GOLF MK2: Pneumatic Paddle Shifter for H-pattern gearbox

Hey all.

I'd like to share with you guys the project I was working on for the last 2 years. It's fully pneumatic paddle shifter system for any cable driven H gearbox. This is at the moment mounted in VW GOLF 2, FIA E1 hill climb car.
The ECU that's controlling the valves can also control the clutch so one could use this on syncro gearbox also. Average shift I get is 0.08s which I'm looking to improve. I still have few miliseconds in my sleave

I've also designed wireless panel & power distribution unit so I can control everything without cables. There are also no relays/fuses in the car which is something I wanted to do for a long time

[video=youtube;JPRZ0MhzCuc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPRZ0MhzCuc[/video]

I'm constantly trying to improve the system so comments/Ideas are welcome.

More pictures & videos of the car on my facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mmemotorsport

p.s.: sorry for bad video at the beginning of the movie. I'm an engineer, not a professional camera guy

Thanks!

Marko

 

Whoa!! Pretty impressive stuff!!

 

Very nice
Thanks for sharing your hard work with us gti fans

 

That is sick!!!!!!

Thanks Marko for sharing!

 

That's amazing, Great work!

I think SQS make sort of the same thing but they use an electronic cam in the shift leaver to set the cables in the right position, and it's mega money. Are you using air for your actuators or fluid?
Would it work on a hydro clutch also?

 

Mat he's using air as he shows you a compressor in the video in the back of the passenger well

 

Similar to what I have seen on the Radical cars.
Regardless quite a lot of engineering to mechanically coordinate the shifts as well as all the electronic silicon development and of the system calibration!

No small effort!

 

the radical one is a lot simpler than this as its operating a proper camdrum sequential box.

very creative solution. like A LOT

 

Wow!

 

Reading all of these positive comments makes every effort I made worth it Thanks.

RobT is right, sequential paddle shifters are much simplier. I've also developed a sequential paddle shifter in 2008, but I always wanted this for my H gearbox. Sequential gearboxes are very expensive and very rare. I first had a mechanical SQS sequential shifter and added pneumatic system to it, but it was rather slow due to complexity of the mechanism. This is the reason I decided to make this and I'm happy with the result. And also, this now gives me the freedom I want with my ECU. I have integrated G sensor that monitors when I'm starting to brake. So I can preload any gear (down) I want while flooring the throttle on a straight and then, when I start to brake, system shifts automatically at the optimal rpm. The faster I brake, the faster it shifts. And other stuff too.

Marko

 

Every credit!

I also have Seq shifter with dog box and often have thought about pneumatic control over it

Have you still got your old system ??

 

I remember when you did that with the seqshift, we shared some emails at the time as I had one with a sqs dog box. Really very impressive. How about turning your obvious knowledge to a dsg control system?

could it be done without cables, mounting the actuators at the gearbox? For weight sensitive cars on short runs (hillclimb and drag race) could you loose the compressor and use a carbon pressure tank off a paintball gun? (and charge it from a plug in cylinder between runs)

 

Marco is that a non synchromesh box?

 

Does this rev-match on downshifts too ? Hard to see on the video, the accelerator pedal does seem to blip. Is it a fixed amount, or different depending on the gears and rpm ?

ie 2nd to 1st may need more of a `blip` than 5th to 4th and low revs.

Cracking work so far

 

Hey Rob. I do remember yes. To be honest, I have very basic knowledge of the DSG, haven't got around to really study it yet. But you got me thinking ..

Mounting without the cables was my first idea, but it got too big and I was not able to put it in. I'm looking for ways how to make it smaller/lighter so I can eventually mount this directly on the gearbox.
For a friend of mine we did a carbon bottle without the compressor. However, the need for air is quite big and the bottle was a little too small. He then got a custom carbon bottle (around 5L if I remember correctly) which he then filled with 400 bars and it held around 400 shifts. But, the regulator from 400 to 8 bars was really expensive and the bottle also, so eventually it was a 3 times cheaper to run a compressor than the bottle. Also, it's hard to find someone that has a 400 bar compressor (which cost 10k+) so that's another downside But it can be done.

 

Yes, the gearbox in the video is 6 speed non-syncro gearbox.

 

Hey. It does rev matching, yes. Blip is under the throttle so this is the reason throttle moves a little. Video is not very good because I shot this video on a short closed track which didn't really allow me to reach decent speed so I could downshift it from 6th to 1st.

The ECU itself is very complex. It took me many many hours to get it right (around 2000 hours in total).
It's obviously closed-loop with many other options (can bus, autoshift, queued downshifting, ...). I also made a software that I can change everything to my need. It has also very big datalogging capability which allows me to really set everything up 100%. Here's the pcb pictures & software that goes with it. As I said.. it's been a big project for me for the last 2 years

 

Not really, I "salvaged" every possible part from the old system But, I can easily offer you the kit if you are interested

 

the autoblipper for downshifts on my radical is pneumatic, is yours?