I'm looking at buying the Atlas 4 Speed t-case and probably will do it, at the end of this season. I'd love to have it NOW, but way too many irons in the fire at the moment. Can anyone who has one, chime in please about their experience with this case? I'm running a 2012 JK 2 Door on 37's with the Rock-Trac 4:1, mated to a 6 speed tranny and 4:56 gearing, for comparison. I'm either getting the 10:3 final drive or 11:7. not sure yet. Thanks fellas.

Jeff

i have the 10:3 case and while it is nice to have the options of gears if I had to do it again I would just get the 5;0 two speed. I rarely use the low gears and would like the weight savings of the two speed. If you do a lot of technical crawling then the four speed is good. The 10:3 is so slow I doubt you would notice the difference vs the 11. The bigger difference will be in running the 4.3 vs the 3.8 which you will run in 99% of the time off road.

I'm runnin' the Atlas 4-speed in both my big-ass truck and in my jeep. I'm fond of 'em 'cause ya end up with choices. Let's call 'em high, medium, low, and super-low. To me the biggest advantage is havin' the medium and the low. 'Specialy in my truck with the auto tranny. I end up in medium most of the time and go to low for harder crawlin'. I never use the super-low 'cause it just ain't safe. Even with the huge disc brakes on my ProRock 60 and 80, ya can't stop the truck unless ya pop the tranny into neutral. Not good.

I've used the super-low in my jeep with the 6-speed manual but it's insanely slow and basic'ly used for a single extreme obstacle and then shift out of it on the other side. Do most my crawlin' in low and then just choose dif'rent gears with the tranny to adjust drive ratio on the trail.

The shifters can be difficult to get adjusted so they work smoothly. We had hell dialin' in my truck and to this day they can sometimes fight back a lil'. The Atlas was already in my jeep when I bought it and it shifts like butter.

Make sure ya talk to Atlas and get there current lead time for shippin'. If I recall correctly, it took 'bout 3 months to get the one for my truck. Just somethin' to keep in mind.

I'm a big fan of the product.

There's another option out there too. The Hero 3spd. Lots of different ratios available and no where near as long as the Atlas 4.

i beg to differ. we have had a hell of a time trying to get them ordered and shipped in a reasonable time frame. but they are awesome.

weight? only 10-12 lbs difference between 2 speed and 4 speed atlas.

Agreede with Dirt, I had the 4 speed on my TJ buggy and honestly you never use the lowest gear (I used twice in 5 years). Go 2 speed.

Strange. I think it took about a month between ordering to receiving my Hero. That was about a year ago.

I've looked at the 2 speed and it was a thought. Might still be an idea. According to Advanced Adapters, they only offer a 5.0:1 ratio in the 2 speed. Given my set up, I'm not convinced I'll see a big enough difference between the 4.1 Rock-Trac I currently have. Thats my concern anyhow. I really like how a buddy of mine can creep over obstacles with his rubi-crawler on an auto trans and I'm just gonna throw myself on the sword here and say, I stall my jeep sometimes trying to go as slow as possible over or off obstacles in the tougher sections of the trails I visit. (Rubicon, Shaver and So Cal so far). I jerk the rig sometimes trying to find that sweet spot and it drives me nuts. DM and Gerber, I agree. I'd probably be in the 4.3/3.8 ratio most of the time. My thought was to gain more control and less clutch, gas, brake jockeying with the lower ratio the 4 speed offers. Make sense? I've only been doing this rock crawling thing for about three seasons now so I appreciate the input here. Im only 45 but with age comes a cage, so it says. Lol.

Jeff

I wasn't aware of this t-case, thanks GT. However, one of the attributes of the Atlas is, they are only 1.5 hours away from me. Makes it easy to deal with, if something goes wrong or need something replaced.

Thinking of doing the same this winter. Whats the price difference between the two? Atlas and Hero that is?

Dunno buddy. The Atlas is about 4k, not counting shipping. Lucky for me, I'll be saving on that since I live close enough to go pick it up myself.

For technical crawling its hard to beat the super low gear. If that is what you are looking for it will do the job. Carry extra yolks and u joints as I find if you are really bound up all that torque will break stuff without putting a lot of skinny pedal into it. I can crawl in the 10:1 with no stalling issues at all. It just goes but I can get out and walk faster then the jeep moves in 1st. Putting it in second is like running the 5:0 in first Gives you lots of options but adds weight and shortens your driveline a bit.

Gee, thanks man. You just made me go look through a bunch of receipts I would have been really happy never seeing again.

I paid $5282 and change for the 3spd shipped. The only extras I purchased were the cable shifters and the VSS tailshaft, which were $600.

Not sure about the length of the Atlas 4sp, but the Hero 3spd is only 14.7" between outputs.

You're not going to go wrong with either one. They both make the stock case seem like a toy.

Thats some info I'm looking for DM. I figured I should be careful with u-joints and such, given the nearly 3x lower ratio. I'm really easy on the skinny pedal as it is, which is the main reason I stall here and there. So far in the three seasons I've been doing this, I haven't broke anything except crappy ball-joints. I'm still running stock drive-lines too but have a set of Adams in the garage. Along with hydro-assist and a bunch of other s**t I need to install but have no time for. Like I said, my main goal is to have the versatility of lower ratios and eliminate the jerking caused by 3 way pedal play when traversing over more complex obstacles. Sometimes I just can't seem to be low or slow enough.