« Boomers buying cars not built for them |
Main
| Audi produces 1,500,000th A3 »
July 31, 2006
Porsche getting VW's DSG Tranny
Shared with Volkswagen, the Porsche-developed slushbox is the well-known torque-converter equipped Tiptronic transmission. Outselling the manual by quite a margin, this automatic gearbox was one of the first manual-shifted automatics on the market, and while it was heralded as excellent and ingenious in its day, the onset of newer, more advanced (and simply better) technology has left it in the proverbial dust. Recognizing this, Volkswagen contracted BorgWarner to build a newer, better box for use in the various high-performance Audi models. What BorgWarner came back with was the Direct-Shift Gearbox, or DSG.
Sporting two clutches in place of the Tiptronics torque converter, the DSG sequential-manual was greeted with open arms by the enthusiast community. Always engaged, the DSG unit uses an inner and an outer clutch to engage and disengage cogs. The outer pack drives gears 1, 3, and 5; while the inner clutch pack drives 2, 4, and 6. Using complicated electronic algorithms, the drivers selected gear is engaged by one clutch pack while the previous gear is disengaged by the other. The result is lag-free, seamless, predictable shifts that can be easily tuned for different situations by simply changing the clutch packs modulation. Compared to the slow, jerky, and cumbersome Tiptronic gearbox, the DSG is light years ahead and miles better.
Link.
Posted by Frank at July 31, 2006 1:27 PM | Filed under Auto News
| Porsche
| Volkswagen