My '92 has had this problem ever since I bought it from some guy on ebay. The clutch obviously needs replacing because the friction point is so far back, sometimes I can barely get the car moving without it slipping. Also, sometimes when trying to find the friction point in 1st or Reverse I get this wailing noise coming from the clutch until I let off. Sounds like I need a new one eh?

Now, all my gears shift fine, no grinding, but 5th gear is strange. My tach is broken and reads about 2,000 RPM higher than what it should be, so I can't go by shifting points using the tach. Instead, I go by the speedometer, and when driving for gas mileage I will shift to 2cd at 15MPH, 3rd at 20-25MPH, 4th at 30-35MPH, and then 5th from 45-50MPH. This is how it has been on any other 5-speed I have driven. Now, with this RS, I cannot shift into 5th until at least 50MPH without it struggling and shaking the car. I also have this strange rotating vibration ONLY in 5th gear between 45-55MPH. What do you guys make of all this???

 

I belive the 5th gear ratio on those cars is .61...which means you are looking at a 40% drop when you shift into 5th. This is a good gear for highway cruise with some more agressive rear gears. I think for a stock application, you simply need to shift into 5th a bit later.

As for the vibraion, could be many things. When this vibration occurs, try to push the clutch in (without doing anything else) and see if the vibration goes way, gets worse, or gets different. Chances are you have some worn u-joints on your driveshaft, which are cheap to fix.

 

The RSs T5 has a .63 5th gear, The IROC and GTA T5 has a .73 5th gear. The RS T5 is good for running 3.73 @ 80mph@2550rpm. It's about the same for the IROC T5 with 3.45 @ 80mph@2550rpm.

 

My '88 was a tbi/t5 car and with 3.08s it would cruise crazy low RPM, but with a high compression 350 with RPM heads and a smaller cam, the thing was wicked on the highway above 80mph. I later went to 4.10s, and the cruise was still good. The last gear ratio I had in there was a 3.27. The perfect would have been 3.73 I think for acceleration and cruise.

In 5th w/3.08s the car would rev lower on the highway then my stock lt1 in 6th w/3.42s