Forte's New Aluminum Pilot Bearing Adapter for the TKO500/600
It replaces the brass bushing in their parts line up that original lined the input shaft up with the crank centerline for our cars. It lets us use a ford pilot bearing in the back of our sbc cranks. Basically the aluminum adapter is a little sleeve that goes around the ford pilot bearing.

I need to know if anyone else has gotten one of these things to work. Evidently it's a fairly new design and I'm not sure if I just got a bad part. I had to take it and have it machined down .006 before it would even fit in the crank. The issue now is that it is way to thick. The new adapter places the pilot in the larger bore of the back of the crank, not the original place, the issue is that the splines of the input shaft actually run into the pilot bearing before the transmission is in place. The adapter needs to be atleast atleast 3/8 inch smaller for it to work in my case.

Does anyone else have expirience with this new part from Fortes??

 

TTT! Even if you don't have the new adapter he's sending out, be weary when you go to change out your clutch or buy a TKO Swap kit. I'd stay away from this piece for the time being, perhaps even ask if he just has another bronze bushing laying around. Has been 3 weeks and I still don't have a piece that will work from him nor has he even shipped one out?!

 

there are a few version of the tremec 3550 floating around. You have to be careful which one you have.

the (fortes) original I believe had a ford input shaft, and a new fabricated input bearing retainer, to match up to the GM bellhousing hole, but still used the ford trans pattern. In this case, you need the special bearing that goes in the outer hole of the crank, since the ford shaft is shorter, plus, the trans fit with an adpater to go from a chevy pattern to a ford pattern, so the adapter might be around 3/8" thick.

for awhile, (I have one), Dark Horse Performance somehow changed the trans pattern to be a chevy style and used the fabricated input bearing retainer, so the special bearing in the outer hole of the crank is needed, but no trans adapter. The bearing it came with actually fit into both the smaller hole and the larger one, it has a stepped shape.

the late model trans's should have the correct input shaft and bolt pattern, and should simply take the gm type pilot bearing, since at this point, it should look exactly like a gm trans. I have one and its a direct fit into a GM bellhousing direct shipped from Tremec.

not knowing what you have exactly, maybe you got the wrong trans for the application?

 

I got the set up around October of last year I guess it was, it came with the plate to bolt it up to a T5 bell housing, and it came with the stepped bronze bushing that went into the smaller hole and larger outer hole. With this set up I had the transmission installed and drove it for a few months with no problem. Took it back out because I was having some disengagement issues with the clutch and found that the bronze bushing had come out on the shaft and had some irregular wear on it. It looked like it was moving around inside the smaller area of the back of the crank. The bronze bushing imo was too short, not enough of it was in the larger part of the crank which allowed it to move up the shaft enough to where the smaller stepped part could be worn.

With his new piece that he sent me a couple weeks ago, none of it is in the smaller area of the crank, I like the idea, it puts the bushing right where the input shafter really is. Forte's new piece utilizes an aluminum adapter that acts kind of like a sleeve that goes around a Ford pilot bearing that goes over the input shaft. The problem is his adapter pushed the bearing far enough out that the splines on the input shaft hit the bearing a good 3/8" before the transmission was in place. I'll attach some pictures to show what I mean.

In the first pic, yes, the bearing is fully seated in the adapter, it really sticks out that far. In the second pic it is as far into the crank as it can go. In the third pic you can kind of make out the bearing right behind the clutch disk.