I took the old 200C out and put the 200 4R in yesterday. Took about 8 hours but there were a couple of minor problems.

Parts included:
200 4R... bought from local company that rebuilds them.
Spohn crossmember.... nice and sturdy piece but needed a little modification
speedometer drive gear.... this had to be ordered and took some doing to find which one was needed.

Old tranny came out without a hitch. Fluid tube, speedo gear hold-down, rubber mount, tv cable all crossed over to the tranny. There were no provisions for the torque arm. I cut the torque arm mount, turned it upside down and backwards and welded it to the Spohn crossmember. The bottom hole in the crossmember had to be enlarged to allow a socket to access the nut for the rubber mount.

went pretty good in my opinion and overdrive is oh so nice

 

Nice work. March 7 is the next open drags at Firebird. Bring it up there!

 

if i did that everyone would lose out from laughing too hard at my et's

 

Good job, can't wait to see it again!

I thought the torque arm was supposed to be mounted to the transmission tailshaft, not the crossmember?

 

he had to modify it.

 

Who cares. At least you have a starting point to see what you accomplished. Check out my first ET. Even now it is nothing to scream about, but it is great motivation.

 

The 200 4R doesn't have have the necessary holes in the tailshaft housing to accomodate the mount for the torque arm. I had to be a little constructive.

 

being it as it may... I believe I'll make this one my highway car. It has 2.93 gears in the rear now and I might be going to 2.73's in the near future (if I can ever get back to Louisiana). Plus, being a crossfire, I don't expect to get a whole lot of horse power out of it without ripping it apart. Perhaps with the next one I'll have something to play at the tracks with. I've even considered a bird.

 

Sounds cool. What came with 2.93's, is that a 9 bolt? Did you set the pinion angle before you welded it in. I got a dial indicator if you didn't. Does that hood have the working cowl??

 

The torque arm is about 1.25 inches lower than it used to be. Would this pose a problem? Yes, she has the working cowl.

 

I forgot to mention that in 1982 the Z28 only came with either 2.93 or 3.23 rear gears.

The weld in job is temporary until I'm able to fabricate a better one. Possibly offer a cheap solution for people who want to make the switch to the 200 4R and want to keep the stock torque arm.

This weekend I have to replace the TV detent cable I pinched during the reinstallation process.

 

It would throw off your pinion angle which could lead to binding or excessive vibration. Basically, you want the d/s angle - pinion angle to be zero, -1 when drag racing and -2 is for extreme draggin. Spohn said that even -1 degree puts more stress on the u-joints.

 

Anytime you start adjusting pinion angles you are going to lose some life on the u-joints. I constantly run -2 degrees on an adjustable torque arm with no excessive vibration or noise. My only problem is that I haven't found a way to get my ds loop to fit properly because the ds is very close to the torque arm.

Also, I have witnessed several guys adjust their pinion angles to -4 degrees at the track and did not break. Of course, they switched the angle back after they left the track.