when buying a pilot bushing/bearing for a t56 swap into a 305 engine do you buy the pilot bushing/bearing for the lt1 t56 motor trans set up or the 305 engine setup?
thanks
NATE

 

The pilot bushing goes into the end of the crank, so you need the one for your particular engine. How are you mating the LT1 T56 to an early (2-piece rear main seal) block? I think some sort of adapter flywheel is needed for your application.

 

Sorry, double post.

 

i'm using the centerforce flywheel part #700107 to adapt the t56 to the 2 piece RMS engine. so buy a pilot bearing for the 305 engine and it should fit to the flywheel right?

 

The bearing goes inside the end of the crank, and the flywheel gets bolted to the outer edge of the crank. No worries about it fitting around the flywheel. You'll be banging gears in no time, enjoy it!

 

what he means is, the pilot bearings are the same for both transmissions.

use a bronze one, they won't ruin the input of your transmission like the roller bearing ones will.
and I'd replace it just to have a new one with your new trans.

 

I heard it was the other way around. wasn't bronze the stock style, and rollers were used to reduce friction, and stop it from wearing?

 

the hardened roller bearings that are part of a pilot bearing will wear a groove on the input shaft if they get dirt in them or fail.

the bronze ones will just wear into a bigger diameter because they are softer than the input shaft, thus saving your input shaft.

and yes, that's what the stock ones are, and that's why they use them.

 

What you need (and I learned this the hard way) is the Mcleod # 8617 extended pilot bushing. If you attempt to use a conventional pilot bushing you will only get 3/8 inch of pilot bushing engagement by your input shaft.

That's not enough engagement as I learned by seeing my input shaft get gouged up by a roller bearing that never engaged the shaft.

The 8617 gives you a full 3/4 inch of engagement and leaves that last 3/8 inch of input shaft hanging free so that people like me can still use it and not worry about replacing their buggered input shaft.

I ordered mine from Steve Spohn at www.spohn.net and he was a buck cheaper than Summit or Jegs. So I suggest buying it there, or else buying it from Thunder Racing, where I got my Fidanza two piece rms retrofit aluminum flywheel and LT1 spec stage 3 clutch. Together, it's an awesome combination.