can the t-5 wc be built up to handle any kind of torque. I want to know if there is a gear/rebuild kit any where to build up the torque handling of the t-5. any one know?

a couple places sell them, g force and astro performance i think are the names, from what ive read from other people though its just as much buying a tko,t56, richmond and its crap and can make the trans put up with mayby 300 hp/ft. lbs. torque. i think im just going to buy a richmond

how are the ford boys building supercharged/nos/high horsepower 302/351's with the t-5 wc. Is it the ford internals? If I had a couple grand I would buy a tko but I got this t-5 for free.

Yes, G-force has been doing it a while and have some good parts from what I understand. I checked it out last fall and a built T5 was $3k ready to go. They really shy away from giving it a torque rating but it seems generally accepted that the upgraded T5 is good for 4-500 hp if you don't beat it up too much.

For that cost I decided to go with the TKO 600. The trans, Lakewood bell, re-tubed driveshaft and misc I spent almost $4k. The trans has held up very well and gives me a lot of confidance since its rated twice the power of a stock T5. There are a lot of people putting the TKO 600 behind big blocks in other mucle car applications. I run 200hp nitrous off the line and speed shift the TKO without a 2nd thought!

I think there will be a slightly used t-5 wc going on craigslist soon, I'll save my dollar's for a real manuel like what u are running thanks for the advice it is nice to find someone with same interests

From what I understand the ford/chevy T5's are the same internals with a few exceptions. Why do they survive? Don't know. But I did a lot of research for my car after my T5 broke and there really isn't a way to beef them up short of the G-force/Astro internals. And you're still left with a marginal trans.

But if yours is free, run it til it blows and save up for a TKO/T56 etc. For what it's worth my T5 held up for over a year with several n2o passes. I babied it off the line and didn't speed shift. When it let go I was making an everyday shift to 3rd and it stripped all the teeth off the input shaft.

If was free I will just make sure I got a trailer available when I go to the track. So I guess running 250 shot and 8 pounds of boost is a bad thing for a t-5 darn lol.

they upgrade to the tko 500 or 600, its a bolt in deal for ford people the driveshaft crossmember and all. the internals cant do that much when the main problem is the case flexing, its a design flaw with the trans itself not the internals, the space in between the main shaft and counter shaft flex's and lets the teeth break when they get too far apart. i myself havnt tryed them but i dont see how they could help that much when they arnt the source of the problem itself, if you look at a non w/c and a w/c t5 you see this spot has been beefed up but there was only so much room to work with

Also the TKO has a greater main to counter shaft distance allowing for larger gears which are stronger. I think the T5 shaft spacing is 77mm and the TKO is 83mm. Doesn't sound like much but larger gears, stronger case and better alloy's make them twice as stout. If you look at each design it seem obvious that the TKO's are an evolution of the T5's. They just fixed the weak points. Even the T5 is an evolution of an old 4 speed that was used in late 70's 4 cyls and smog V8's. It was never really a performance tranny to begin with. The TKO's are!

yes it can . Call these guys. They can build it to hold 500-600 HP for about $1900 . Check it out:


http://www.hanlonmotorsports.com/

they use the same g force internals that people on this site have had problems with also remember they are quoting for a mustang which weighs a few hundred pounds less which means theres less stress on the trans allowing it to handle a tad bit more hp. also if you actually talk to g force(the people who make the parts hanlon installs) they will tell you that it can handle 500-600 hp "in a 3200 lb car with stock clutch, street tires and not hammering through the gears" aka a third gen. and again its the same price as a tko and a tko will handle 500-600hp hammering through gears, performance clutch and drag radials and thats just safely it can usually handle quite a bit more. if you search i know you will find several people who have tryed both g force and astro and had nothing but problems(and honestly other then the name on the box they are the exact same parts), on a final note if you actually look on hanlons website the transmissions they are advertising as withstanding 500-600hp is the tko-500/600 not the t5

The G-Force T5s are just as strong as a Tremec. The issue is cost. A Tremec is simply cheaper than building a T5 to G-Force spec. Where the G-Force shines is when people have to run a stock trans, because though it is stock on the outside it is far from stock on the inside. I've seen plenty of people run low 10s to mid 9s on a G-Force T5 with no problems. G-Force has solved all of the problems with the T5 that are not inherent to the design. They even offer an upgraded case now to deal with the shaft distance issue (it doesn't actually change the distance, but the case is beefier to prevent flex, which is what causes gear teeth to get stripped off under load). G-Force doesn't provide an actual rating for their parts for a very good reason. If they swear that the parts are good to 600HP people will constantly be trying to get new parts under warranty because they broke them with 400HP. The bottom line is that these parts are for racing, a sport that is inhernetly hard on parts. Breaking stuff and having to replace it without any kind of warranty is part of the game.

