCT

and you know there's always that struggles of oh DCT is so much faster.

It is but it's heavy, expensive and if you break one, good luck rebuilding it.

Versus this you need ring pliers and a spring compressor.

So I think they're gonna dominate for quite some time.

I know here in the States they're coming out with a new eight speed for a rum truck.

That's, they call it Powerline.

I think it's like 1400.

So pretty much double the torque rating capacity to the previous model.

So that opens up a lot of customers in the diesel market

because you have all these crazy diesel guys with 4,000 foot pounds of torque.

So that's gonna be a next popular swap.

We already have a million emails from them.

You know obviously all the road race guys in Drift.

I think it's just only gonna grow up.

My cells year after year go in 200% and I've only sold this in the States for three years.

You know I went from buying 20, 30 units a month.

I'm getting a pallet every couple weeks.

I literally was sold out two days ago.

So obviously the popularity grows and more people have it.

The more people will learn about it and more people will want it.

I think you start seeing some prominent YouTubers doing 8HP swaps

and get to understand the advantages and all of a sudden,

oh yeah this is something I could actually do and it makes a lot of sense.

Yeah that's why I target YouTubers because I love it or hate it.

They have the biggest reach and again these gearboxes are so much fun.

If you told me three years ago I'm gonna tell people to put out a medics in their car.

I mean like you lost your mind?

Yes I totally agree.

But that's how it is.

I have a FADM3 manual.

My dream car.

It's slow.

Sorry it's a cool car but it's slow.

I'm already thinking about putting a ZF.

When you come exit ramp on the highway you go 3, 4 and it's just slightly go

and you change those gears and the car doesn't even upset.

You feel like million dollars.

You feel like in your F1 car from 10 years ago.

So I love manuals but that's a completely different emotion when you drive one of those.

It's that good.

Yeah I agree.

Coming back to the 2025 BMW, the way BMW have gone with ditching DCT and going with 8HP.

What is the weight difference between, because DCTs are not like gearboxes but we've already

talked about the 8HP is still a pretty heavy box.

Is there still a weight benefit to the 8HP over DCT?

I honestly don't know.

I think they're fairly comparable.

I think the advantages, how much power they can take and how reliable they are.

I think that's your main goal.

All of these gearboxes are going to have a ton of fluid in it and 8HP obviously has the heavy torque converter.

M cars have a lighter torque converter that helps with how responsive the engine is but they're going to be comparable.

They're not lightweight gearboxes.

You're not going to compare one too.

That was the other point I was going to bring up there.

You've talked about the shift times being slightly faster still with DCT but now almost comparable.

The other part of that puzzle was the massive torque converter and the added rotating mass to the engine.

Interesting that BMW have gone with a lighter torque converter there to combat that to a degree.

You don't really feel the torque converter, especially on a modern like a current M car or even like the SUV,

like an X3M or something like that.

At no point when you drive it, you'll feel like you're driving an automatic.

They're even in eco mode.

You stop the throttle and it's just brutal, brutal power.

I've tested these gearboxes and I would be in eco mode and floor it and switch it to sport.

It'll go from any gear to any gear and there's no scenario where I can make it kind of hiccup or do something silly.

It's always on point and I love it.

I do not feel the torque converter at all.

You've sold me on it.

I'm right there.

We'll help you fix your Volvo and then we can talk.

I always tell my customers, you think you'll like it because you watch YouTube videos where you're driving.

Yeah, I'm sure.

It's just so much fun.

It just puts the biggest smile on your face, especially when you just bang gears and you have to look at the little gear display.

Oh, I'm in fifth gear because you don't even like first couple of gears.

There's no sound difference.

It's so fast that there's no jolt.

You can just bang gears and you think it's broken, but it shifts.

It shifts so fast and so spotless.

In fifth, sixth gear, you'll start hearing it, but burnouts and these are fun.

We typically, for whatever we have crazy customers, we have to turn off their eighth gear because they can overspeed the gearbox.

If you have decent amount of power, it will speed.

