I did a search but didn't find anything.
I was reading somewhere that the 3.0 sho uses a tranny based on the escort tranny.

Well a tid bit of info from the SHOshop.com
"The transmission shares it’s origins with the early Escort transmission, which is built by Mazda. To serve duty behind the high rpm SHO engine the transaxle was beefed up with stronger gears and a reinforced differential. Unfortunately, the differential is still an open type. It is our experience that the transaxle can handle stock or even warmed over motors with no problems. Most failures that we have seen were either due to lack of lubrication or a very abusive driving. The transaxle can handle moderate drag racing and road racing action, as long as slicks are not used. It can go 200K miles with proper maintenance and care. When the time does come for an overhaul we offer a complete rebuild kit."

Could the internals from this transmission be used to strenghten the one used in the 3 gens?

 

probably not. i dont know much about the sho, but i know they are yamaha designed v6 engine-based fwd disasters (the contour particularly has a huge camshaft problem that costs thousands to fix, and it occures on nearly every one of the sho's)

although I've always wanted an early 90's 1st gen taurus sho 5 speed, if i ever find one for under 3 grand in decent condition I'll probably buy it, they're pimp cars

look at http://www.shotimes.com/SHO4othertrans.html

 

um, the contour and the SHO have two different engines, so how can they share engine problems? the only problem (or potential problem) i knew about with the SHO is thier cam belts needed to be changed every 60,000 miles. the engines in the SHO were designed by yamaha, but the contour has a ford duratec. as for the trannies, i would think would be completely different.

definitely cool cars. my buddy had one that we drove to florida from new york. we made it from buffalo to marathon in the keys in 24 hours.

 

correct, the contour sho and taurus sho are completely different card with different engines. the taurus sho had a yamaha built (3.2l?) engine, and the contour sho has a ford built engine.

the ford built duratech v6 has known problems with the cam sprokets moving up the cam, leaving a thread along the trail they move and breaking. ford refuses to admit a problem and wont recall, although the cas as reoccured over a thousand times with identical symptoms, sometimes as early as 45000 miles. the cams are over 1000 each from ford. typical repair costs are around 8000 dollars. the only way to prevent the breakage is to weld the sprokets in place on the cam before they break which would prevent them from shifting possitions. this is about a 500 dollar project if you can find someone to weld the cams for a decent price, but its a tedious task to remove the cams from the block alone, but its a good alternative to 'just keep driving.'

so much for a durable duratech.

as for tranny's, I doubt the contour sho or svt have anything in common with a protege, the earlier sho taurus *might* since taurus's and escorts did use the same trans for awhile, but its a ford design, not a mazda design trans. the escorts that were mazda design had a different trans than the escorts of ford design (cosworth (rwd), rs, exc.)

cam problems:
http://www.alfitz.com/sho/v8-problem.htm

transmission chart (no model #'s match up with any protege's) and all are designed by ford:
http://www.autosafety.org/autodefect...ansmission.htm

it's interesting mazda and ford, as close as they are, between then can't design a durable front drive 4 speed automatic.

i owned a 94 sable gl with a huge 3.8 in highschool. the car was incredible as far as sheer power and handling was concerned (monro sports suspension) but the trans started slipping at 70,000 miles and would take a second or two to shift between gears, resulting in terrible gas mileage (under 20mpg in city, but consistent 25 on highway) and eventually gave out at 72,000. the fluid had been change at manufacture specs, 60,000 miles, and at the time i thought that had contributed to the premature failure of the throttle body (700 dollar rebuild, a lot of money for a HS student) but then i learned from the mechanic that this is a common thing. he said a quarter of the taurus's he works on have transmission problems of various nature. some just lockup in peoples driveways and they have it towed to the shop.

i guess every car manufacture had their problems, its too bad because I really like ford, it has always been my american car of choice, all the way down to the pain that keeps its shine after 10 years of chicago winters

 

Uh, Ford doesn't *do* manual trannys anymore. They buy them from Mazda. They do autos only.

>'94 Mazda B3000 is a ford ranger but has either a mazda 5 speed or a ford auto shtick.

 

so... we're talking about automatics only.

and ford does make many standard tranny's. the f350 deisel heavy duty is a ford design manual and the mustang and thunderbird are ford designed manuals (especially the 6 speed, you think mazda made that?) also, with some investigating i'm sure you'd find that jaguars with manual transmissions have either a ford, or if jag still makes them, their own design.

sure, the family and entry level cars ford makes (including the focus) have mazda designed manuals, but we're talking about automatics. I never said anything about ford's manual transmissions.

 

i belive ford buys thier manual trannies from Getrag.

 

Not all of them; the Mustang, T-bird, Lincoln LS and pickup trucks use Tremec (formerly Borg-Warner) T-5, T-45, T-56 or T-3650 transmissions, depending on the specific model and year.

 

No one has really answered my question yet.
Could you take the beefed up internals from an SHO tranny and swap them into a 3rd gen pro tranny, or even any generation protege trans?

 

The new Mazda FN4A-EL auto tranny (used in 3rd gens) has been very reliable with little or no problems at all. This same tranny is now being used on the 2.3l Mazda6... the shifting is very percise and smooth too.

 

i agree, the 3rd gens have good tranny's compared to mazda's previous offerings.

mazda's a small company, and automatic transmissions are very hard to make (mazda wasn't a big player with automatics until the 90's, historically all their cars have had standard transmissions, such as the glc)

as far as swaping out internals, if your going to go that far, i'd get a 'better' car. high performance automatics have never been an option in the import scene. imports, especially honda's, have very good transmissions but you risk serious durability when you excess 300hp or drive agressively. at least thats my oppinion. if you drive hard, get a manual, its cheaper and easier to fix, and heavy duty clutches are designed for you to beat the hell outa them. now all you need to do is worry about your engine mounts

 

I'm not talking about the slushbox you could get in the SHO i'm talking about the mazda built tranny in the sho.
The 5seed box in the 3rd gens is good but can't hold much power.

 

then get a stronger clutch and pressure plate.

 

The SHO manual tranny is the Mazda-built MTX-75, which is a dual lay-shaft design. Instead of two shafts in the tranny, there are three, and two effective final drives. This is similar to how they squeeze a 6-speed in the MINI and the SVT Focus.

The light duty Ford Truck trannies are built by Mazda. The heavy-duty tranny used in the F-series are built by ZF (at least the 6-speeds are).

 

Ah, so the dual lay shaft design makes the SHO tranny stong.
And it can't be swapped into the 5speed offering in the protege.
Thanks for cleaing that up
Thank you.