no more JW Wheel

Pulled the glide from my car yesterday with a lot of help from Ward. Freshen up time. We spotted one thing that bothers me. JW Wheel sfi flexplate. 6 welds holding the ring gear on. 3 of the 6 were broken. I remember a few years back there was an issue but I had read reports of it being corrected. Guess not. To be honest it is out of date by a year but considering that for a year of the that time it sat in the garage due to a lengthy divorce....I really feel it should have lasted longer.

What are your guys using?

http://www.summitracing.com/int/parts/mez-fp308/overview/make/ford

Food for thought.

TCI

CSR aluminum with bolt on ring gear is what I have ,
no welds to crack .
but I've had better luck with Hughes over a JW

CSR in mine my old starter bust the head off cause I tried to fire it up with a weak battery. When I change to the PG from the c6 it had 2 small marks in the teeth from the starter kick back filed the roughness off other than that the flex plate looks like new, I didn't see any other thing wrong with it when I installed the PG plus it has both ford and gm bolt patterns on it.

I have that exact same one.

This is usually experienced in heavier cars with 598/605 and larger 1000HP+++ engines. I am not bashing the guys at JW, they are my buddies and they send me lots of customers.
Welded ring gears will develop cracks in these applications regardless of who manufactured the plate. I have cracked just about all of them. I know guys with the same engines in dragsters and lightweight door cars that have hundreds of runs on the JW wheel and no cracks.
Some real heavy cars will start to crack at about 65 passes on a welded steel plate design.
I really think that the plate is distorting as about 950 ft/lb of torque is applied at the initial hit. Repeated cycles of distortion work on that welded area until cracks develop.
These monsters (BBF) that we create really challenge the manufacturers that build the same spec part for a Chevy and it last forever.
Just my input....
Keith

quite running JW years ago because of cracked welds after 50 passes , buddy had a JW behind his 572 mopar and the ring gear sawed the bellhousing off his glide when it came apart after 92 passes
Frank

Has JW made an effort to "fix" this problem?

I have one of the aluminum CSR's with the bolt on ring gear on the way.

David Cole wrote:I have one of the aluminum CSR's with the bolt on ring gear on the way.

make sure to check converter clearance and the bolts might need to be a little longer , I can't remember

Here are my observations from the last decade:

1] Regardless if you have a 2,000# or a 3,000# door car.....if you have big tq. and/or spray cracking somewhere in the flex plate will be an issue.

2] Light aint the way to go. I noticed several years ago that JW no longer offered the 'wheel' with the big ass holes to make them lighter. Lighter = more flexing which = more cracking.

3] The thicker W/O cow's holes in them is much better, but if a guy wanted to reduce flexing, spreading the load out would be the way to go.

4] My opinion is: Solid, thick and use a converter with 6 arms which will spread load and reduce flex. The 6 deal comes from using both the 'glide' and the 'turbo' patterns.

Meziere Billet in the blue piperack...

And, my Tci converter has both GM patterns so I can use 6 bolts to the flexplate..

Meziere 10 pitch here. 1 Pc plate has worked well.

I currently use the Mezier billet one <I lost a ring gear on a TCI unit and it killed a brake fitting .

I guess I have the only good fw JW ever made.... Bought it used out of a fast bbf small tire car and have beat the shit out of it the last 8 yrs.... It will get drilled for the new 6 bolt converter and go behind my new 632 C head deal.... Honestly it will be one of the very few parts i reuse on this deal

Fwiw mineisnthe solid version w no lightening holes

Bet the 3 year recert is good !!
Frank

richter69 wrote:I guess I have the only good fw JW ever made.... Bought it used out of a fast bbf small tire car and have beat the shit out of it the last 8 yrs.... It will get drilled for the new 6 bolt converter and go behind my new 632 C head deal.... Honestly it will be one of the very few parts i reuse on this deal

When there is 1,000+ lbs ft tq before the 'hose' hits it......the game could change.

I will not say that the wt. of the car does not matter but, it is my opinion that tq. and a BIG tire are the larger factors.

I guess ill find out

I went with Meziere after a JW remodeled my case and cross member in my old car.

Wow I been running one for over 12 years with no issues. That surprises me.

Moodyblues wrote:Wow I been running one for over 12 years with no issues.  That surprises me.

How much power?

I have one I've used for years too on 600-900 hp stuff without issues.

Im on my second one.............. The first wallowed out the converter mounting holes, but it was installation error.

This one was new on the new engine and has a ton of passes on it. so far so good.

dfree383 wrote:

Moodyblues wrote:Wow I been running one for over 12 years with no issues.  That surprises me.

How much power?

I have one I've used for years too on 600-900 hp stuff without issues.

850-900 hp. Mine is the JW Wheel, heavy piece