My next "sprint" gearbox for the Golf will have a spool.

Kirk,
Any particular reason for the spool? Rotational mass?

I ran my first race with a welded unit a couple of weeks ago and loved it. Gotta change the setup to some softer front springs to get the car to rotate better, but I like steering the backend of the car, as opposed to the frontend, with the loud pedal. VW's are a lot more fun to race with a little oversteer, and they can really brake deep.