Making Parts (and Cars) Faster with Fusion 360

Jacks Transmissions is a custom car shop that specializes in building customized transmissions and engine components to help their customers go faster. “Jacks Transmissions builds transmissions, as well as engine builds for the R35 GTR and the Mitsubishi Evo,” explains Jacob Shields, the shop’s engineer.

Shields uses Autodesk Fusion 360 to do everything from testing components for fitment to developing custom parts that the shop sells online. “We use Autodesk for all of our CAD and CAM solutions for making all of our parts.”

He continues, “We decided Fusion 360 was a good fit for us for CAD, so we bought it. And it turned out that we needed CAM software as well, so Fusion became our perfect solution.” They use Fusion for everything from developing models for visual on our website to making custom high-precision parts that we need machined.

Jacks Transmissions has a small milling machine onsite that they use to do prototypes and some of their custom designs. With the onsite machine and Fusion 360 at hand, they are able to iterate several designs before ordering production-run parts from a larger machine shop. “The first part that we designed a sump filter for the GTR transmission. The OEM part has a common problem with starvation at higher horsepower applications, so we needed a solution that was unlike anything else on the market,” Shields explains.

“We used the software to design it and put it through several iterations, as well as running stress tests to see the deflections at the pressures we were using.”

Thanks to Fusion 360 Simulation, Shields was able to develop their sump filter and perfect the design before even creating a prototype. Jacks Transmissions also makes a clutch seal for the Nissan GTR. “The OEM clutch seal is notorious for failing…you can buy a new GTR and the seal could fail in 5,000 miles. So, we decided to just make a better version.”

Before bringing Fusion 360 into their shop, Jacks Transmissions was at mercy of outside vendors for their parts, but now, Shields is hoping to see the company develop a line of custom components that they can both sell to their customers and also sell to a wanting online community of GTR drivers.

“I love just how easy it is to get into it and do what you need,” says Shields. “The system just seems like it works no matter what you do to it… you can’t break it!”