But even like a 400 horsepower, my body has this absolute garbage IS 300 with the 2J, maybe making 200.

It needs everything.

And he was like, oh, let me put an 8HP in it.

And this thing will just go, and it just doesn't stop burning.

You just got to at some point try to stay on the road because it doesn't have a good diff.

So it just wants to kill you.

But it's like, again, it puts a big smile on your face even at relatively low horsepower.

And that's another thing.

I have a bone stock E36 with the 8HP45 and I went from driving it 200 miles a year to driving it 5,000, 6,000 miles a year.

Even at 200 horsepower, those cars become so alive.

My X3M would be parked and I'm driving my E36 and people looking at me like, what's wrong with you?

I'm like, you don't understand.

It's just X3M, that drivetrain, the new S58 with the 8HP, absolutely ridiculous.

That heavy truck has no business being so quick.

But it doesn't do anything for you.

And in the E36 with 200 horsepower where you can do launch control and go first, second, and third goes a little bit.

It's just so much fun.

It's so much fun.

Alright Greg, I think we've probably got enough sales points on the 8HP.

I'm pretty sure everyone listening is probably right there wanting to do that conversion.

So let's move towards wrapping this thing up and as always we've got the same three questions.

We ask all of our guests and first of those is, what's next in the future for you?

Obviously this business for you in three years has grown significantly as you've mentioned.

Yeah, I literally should be moving right now.

We just signed a lease on a new building.

Again, our sales absolutely exploded.

I'm currently looking for help to get me help with the...

We probably have 80 unanswered emails.

When I came back from PRI show, we came back to a couple hundred orders.

I'm at the stage where I gotta make sure that customer service doesn't suffer.

We're a victim of our own popularity.

So moving to shop, new facility.

Obviously we're working on the new products, expanding compatibility list with different can products.

Like I mentioned, the support for the third gen gearboxes would be great.

That's something we're working on, same with the truck transmissions.

That's the next plan.

We also have on the board, we're working with ZF to maybe simplify the process of the PCB installation.

They might have a product that would eliminate the needs to install the boards.

The initial 8HPs, when they were prototypes, they had external TCU.

So somewhere at Bosch or Continental, there is a part that exists that we need.

So we're actively trying to see if this is something we would be able to source from them.

That would be a game changer.

It's interesting that ZF are actually prepared to kind of have an open conversation with you,

given I'm not sure worldwide what terbolamic sales are,

but when you say that ZF are making 3000000 of these gearboxes a year,

surely it's a rounding error for them.

Yeah, they're literally the only company they talk to again because of that software issue.

Yeah, you're not infringing on their IP.

It was funny because two years ago at PRI, one ZF guy comes in and I'm like,

uh-oh, because I don't know what their stance is.

Are we in trouble?

And then we talk and it turns out that they're the coolest guys and then two guys come back.

Then he comes back with more and more and they came back like six or seven times

and they keep bringing more engineers and they absolutely love what we're doing.

As far as they're concerned, we're just saving, not only we're saving the gearboxes from junkyards, from wrecking yards,

but we're also kind of elevating the status of the gearbox to this 2GZ of gearboxes.

So I was pleasantly surprised that they were so cool and Jeff is my local guy.

They have a plant half an hour north of us,

so I'm actually scheduled to go next week to get a tour of the plant and get a deeper dive into this whole relationship.

There's obviously benefit of us working together because I can offer.

We're also exploring possibility of having new gearboxes supplied by ZF.

There's a version of a Austin Martin gearbox that has a removable bell housing.

So that would mean if I could buy 200 gearboxes and then develop a bell housing for 2GZ, for KA, for LS.

Yeah, that makes sense.

That would make it so much easier and that would definitely help with the popularity.

So we're all talking about it.

Obviously, we're a relatively small company, so I don't fully know what it takes to sign a contract with ZF for a couple hundred gearboxes.

I don't know what the amount is, but from our initial conversation, we get a good feeling.

It's not like I have to order 5,000 of them.

They're invited us to their facility.

