I read somewhere that a certain tko tranny doesn't require modification or spacer and will bolt right in. Is that true? Sorry for all the questions.

 

as far as i know the gm version of the tko will bolt right up to any gm v8 bellhousing, but i believe it would leave your shifter to far foward. The whole point of spacer plate is to move the transmission back to help with the shifter placement. Maybe someone else that has tried the GM TKO could help ya out here, or im sure mike at fortes could help ya if you give him a call, he could explain the difference in the two better than i can.

 

Thanks for the information. I appreciate it.

 

The adapter plate that bolts inbetween the transmission and the bellhousing both moves the shifter back and twists the whole transmission so the shifter points straight up.

 

This still retains the factory hydraulic clutch setup right?

 

Yes the hydraulics will be fine. You can also move shifter back on its own with a 2'' peice of steel drilled for the shifter holes and for the stick.

 

I don't understand about moving the shifter back. Can you illustrate that?

 

Yeah, where the stick bolts up to the shifter assembly that goes into the tranny. Take a square piece of steel 2 "x2" and 1/2" thick. Drill 4 holes. 2 for the steel to the shifter assembly and 2 for the stick then bolt them up. This moves the stick back 2" and over to the right 1/2". This puts you right in the middle. tkos will sit to far forward and left

 

i did mine a little different but the same idea. i had flat stock 1"x.25" welded it up to put a little angle in the stick.

 

got my stick off and old 4x4 transfer case. Bolt holes lined right up and had the perfect angle leaning back....... couldn't believe it!

 

see i used my straight stick off of my t-5 so it felt better after putting a little lean into it. by the way. i still have the hurst t-5 shifter base if anybody needs one!

 

You have to do this even though you're using a bellhousing spacer?

 

yup, unless you find a shifter or a shifter stick that does it for you.

 

I have a Hurst shifter. It seems like a simple thing to do.

 

So I was just wondering about that shifter plate you made... can you describe it a little, like was it just a plate with 4 holes, one pair bolting to the stick and one to the shifter?

 

Ill be out working on the car tomorrow ill snap a pic of it for ya

 

yea that would be cool, I bolted mine up yesterday... i just set the shifter in place and it seemed to be in the right place but i am using a pro 5.0 stick, not shifter, and it doesn't seem like it will be long enough... the crossmember isnt up yet but idk... how was yours?

 

Ok here come a couple posts with pics. The first set is the shifter bracket i made. My shifter wasnt going to be long enough either so i built in an additional height on my bracket about 1/2 inch. It does sit a little to much to the right as you can see in the pics below. Im going to make a new bracket that solves that but this one is getting me by for now. This first set is a view of the 1st, neutral, 2nd shift.

 

Ok here is the view of how it sits to far to the right. And then a couple pics of my bracket i made. These pics here all have the shifter in neutral.

 

And lastly here are the mods i made to the stock crossmember. I elongated the hole towards the rear of the car. This let me use the original mounting location on the frame of the car. All i had to do was use about 5 washers to space the trans down so it wasnt hitting on the trans tunnel.

 

If you could i would like to see some pics of your shifter handle and where it lands.

 

yea, i will post some up when i get it together... I elongated the crossmember hole today, but im nervous about it because my crossmember is different than yours, its a 2 peice deal with the slot located in the 2nd peice, but its got a corner that might be in the way of the bolt... idk though, we will see soon.

 

If ya want my old one its hangin up in the shop

 

The one you already modified? yea prolly, that would be sweet, im gonna see if mine will work tomorrow I think.

 

did it work out?

 

I went down to where my car is, bout 45 min away, and thought all my bolts were there but turns out they were at my house... but i set the crossmember up in place and it looks like it will work. Im going down today though to bolt it in

As for the shifter, I raised the tranny up with the jack to where it would be bolted in and the shifter seems high enough, but it was too far right so I unbolted the lever and put in on the left side, making it in a much better location.

I will give an update tonight.

 

Good news: my crossmember will work.

Bad news: 2 out of the 4 crossmember bolts are stripped, the thing is I dont know if its the bolt or whatever the bolt threads into. I'm gonna post a new thread about it to see if anybody else has had this problem...

 

whoohooo!

done, new bolts solved the problem...

I will have to make a bracket for the shifter though... if the plastic console piece is on it will hit in 1, 3, 5... so the bracket will have to move it back and I will to a left turn to to get it more centered.

I know that these tranny's will sound a little different, but sometimes it does this smooth whine for a few seconds at a time... I can hear it really well cuz the rubber sleeves are ripped, but is this normal? do these tranny's make a lot of dif sounds?

 

yup everything with your shifter sounds normal. And my trans does make a lil noise but i wouldnt describe it as a wine. As long as your sure your topped off with synchromesh, i wouldnt worry about it and just chalk it up to the gears wearing in.

 

yea I topped it off, factory sayes about 5.3 pints, which I might have a little more, but I took the fill plug out for a bit until it was about even.

