I have a 92 Z28 with the 305 and 5-speed. I'm wanting to up grade to a 350 and I know I need a stronger tranny than what i've got.

Has anyone ever used a Tremec tko T-5 to replace the old T-5 in a third gen?

I've been looking at swapping a T56 in there, but I just wanna see if there are any other alternatives.

 

Well, you have come to the right place; this is a great site with a lot of information. Grab your favorite beverage and do a search.

 

Actually, the Tremec Tko and the Tremec T-5 are two completely different trannies. The Tko is a 3550 series Tremec, and it's an excellent choice for replacing your weak T-5 with! The TKO's are tough as hell. I just picked one up for my 89 RS about a month ago.There's some big advantages to using the TKO vs. using a T56. You can reuse your stock clutch and bellhousing, and you don't have to buy the expensive dakota digital convertor box to get your electric speedo to work properly. T-5 style clutches are also way cheaper than T56 style clutches. Just type "tremec tko" into the search engine on this site and you'll find lots of info on what's involved in swapping one in. It's a relatively easy swap to do, especially since your car is already set up for a manual trans.

 

The TKO's are the 500 & the 600. I don' think the 3550 or the 3650 are listed by tremec as tko, but I could be wrong. - also, the "tremec T5" is only tremec because they bought out borg warner's trans division.
The TKO's are much stronger than a T-5, but personally I don't like them. They shift really notchy, to the point that they will not allow a straight shift. If you have to lift and/or push the clutch in to change gears, you're slowing down.
How much of a 350 are you upgrading to? If you can shift smoothly and you don't have wheel hop issues a WC T-5 will take more than you think.

- I broke 3, all in 3rd gear. 11 sec car, 5k clutch drops, no clutch/no lift shifts for about 10k then broke 3rd. - That's pretty serious abuse. I'm not saying that the T5 is a good trans or anything, just that with the proper set-up they'll take quite a bit.

 

Actually the TKO's are still a 3550 series trans, they're just upgraded with a better shifter, higher strength gears, 1 piece countergear, 26 spline input/31 spline output vs. 10/28 on the old ones, and steel shift forks instead of aluminum. And yes, Tremec bought out Borg-Warner's trans division in '96, so a lot of people get confused as to whether their T-5 is a Borg-Warner or a Tremec.

 

I was thinking of building the 350 to get about 300-330 hp tops. And I'm not going to be racing it a whole lot, so it's not going to take alot of abuse. I defintely want something that will be an easy swap, because I have never done a huge repair like this and I dont want to take it to a shop.

Can you buy the WC T-5 brand new or remanufactured anywhere?

Also about how much do think the labor would be for a swap like that?

 

If you're gonna spend the money and you want to know you won't have problems, stay away from the T5. The WC is stronger, but not enough to talk about. - I'm going to a heavily beefed T56, but under hard use it will need freshened(synchros) more often than a TKO, but I'll live with that for the shifts, plus I'm looking at either a 4.10 or probably a 4.56 gear with a 26" tire, so 5th gear in town od, 6th gear highway.
makes sense. - A buddy of mine is yanking his TKO out of his stang and going back to his stocker(02 GT, 3650 I believe?). He needs a trans for the 68 stang he's bilding, plus the craptastic shifting at the track has him holding at 12.30 at the track.

 

Shagwell : are you saying you can drive down the track, holding the gas pedal to the floor, with your left leg just relaxing, and using your pop-eye like arms to yank the car out of first gear, and slam it into 2nd, and so on, without lifting off the gas or touching the clutch pedal at all?

I didn't even think that's possible. Is there a trick to that, or is that just pure brute force and enjoying replacing your transmissions internal gearset often?

 

Yeah, that's the general idea. That's great if you're drag racing professionally, but personally I've always stabbed the clutch in between gears as I don't like the idea of grenading my trans if I happen to "powershift" it a little wrong! Besides, if you're coordinated enough and practice a lot, you can still shift within fractions of a second while using the clutch. I managed to get pretty fast at it with the Hurst shifted Muncie 4 speed in my 69 Camaro, and I can't imagine that my Tremec would be harder to shift fast than an old 4 speed with external shift linkage! For that matter, if I was going to drag race all the time, I'd just put a professionally built automatic trans in and call it a day. I'm building my car strictly as a hobby and mostly street driving, and banging through the gears with a standard trans is a lot more fun than driving an auto! It's not like I'm gonna lose my points standings for missing a shift once in a while street racing! I have to agree with Shagwell though that if you want a reliable manual trans, it'd be pretty risky using a T-5 when you're pushing 300 horses or better.

 

If you have a 92, I assume you already have the so-called WC T5. At any rate, if you're not going to abuse it, chances are good that it'll hold up--I have no problems with a non-WC behind my 350 HO Deluxe (330hp).

JamesC