Installed the transmission with the SPOHN torque arm and crossmember about a year ago, the crossmember doesnt line up properly and have had a massive drivetrain vibration with the setup since.

Had the tranny mount basically hanging off the crossmember for a while, another shop did a better job and elongated the hole for the mount in the crossmember which you can see, but the mount still hangs off the crossmember a bit

Hoping someone can look at these pictures and have some idea why this all doesnt line up properly? I did NOT have to shorten the driveshaft everything fit with the fortes kit.






if more pictures would help or if you need any more info let me know, hopefully someone with the setup will have a clue as to why this doesnt all work

edit, and if you just shift the crossmember back a set of holes, you get the exact same problem in the opposite direction

 

I had a similiar issue where I had to pull the xmember real hard to one side to be able to mount the holes up and then also elongate the mount hole. I'll go under my car tomorrow to see if I have the same amount of overhand. Does your car still vibrate? Also, you run an electric speedo, if so how did you wire your VSS? I'm trying to find someone who wired up the autometer hall vss sensor to the wire harness.

EDIT: Took some photos. Not really alot of overhang at all now that I took the pics and looked at it.

 

The spohn crossmember doesn't seem to account for the overall length with the adapter plate. I'm still using a modified stock T5 cross member and don't have any issues.

 

spohn even claims that the kit is designed for the fortes adapter and that they ship about 5 out a week without problems, thats out of steve spohns mouth.

I still do have a drivetrain vibration, the last shop it was at so it only comes in between 4500-5000 now then goes away, which is a lot better then when i brought it there, woudl start at 3500 and just shake the car apart.

Looks like im going to go back to a factory torque arm to see if that gets rid of whats left of the vibration, if it seems to help ill probably get a shop to just lower the factory trans crossmember.

Total shame tho, its such a nice piece, has a DS loop for at the track, and assuming i dont manage to figure out why it doesnt fit right, which it looks like im not going to, its such a collosal waste of money.

 

\\wow i would kill to have my setup look like that, thanks so much for the pics at least i have something else to send spohn to try and problem solve with.

Currently speedo isnt hooked up, not imminently concerned with it.

 

19Doug, if you think it's the adapter plate added thickness that's throwing off your pieces why not take the xmember out....charge up the ol' air compressor and chuck up a grinding bit and go to town. Elongate what holes you need to, so as to bring the tranny xmember back to where it needs to be and not cause a vibration. Guys, am I over simplifying his problem?

 

the crossmember has been looked at by some of the top speed shops in the province, this is the best solution ive had so far.

i dont think its the kit throwing it off, the crossmember is designed for this kit, and the kit fit properly. If the kit had not fit properly i would have had to either lengthen or shorten the DS and i did not have to.

The crossmember is supposed to sit exactly where the stock crossmember does only 2" lower, only ordered the whole setup so i could go with the torque arm.

looking at the pictures of mine and his looking at the flat piece on the end of the crossmember that the bottom of the flat side is way shorter then the slanted part, where as on mine they look closer to the same, could just be camera angle tho. I'm just really at a bit of a loss

 

Have you checked your drive shaft angle? I wonder if your vibration isn't so much an issue of the fore-aft alignment of the mount as it is the vertical alignment. Having the mount in the wrong spot before could have tweaked it, making the alignment even worse. Having that shop reposition it may have eliminated that part of the problem, but having it too high or too low may still be causing your vibration.

Try shimming the whole cross member down to lower the back of the trans, and then try shimming the trans mount up to raise the back of the trans. See if any of this makes it better or worse. If shimming in one direction or the other helps, then you'll need to find a more permanent solution.

 

see the massive shim above the mount and the smaller one below it, thats how the shop got rid of the majority of the vibration.

I'm very very close to going back to the stock torque arm and having them fab me up a crossmember, just such a waist of money on what looks like a very nice piece.

 

Your Spohn set up came with a pinion angle finder. Has any one used it yet? I installed the same set up and have had no issues besides having to elongate a few holes to line every thing up. My pinion angle was like +6 degrees after initial instalation. I adjusted it to -1 degrees and have no vibration.

 

is it just me but does the side of the bracket look completly different then it does on mine?

 

IIRC, the adapter plate lenghtens the trans more then the later TKO kits. I ended up modding a poly mount to get it to fit right. I welded up the original bolt holes on teh mounting flanges and relocated them.

