In my 89 IROC I have a 350 thats bolted on to a 5-speed. It orginally came with a 305, but someone that had the car before me put the 350 in it..... My question is?? someone told me the reason that Chevy did put the 5-speed on 350's is because it couldn't handle the power. I haven't seen any slowing down of the tranny in my car. But i plan to do a series of engine upgrades thats gonna give me around 350HP.....Do you think my tranny will blow. I figure a clutch will before the tranny will. Any 2 cents will be appreciated.

 

The clutch will go first. The tranny will be fine if you don't drive it to hard. Is the Tranny stock? I've heard that a WC T5 will handle that kind of HP.

 

I mean I powershift when I race, but it doesn't seem to be slowing down..I"m guessing I'm around 260-270 hp right now. But I'm gonna be upgrading quite a bit here soon. So I don't know what will happen. I've herd of a gear set you can rebuild the tranny with and make it stronger. If I had the money I'd put a t-56 in it. but this is what I have right now.

 

The tranny is a toss up. everyone around here has a different expirience with the t-5. some go right away, others have withstood time with no issues. unless your 350 is either really new with fuel injection, or really old, you arent pushing 270+ HP. either way if you plan on doing any modding, its always a good idea to upgrade the clutch, and also like a t-56 or tremec tranny...

just my .02

 

Well i have no doubt I have near 270 HP. Its a brand new 350 TPI with under 5K miles on it. And I've added full exhaust, ram air, air foil, coil, K&N filters. So I don't see any reason that I'm not around 270. If my engine is 245 stock. And also I've ran a 15. 3 up at 4'695 feet. thats faster than any other stock third gen up here in Colorado. I've raced automatic 350s and they run like 16.7's up here. Through all this my tranny has held up just fine. But i've herd a lot about them blowing and I'm just worried about it.

 

Oh ok... yeah that makes sence then... thats cool... yeah i cant imagine the difference it makes at that altitude. My t-5 is junk right now, and i have a t-5 that barely gets me to work and back every day. I want to rebuild it maybe like a WC rebuild or something, then when i am serious about the engine and trans, i will upgrade to a t-56.