First a short rant....

I'm starting to hate the internet. As the end of 2008 approaches, the sad future of the internet is becoming clearer to me. I have seen more and more content from our website directly cut and pasted onto other people's sites selling similar or copied products. Yes, this behavior is getting widespread and will hurt the end user. You see with just simple cutting and pasting of my words, someone can now claim to be an expert in my field as well. People seem to trust the content of websites as being truthful and legitimate. Hell, you don't even have to believe the crap I'm writing about. The point being that few people seem to care as to where things originate from or how long people have been in business or if it's a full time or part time business. If the site has pretty pictures and makes claims as to being the best , damn.. it must be! I'm starting to like magazines and books a whole lot more than the internet.

The JT5 versus the Copy Cats

Whether you believe it or not I was the first person to design an E-Type 5 speed based on the Borg Warner, now Tremec T5 5 speed. 2009 will mark 14 years of building this transmission and 28 years in the manual shift transmission business. We've been building the Jaguar E-Type 5 speed longer than anyone else. I don't claim to have the "best" or "ultimate" anything. If your somewhat intelligent just speak to my dealers and ask them why they use our kits instead of the copies. After all, I don't expect you to believe what I write, and you should really speak to people. Forums are a good place to ask.

We have had our castings copied in the UK by Glebe Transmissions and Derek Watson Jaguar and then copied by another UK company called Elite Transmissions. Derek Watson still insists on copying almost word for word the literature from our JT5 assembly manual on his transmission page! Although we have contacted these companies asking them to stop counterfeiting our transmission modification, they still insist on selling the copy. These copys show up from time to time in the United States as well. US companies selling the copies of course will state they are the best, largest, ultimate, etc. These companies have been informed that they are selling a copied parts as well but as usual, claim ignorance. These copies look exactly like our units. All JT5 E-Type transmissions proudly display the Medatronics name on the tailhousing, the copies do not. We have had our design concept copied in the US as well by 3 companies. Isn't life great! They also like to use similar names to add to the confusion. The difference with all of these people is that they cannot copy why we do certain things or my extensive design knowledge of manual transmissions. None of these companies are full time gear shops, none of them offer the extensive options we have. My book on building and modifying manual transmissions has been released in 2008 by Cartech Books. I was commissioned to write this book because of my expertise in the manual transmission field. I don't sell shock absorbers, E-Type coffee cups or frames.

The Billet Aluminum Hype

Lately people are doing some interesting things with their new CNC machines. The lastest "fad" is to mask a copy with a billet case. I'm in no way knocking the effort and their designs but just hoping to enlighten you on a few major points. The first is that one someone says"We are developing a completely new (not modified) gearbox specifically for the Classic Jaguar range." and needs to compare it to a T5 because the design is basically a billet cased T5, then how is it new design? The second point is the hype that "my box is good for 600 Ft Lbs" rubbish.The marketing trick that most people fall into is that you can over rate a gearbox when you know the gearbox will never see that rating exceeded. I know most E-Types barely see 300HP. Few have ever reached the 400HP range. If I have been selling a transmission with no failures for over 14 years I don't need to over rate it and make capacity claims it will never see. Having racing gears on a street car creates noise issues. Don't be fooled into thinking that you need that for a street car. Our CR gearset has a proven track record if you feel you need extra capacity.

Mainshafts: The most crucial part of the transmission. Our shafts are made by the same people that make all the NHRA pro-stock 5 speeds transmissions that handle 1500HP. Count the splines on the copies. We make a 28 spline shaft with a hardened, snap ringed, 1-2 hub. We pay extra for quality tooling. The mainshaft hub section was designed by me and allows for a snap ringed hub. Not just pressed on. Everyone else has a press on hub, including Tremec. This press on hub was a major failure on 1-2 power shifts. The people who sell the more expensive and weaker 10 spline shafts use standard tooling. See what happens to your 5th gear at 100mph when it's held on with 10 splines. A 10 spline shaft is over 50 percent weaker than our piece. Sorry, I won't reveal the alloy.


5th Gears: We use 28 spline 5th gears for the same reason as above. We also have more 5th gear overdrive options than anyone else.

Castings: Our castings are thicker and look better. The casting is designed for racing and to my specifications. I didn't disect someone else's idea. If you think the mounting flange on the copies is stronger you need to get your head examined. We also bush the output flange with a standard "Hemi" 4 speed size bushing to keep the output shaft concentric with the rear seal. This is eliminated in most copies because they cannot hold the tolerances needed to do this.

Output Flange: We don't duplicate factory slip splines in driveshafts. You don't see bolt on flanges on NASCAR 4 and 5 speeds. Our steel billet yoke has it's design based on the "Hemi" and big block Ford NASCAR transmissions. A slip spline driveshaft adds a tremendous amount of rotating mass outside of the transmission. Also because our yoke doesn't have a spline through it with a nut at the end, it cannot leak through the splines and is stronger. It also has more splines than anyone elses.


Speedo gears: Our speedo drive gear is splined to the mainshaft, not compression fit. It's more expensive to broach a spline in a speedo gear, but it's also extra insurance that it will never loosen up. This avoids the gear spinning on the mainshaft. Our speedo fitting is steel with bronze bushings, not aluminum. I was also smart enough to have the speedo setup face up and not down. This avoids leaking speedo fittings which are a factory Jaguar problem because they face down. Why duplicate a problem? I also spent more money to have both gears made. If you point them up you'll have a speedo that goes in reverse, unless you reverse the pitch. That's why the cheaper copies use either a reversing box or point them down.

Shifters: The shifter is not an after thought. It has 4 mounting holes, not 3. I didn't take the ends off the shifter and drill a hole in the middle when it wouldn't fit in the tunnel like some of the so called competitors did. Having a 3rd hole on a centerline is an accident waiting to happen. We don't bolt a stick onto a factory T5 shifter like everyone else does. We make our own shifter. With our own spring bias. This yields correct geometry and height. We also have a shorter throw shifter than anyone else.

	Stock on Left - JT5 on Right

Knob: I go the extra effort to have a black hard anodized billet knob with a milled (not engraved) 5speed pattern.

Retainers: We use iron front bearing retainers and not aluminum ones. We use a billet steel stabilizer retainer on the countergear on all V12 models. We designed the stabilzer and sell them worldwide.

Standard Iron Retainer	Optional G-Force Case

Options and Bellhousings : Example...You can get a JT5 with a 3.35 1st and a .83OD 5th making it perfect for someone who already put 3.07 gears in the rear. See the specifications page. Need to put 600 street HP through it? No problem. Our 9310 VAR nickel CR gear set will do the job. We'll also make any special shifter offset you may require at no additonal charge. We currently have 2 bellhousings that maintain the factory height. This allows for no changes to the factory slave push rods and allows for both 9.5" and 10" clutches to be used. Anyone who tells you that a 9.5" diaphram clutch has more holding power than a 10" Borg and Beck clutch is full of it and just wants to sell you on their mistake by making a bellhousing too low to gain clearance on screwed up dimensions.