Best Convertor drive ?

Bruno drive , Lenco drive or B and J Convertor drive. Which is the best / coolest running / most reliable ? May replace my glide.

 

I was talking to Les Davenport on this and he runs a Lencodrive in his personal A-fuel car and recommended one and highly recommended the B&J drive. If your thinking Bruno call Rod @Specrite Converters...he runs one in his 5 second screw blown pro mod with great success.

 

Id go with the 9000$ turbo 400 deal. Every turbo car runs one and they make more hp than most blown cars. Your even starting to see a few blower guys run em. A 5 sec promod I race with ran one all year never once a single problem. The secret is it has to be built overkill. And the weight is also a huge bonus.

 

Roughly, what is the weight difference and length difference bewtween a T400 and a 3-speed Bruno/CS2 ? How are the gear ratio selections for the T400 these days? Other than length and weight, are there any other benefits to a T400 versus a Bruno/CS2?

 

Quick drive

Hi Mike, The quick drive will actually work with both the B&J and the Lenco/ It has a dual pattern on it. I can also tell you that you won't have trans brake creep that can occur with the lencodrive as the quickdrive has its own clutch pack just for the brake. The quick drive is closer to the Bruno unit than the Lenco drive as it is a separate unit from the trans. I would talk to Tony Eben who makes the quick drive or Mike Strasberg at B&J, both are great guys. The quick drive is finding its way to more and more cars in all classes but the lenco drive is more common having been around longer and is easier to find used parts for. If you get the Quick drive you want the 1 3/16" input shaft, the 1 1/4" has oil flow problems and they will both tell you that. The 1 1/4" Lenco drive/Bruno convertors will not fit the 1 1/4" shaft anyway, there is a length difference. On converters I would get with Marty Chance as he is very familiar with it and many reputable companies have goofed on these since Tony uses a mix of parts from different trans designs and some custom parts to make one bad boy converter drive. Use the Dex 6 that any autozone carries for the B&J trans and you can use it for the converter it works well, but if you really want the best put the L&T converter fluid in the quick drive unit, that stuff is expensive but awesome and deadly consistent...ask Mike Jannis...

Tony Eben (Can't remember which is shop or cell, he'll answer both)
303-521-8750
303-783-1290

Mike Strasberg at B&J
866-781-1064

I love mine and if you want I'll bring it to Mike's shop in the next two weeks when I come to get the blower after the dyno.

Trev

 

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I do believe the fastest converter driven car out there is Brandon Booher and he runs a lencodrive !
Personally , I like my lencodrive , it has had a minimum amount of problems !
Also , Frankie Taylor just ran 3.48 in a door car and I'm pretty sure he runs a lencodrive ;-)

 

Jody, have you had issues with your glide ? Your car runs great

 

Well..... I know I broke my spare trans , it was a good glide but not great. I put it in because my primary trans seemed like it was hurt after the first round of the quick four on sat night at the rock PDRA race. I'm having it checked out Monday .... If it's hurt really bad ( couple of grand worth of repairs) I'll probably ditch it and go to a Lenco drive etc. love the simplicity of a glide but if I can't count on it to make it through some tire shake and a pedal job, then I may have to switch. Now that Sipple has back-halved my car I have room to use whatever the best trans is. Before , the way Spitzer had built the car, I had to run a short glide because nothing else would fit. Now with 32.5 in between the mid- plate and the coupler on the rear end that's not a problem anymore.

 

Good luck with whatever drive you pick ! It looked like Brandon must of hurt his today , that sucks

 

After much debate and thought ...... I went with a quick drive and b and j trans. Mainly just really impressed with Tony and Mike. I'm sure a Lenco drive and a Bruno Lenco are good pieces and I have friends that run each with a lot of success but..... Some people like their cucumbers pickled. I'll try to post up my review of the trans and drive and how well it worked in my application. Thanks to all who responded.

 

Good Choice...............happy racing.

Blessings............Ron Clevenger............Creekside Racing ministry............John 14:6

 

Good luck with it Jody but one thing you should have considered is ....
Do you race with anybody that runs one ? If not and you break it , your S.0.l finding spare parts in the pits , so just like your glide ..... Carry a spare !

 

A more accurate statement here would have been "Good luck breaking your B&J"

 

Keeping one glide just in case, although from what I've heard I don't think I'll ever need it. Was able to change shifter and all other parts in such a way that I'll be able to swap back fairly easily, even at the track.

 

Trans

Hey Jody,

Seeing as how Uncle Sam just denied my disability and made sure I'll continue to be broke for another two years, I have my quick drive here and also my B&J tripple sprag with a lot of spare parts for it. If you ever need anything let me know, Also I know have an entire parts car available for a while.

I know a certain Top Fuel Funny Car driver who used to run the B&J in TAFC and if they couldn't break it then I'm not sure if anyone can....lol

Jody, As long as everything is setup right you will not be disappointed. The only complaint I have is that I can't fit the 3 spd with it in my dragster shy of moving the engine to 47" out, which I suspect is why the lencodrive 3 spd is preferred over the bruno and quickdrive in 3 spd dragster apps, also why I just made mine a 2 spd... Alright Tony, this thing is like a cell phone, you made a great one...now start making them smaller and don't stop until they can fit in a little holster on my belt...lol

Trev

 

Here's what I know about transmissions ......
NOBODY makes one that's unbreakable !
And if the breakage is driver inflicted , it's still broken !

 

True

This is True, the reverser was actually the part he was talking about when he told me that, they are actually using it in monster trucks now but I did mean it as a joke...lol

If you have enough talent and/or bad luck you can break anything in this business. Its funny in that you can fly off the end of the track going 200+mph and roll 3 times and have no parts damage outside of the body but then out of nowhere something so stupid breaks on a normal run.

I just made it a point to make everything in the car as close to bulletproof as I could get, then when something breaks I can safely say it wasn't because I chose a poor part.

The Lenco is a great transmission and by no means am I mocking it.

Best wishes,
Trev