Hi Folks,
Interesting discussion. I know very little about transmissions, but my guess is that the impulsive loading during firm shifts probably kills more tranny's than high-output motors per se, and that through hard-parts failures; that is, the metal is stressed beyond its yield or fatigue strength during the rapid change in engine momentum at the moment of the shift, and voila, broken parts.
Since impulse is conserved, the solution here would be to make the shift softer to reduce peak loading, but then my guess is that soft-parts wear becomes the dominant failure mechanism.
If we have to choose between the two, soft-parts wear and failure are better, right?
Thanks,
MAP