How much HP can an overdrive handle?

Re: Overdrive?

Nice buy, you scored.
I really don’t mean to hijack your topic but I have a question since the OD gurus are assembled.
How are these OD’s for handling power? I’m talk’n +300 hp and +300 lb/ft of torque? Maybe even more once I rebuild the motor and go full roller valve train. Will a Warn/Husky OD handle this?

 

IIRC I have heard 300HP but at that point you are pushing it.

 

Sorry, I hit the wrong button. I meant to add this to the OD topic already started.
Thanks for the input, though, I was kinda afraid of that.

 

Ah, got’cha.

 

I have an Early vette 283 with at least 300hp and never hurt mine.

 

Really? How do you treat it? Is this street driven, with a little rock crawl’n / trail’n?
I have planned on eventually try’n my rig on the drag strip just to see what it’ll do and even though I don’t plan on using the OD for that it does replace the input gear and would therefore need to handle the stress even without the OD engaged.
Mostly though, I want an OD for highway mileage and gear split’n on the trail. Plus the cool factor increases exponentially with the added lever and be’n able to say I’ve got 16 forward gears and 4 reverse.

 

My brother is running a 255hp Chevy 350. He hasn't hurt his old Warn O/D. Seems to hold up well.

 

Stories like this are make’n me feel a little more confident. Thanks.

 

They can break--- I have know dudes with small engines, and low gears with lockers and big tires that have broken ODs over the years ( they break everything else too)----it is a matter of Tires and gears and lockers. Little tires, tall gears, no lockers---little chance of breakage. Big tires, Low gears, large engine= Carry your bull gear and t-case cover in a plastic bag in your tool box just in case. Add lockers and rock crawling and the OD will break.

Early Jeeps can be built to be very capable machines---
Of all the parts on an Early CJ this is the order of breakage. First the T-90 in second gear , Stock Driveshafts, Front axles and front spider gears, Rear D-44 Tapered axle, --- afterwards the OD long afterwards the Dana 18 T-case. Ofcourse this does not happen in the real world in this neat order. But a Saturn OD is plenty strong to do tough four wheeling with 33s and no lockers or with 31s with lockers. I just know from experience with several and other Jeeper since the 70s talking about their experience.
With 35s, and lockers under heavy conditions all kinds of breakage is likely. This breakage will happen to a new Jeep to. Just look at some of the old early CJs on Ebay--- some of those Jeeps have been on really rugged trails and wild places-- and they still surrive today-- waiting to be fixed and run again. They are tough little goats!

But listen if you have a T-90, 5:38 gears, 31 inch tires with lockers-- you can do any kind of Jeeping unless it is top truck challenge stuff or wild rock crawling, or 4 foot deep mudding. Jeep Rubicon models with 31s and 1 locker did the Rubicon trail as a demo a few years back-- that is a show room Jeep off the sales floor-- stock with options. For 95% of off-roading a Saturn OD is plenty strong. But if you are a rock crawler you will break everything often on a reqular basis, and you would not opt for an OD anyway. Is you Jeep running tires that are too big? so that large size actually could be a disadvange due to unnecessary strain that leads to wear and breakage?

 

I'm running 33-12.50-15's & 5.38's on mine. I mostly use it on dirt roads as there is no good spots for wheeling around here. I havent ever gotten on the throttle with the overdrive engaged but i have raced against several camaro's and mustangs (and blew their doors off) with it disengaged and havent broken it yet. I have however twisted the passenger side rear axle shaft.