They know what we're trying to do and I don't think they would invite us if they didn't think we can do something together.

It's great that you can have that relationship.

Yeah.

And it's all again because they think what we do is pretty cool.

I mean, if they didn't think that there would be no conversation.

So I'm super stoked on that.

Can't wait to go there, get a tour and talk to other guys.

But last year at PRI, we literally had big shots from ZF coming and asking for demos.

And that's why I was thinking of you every year if you were at PRI.

This year, for sure.

Yeah, we've been struggling to get back to PRI.

I don't think we've actually been to PRI since before COVID now.

It's difficult timing with these shows though because we've typically gone to SEMA most years.

And as you know, SEMA and PRI are far enough apart that I can't stay in the States,

but also close enough together that it's annoying.

Right.

Yeah, they're far apart for too long to do a one trip.

I personally never been to SEMA.

I don't know.

For us, the PRI is the real motorsport show and then SEMA is more of a show car stuff.

It totally is, yeah.

This year will be our year, Greg.

This year will be our year.

All right.

Our next question is, have you got any advice you'd give to a younger version of yourself

to help reach where you are today in your career faster?

Oh, you're asking a guy that has two teenagers at home.

So I don't know.

It's hard to give that advice.

Stay away from video games.

I don't know.

Is that a good advice?

Probably.

And nowadays the kids have so much to do.

I am the best example for a cool dad.

We have a Sprinter van.

I have a trailer.

I have a drift car.

We have a bunch of cool cars.

And I have a 16 and 18 year old home.

And I bought an entry lever drift car, E46, 328.

And then we went to a local track.

They just learned how to drive a manual because everything's automatic in the States.

So they go do a little bit of sliding.

You know, we come back home next week.

Are you guys going to drift again?

I don't know.

Tough life.

So it's tough.

Kids definitely have a lot of cool stuff to do between computers and Instagrams and

YouTubes and I don't know.

Maybe my kids are broken, but they were young.

They loved the car stuff.

They would hang out a garage.

They'd ranch with me and tinker.

But just go enjoy.

Try to limit computers and Instagram.

I know it's easier said than done, but...

I think social media is probably the big enemy there, to be honest.

I fortunately grew up in a time where, you know, during my earlier years obviously it

didn't exist.

And I just think your short form video, be it TikTok or Instagram or YouTube shorts,

I think it's sadly making us dumb.

Yeah.

It's a time vampire.

That's what it is.

Yeah.

No, it is.

But I think it also reprograms your attention span as well.

And then you sort of, you find you can't watch it to our movie anymore.

Too long.

Anyway, we probably can't fix all of the world's problems here in a podcast, unfortunately.

Yeah.

Just sign up for HP Academy and start learning about cars.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Yep.

I could go behind that.

No, you have great content.

I'm a customer.

Like I said, I love the format.

I love it from the day one when you appeared on the market.

You did something that nobody else did before.

100%.

Thank you.

All right.

Our last question for today, Greg, if people want to follow you and see what you're up to,

how they best to do so.

Well, maybe TurboLambit Controller.

TurboLambit IUS.

We don't have much on YouTube, but on Instagram we call up with a lot of guys so you can find

some good contact.

The web story is on TurboLambit.us.

And if you have a question, should me an email, should me a text or IG message.

We try to respond as fast as we can.

As always, we'll put links in the show notes.

So it's easy for people to find you.

Like it's been great getting a bit more insight into the TurboLambit Controller.

I feel like over the last few weeks I've been diving deeper into this 8HP world and it's

certainly been an eye opener and it is also certainly a very exciting conversion for

transmissions so I look forward to getting stuck into one ourselves later this year.

Absolutely.

Thanks for having us and we'll see each other at the PRA.

No problem.

Thanks Greg.

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163: ZF 8HP: The Automatic Everyone Wants?

About this episode

GC8 Subaru STi

8HP

8HP70

eight-hp swap scene

Ken Gateways

anti-leg

BMW 8HP-70

billet baskets

billet input shaft

mid-frame