11/18/08 The Hewland gearbox is finally here. It was a royal pain dealing with shipping and customs (not to mention expensive!) - thankfully M took care of all of that and the box was delivered today.

The gearbox is based on the JFR case and is a nice and compact unit weighing only about 80 lbs. It is a 5-speed sequential with reverse and was built with gearing to my specifications. The standard diff is replaced with a custom-made spool that only has an output on one side, capable of handling the torque. In first gear the peak torque at the shaft is about 1,500 lb-ft so a good deal of design work had to go into making sure the parts are up to the task.

This is the fun part when components start arriving. A whole lot of work is ahead.