Most any other auto transaxle that would seem to be a good fit turns in the
wrong direction. The best upgrade would be for a lock-up torque converter.
There some ring-pinion sets available with a higher ratio. I would only
consider this with an engine upgrade. There is always the option of going to
a manual.

Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
TJ Hemrick
Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2014 6:04 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: vanagon Digest - 19 Feb 2014 to 20 Feb 2014 - Special issue
(#2014-103)

This, is a great lead in to my ever present curiosity for these things.  Is
there or anyone have any ideas as to what might be a good upgrade to the
automatic?  Say a late model 4 or 5 speed?  More would be fun but as they
get more modern, a lot of them share electronic connections with an ECU or
similar so they may not make a great choice.  I'm sure we could all use the
gain in acceleration and mileage.  Yes, the 3 speed is pretty durable, I'll
give you that.  I'm sure this has been asked before but searching the
archives brought up 1.843 million questions about transmission *problems and
*not upgrading the current unit.

Thanks,

TJ
87 Wolfsburg