Also,

Doug, did you weld in new nuts inside the cross-member for those bolts? I did something similar with 7/16" bolts and nuts to mount mine. If it still has the original self tapping bushings, then use teh self tapping bolts. I remember standard bolts not fitting very snugly in the self-tapped holes. If the threads in teh bushings are in poor shape, then you should replace them with nuts. The cross-member will have alot of twisting force on it due to the cantilevered TA mount, which can easily rip the bolts out.

 

whoah what do you mean later TKO kits.

I have no intentions of relocating the mounting holes on the body thats rediculous for a bolt in piece.

 

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I have 2 spohn crossmembers for a tremec trans and they look totaly different. It's like he changed the design at one time.
The first one came with the torque arm I ordered. It fits like it should with no mods to make it fit.
The 2nd one I ordered by its self because I needed one with a driveshaft loop. It looks like those pictured
and needed to be modified to get the trans mount to line up. Mine had to be modified so much that by the time the slots were elongated enough for the trans mount , I didn't trust the structural integrity of the crossmember.
So I went back to the orginal crossmember that fit properly and added the driveshaft loop off the 2nd crossmember.

 

allright well i have forwarded those two picture and the comment from RWB (without the name attached) to spohn, maybe hell have some answers, we shall see

 

first reply by spohn, not looking good

"We haven't changed any designs and the pics are a Tremec crossmember."

sent another e-mail but i dont think im going to get anywhere with this, truly going to be a shame to have to junk his piece

next e-mail
"The pics you sent are a Tremec 5 speed mounted with our Tremec 5 speed
crossmember. The crossmembers have looked like that for the past 5 years
or so."

i tried conveying this but didnt get anywhere, to me the bracket on the side of the crossmember that actually bolts to the car, on AC's car the bracket looks to be different dimensions then on my car
maybe if he checks this thread again i can get him to measure the bottom and angled part of the bracket

 

Doug, I can measure whatever you want today and get you an email / dwg to show what you need. Let me know. My home email is: ac1le@sbcglobal.net

 

if you could measure these two lengths that would be awesome

in the picture this aspect of our brackets look totally different to me

 

hey doug, it almost looks like you have a regular 700r4/t5 crossmember there. the other one here has a much larger side bracket

 

thank you! so maybe im not going crazy? sent spohn the pic of both crossmembers and he said ya those are both for the tremec transmission. Thats what i think too

 

I have the same setup. I see you both have the Lakewood bellhousing. I have a tko600 with the lakewood bellhousing. you do not need the adapter plate with the lakewood housing. There is to sets of bolt holes on it and one bolts right to the tko in the correct possition. At least this is how it worked for me. The thread for the bolts in my lakewood housing are 12X1.75mm 1 1/4" long. this should move the trans foward where you need it.

I had the standard 3550 in it before with the same setup

 

Flipster, not sure how that works because speaking with Mike Forte numerous times and seeing other F-body packages they all require/come with spacer plates. The plate is also used to bring the shifter into a more "ashtray" friendly spot. What does your shifter look like and whathappens when your're in 1st,3rd,& 5th?
Again, all I'm saying is that I don't see it working. I myself, can't take that spacer out now because I just dropped 500 bux on a Denny's Driveshaft and am not going to have my tranny yoke sticking out that amount nor risk putting the driveshaft input shaft into the back of my crank.

BTW, I do have the measurement's that Doug was asking for. I'll post them soon.

 

from my understanding i have the FORD version of the transmission, because it has the proper length output shaft and the spacer changes the transmission from a ford to a GM bolt pattern

 

Mine is from forte's, has no spacer, and is mounted to a lakewood scattershield. One thing to consider if using a spacer is input shaft length. I recall someone else on the boards having a problem with the input shaft not going into the pilot bearing properly with the spacer.

I do believe mine is also a modded ford unit.

The stock TKO shifter does land in the ashtray area with no spacer. I'm using a B&M ripper and it pulled it back out from the ashtray, but is still too far forward.

 

alright you guys, here another dilema for you. do any of you have the offset shifter that fortes is now making? my tko has it and im wondering that since everyone else has a straight shifter, that ive seen, do i even need the spacer anymore? also the pilot bearing he sent me is a funny looking this that is only about 5/8 of an inch thick. does anyone else here have the same thing? did i get the first of a new breed? whats going on?

 

my understanding is that we all have ford transmissions because that transmission has the proper input shaft length for our cars, and that the spacer is to change it from a ford to GM bolt pattern

 

did you get a chance to take these measurements? im getting close to the point where im going to have a custom crossmember built if ive got no avenue left to deal with this spohn piece

 

you pm'd me asking me to e-mail you my e-mail
i did but ill just throw it up here encase you didnt get it for some reason

doug_rabow@hotmail.com thanks for all the help