350hp with 8vTransmission? 02A/02J longevity?

[gatesj at twcny.rr.com (John K. Gates)]

> I was told by German Transaxle in OR, that the 2nd gear synchros on the
> 02A and 02J are especially weak...  They mentioned that this is the same
> design that Porsches had (I am assuming past tense), and that they are
> more expensive to replace if, and when they wear...  I am curious what
> your take on this design is, as I plan to have an 020 in each of my A1s.
> Eventually I hope to have about 225-250 hp on one of those, and if you
> have a different take on it, I might do well to ask you...  ;-)

FWIW, my VR6 Jetta with the 02A transmission has always had problems with
the 3rd gear syncro.  If you wind it out in 2nd and push 3rd too hard and
fast it grinds like there's no tomorrow.  I've learned to avoid it and
give it a tiny pause and it's fine as my daily driver at 115k miles with a
stock VR6.  It did it almost since the day it was new.

Apparently, my case is one of the two typical scenarios.  Some have this
happen with 2nd, some with 3rd.

The problem was compounded with earlier VR6 Corrados (02A, obviously);
they had some sort of a problem where the clutch disc didn't slide on the
input shaft spline like it should when you disengage the clutch and it
would hang up on the flywheel and put more strain on the syncros.  You
really had grinding then.  They did some sort of coating on the splines on
the replacement discs.

At any rate, the 02A/J/M gearboxes are obviously stronger but at *least*
the 02A's do seem to have some syncro problems.

John K. Gates
--
'85 Scirocco
'97 Jetta GLX