I've known Bob Hanlon for about six years now and used him as a parts supplier when I was doing a lot of T5 builds. I've never had a problem with a T5 I built using G-Force parts (and I did over 20 of them in various configurations). Bob still has the world's fastest Tremec equipped car to the best of my knowledge. He runs the Tremec because of sponsorship dollars more so than it being "better" than a G-Force T5. Before the Tremecs came out he ran a WC T5 with G-Force guts. He was in on the ground floor with the Tremec, so he was one of the first to run one and know anything about them. The next time I see him I'll ask if the G-Force was more or less reliable than his current TKO.

"The G-Force T5s are just as strong as a Tremec. The issue is cost."

In my case the cost of the G-force would have been less than a TKO. And would have been a lot less hassle.

As far as strength is concerned. I'm not convenced the T5 would be as strong as a TKO 600. Setting the two side by side the TKO certianly looks beefier. I think the issue of ratings and warranty are what it comes down to and "all the conditions" regarding G-force's modest rating vs TKO's flat out 600 lb/ft rating certianly give a buyer more security going with the 600.

I am not saying the G-force isn't really strong. In fact, I think in most applications it would be great. Most of the complaints are probably wrong application or installer/use ralated. The point about "stock" classes is a good one and the ease of installation vs a change over (to any other trans) make it a good choice. I think the TKO is a bit less refined in a way or at least seems notchier to shift and maybe even a little noisier than a stock T5.

If you have a high horsepower application and are prepared for a lot of fabrication and "engineering" for the install, then the TKO 600 is probably the best choice. I had to change the bell housing, make a custom shifter handle, modify x-member, make an adjustable torque arm and have my drive shaft lengthened to get everything right.

On the other hand if you want a really good strong transmission and ease of installation is important, then the G-force is probably the way to go.

The cost isn't signifigantly different.

eh the original poster can do as he/she wants, personally i would never chance my money on a astro or gforce t5 not when i had a similar post about 8 months ago when i was considering trying to reinforce the case of a t5 to prevent flex along with stronger internals and had about 8 t-5's i could experiment with and i decided against it when i had numerous people with both gforce t5's and and astro t5's tell me they had the same exact problems as a stock t5, at less power then i was looking to make, when they sent there transmissions out directly to gforce or astro respectivly =/

One important thing to note is that the TKO 600 has a bigger mainshaft and a Viper spline count on the tailshaft (one of the ways they were able to make that 600 lbs/ft. claim). That's one thing to consider because you will have to swap yokes at the very least. If upgrading to a TKO 600 you probably need a new driveshaft anyway, which factors into the cost. A very important part of what antman89iroc said is the cost of the ancillary stuff needed to swap from a T5 to a Tremec, which can push the cost over that of just upgrading a T5 with G-Force internals. If you look at just the cost of the two transmissions side by side the TKO 600 is a little cheaper that a fully built G-Force T5 (new case, 4340 mainshaft, bronze forks, 5th gearset, etc.).

The Tremec is definately notchier. It was never designed for a factory application, only for racing, so it lacks a lot of the refinements of a T5 or a T56.

For every person who claims the G-Force is no better than a stock T5 I can find ten that will tell you how much they love it. The stock T5 has soldiered on in many applications for which it is grossly underrated. I've seen guys run 11s on nitrous with a stock WC T5 for seasons on end without failure. They use a soft launch with granny shifts and it lives. If you powershift a T5 in a stock car too much it will eventually break 3rd gear. I've fixed more than I can count, including one of my own twice from this type of use. The bottom line is that exact power limits for drivetrain parts are very hard if not impossible to determine. A lot of it depends on how hard you are on the equipment. I guarantee that I know a guy who can break a TKO 600 in a car that makes less than 600 lbs/ft. of torque. I know a guy who broke the gearset, pinion support, and case in a 9" Ford rear with a 6 cylinder truck! But, I can also find you a guy who will make a G-Force T5 live behind a 900HP big block. The strength rating becomes theoretical at some point.

As a far as what would I do, my answer's in my profile.

TKO said...
"The bottom line is that exact power limits for drivetrain parts are very hard if not impossible to determine. A lot of it depends on how hard you are on the equipment. I guarantee that I know a guy who can break a TKO 600 in a car that makes less than 600 lbs/ft. of torque."

Amen to that! I'm not a driveline stress expert but there are stress "spikes" in play during take off and speed shifting that are WAAAAY above a steady state torque test. The inertia of a flywheel being suddenly coupled with a tranny would deliver a torque spike far greater than the same engine could ever generate on the dyno.

Impact is what breaks driveline components.