 

heff, what are the HP specs and such on this trans and what are the first and 5th ratios? im looking for an upgrade for my formula that can handle a bit more abuse.
also, what flywheel are you using?

 

the good thing about the TKO is you can reuse your t5 clutch and flywheel. I use the 153 flywheel and a centerforce DF clutch. 26 spline just like i used with my t5. The Torque specs, what these transmissions are rated at, is either 500 ft-lbs or 600 ft-lbs. depending on if you get the tko-500 or tko-600. I got the 600 incase i wanted to do a big block swap later on or maybe build a 434 sbc. I liked the first gear on the tko-600 better also. First gear on the tko 500 is 3.27 the tko 600 is 2.87. The tko-500 comes in a .68 5th while the tko 600 either gets a .64 or a .82

 

thanx for the info, that answerd alot. if they offerd a 2.66 or area ratio first with a .5 final that would be great as this would allow using a 4.10 rear gear. im liking the avail of the .64 and .82 finals. i wonder how high first would rap up with that 2.87 first and a 3.45 ratio?
as for the hp ratings, thats plenty more than im needing but i'll gladly take that.

 

mine gets up pretty quick with 3.42's but it also takes me to like 48 mph shifting at 6k rpm, so thats not to bad.

 

I've been driving my car with my tko for about 6 weeks now and every once in a while would here this squeel for quick blurps, usually in dips and yesterday i had 2 ppl in the back for the first time and it was WAY worse.

This led me to believe my driveshaft needs to be shortened. have any of you guys had to do this?

Are these driveshafts worth spending the money on?

 

i didnt have to shorten my driveshaft, but it was close. i gained some more room when i swapped the moser 9 in.

There is a rubber boot on the output shaft of the trans, jack the car up and see if its chewed up. that will tell you is its hitting.

A nice strong driveshaft is always a good investment

 

hmm, yea i will have to check out that sleeve. if that sleeve gets chewed up it will leak tranny fluid won't it? how strong are these driveshafts anyways?

 

i dont know what driveshaft you are talking about.

it wont leak from that, mine doesnt

 

^^ i agree good advice. I havent had this problem and im using the stock driveshaft and the stock 10 bolt.

 

I know this is an couple month old thread, but have a question hopefully someone can answer.....

When you guys got the GM adapter/spacer plate and adapter pilot bearing, what brand where those??
And doesn't TKO make shifters??? I thought they had one for our cars (S shaped) with a crossmember in like a package deal (actuall crossmember, not adapter plates).
And on your tranny are you at the last/back mounting point for the trans....they claim on there website that they have multiple mounting locations for their trans....
Sorry for stupid questions......just checking options before ordering.

How much was bellhousing adapter by itself?????

THanks

 

it looks to me like the adapter its self was 295 on fortes parts, but i got whole kit so i cant say for sure. The way he made it sound they have these cnc'd custom. At first i used the stock t5 crossmember. Shimmed it down a little bit with a couple washers in between the frame and the crossmember. I also enlongated the bolt hole for the trans mount to the rear of the car. I havent seen a shifter made for our cars tho. If you find one please let me know. Hope this helped a little

 

The brand of the adapter and pilot bearing is forte's part connection. I made an adapter plate for my shifter to move it back about 2 inches, not sure if there are ones made for our cars.

As for the mounting locations as I remember it there was only one location to bolt to.
the 295 as heff17 said sounds about right to me. It is custom cnc'd too, their pilot bearing is also custom, they are the only place that makes them that size. That alone was 60 bucks.

 

and the tranny has to be angled to the left to clear anyway right (17 degrees I believe)....so you would need the bellhousing to trans adapter anyways I guess.

 

oh and why is it that you're using a ford style trans again......longer shaft??? I thought I read it somewhere but can't find it now.

 

Its because the trans needs to be rotated counter clockwise about 17 degrees like heff said, and the adapter plate is like 3/4 of an inch thick, so to acount for that the input shaft has to be longer which the ford input shaft is. therefor we use the ford tranny.

 

its actually a custom input shaft, with the 26 splines and an inch longer to accommodate the adapter plate. but for some reason they wen to all that trouble and never resized the end for a standard chevy pilot busing?

 

I didn't get a custom input shaft, just a stock ford 26 spline, paired with a 26 spline clutch i had. Thats why I had to get the custom pilot bearing for the ford shaft in a chevy flywheel.

I got my tranny used of a mustang guy tho, not from tko directly.

 

maybe im wrong, i was under the impression the input shaft was different for the 3rd gen app because of the adapter plate.

 

yea I think your just thinking of the ford tranny, the only difference between the ford tko and the chevy tko is the input shaft and output shaft i believe.

 

I plan on swapping in a tko 600 into my car soon and had a question about the shifter mod with the steel plate. Can this modification be done to a stock shifter to make it work or will it only work on aftermarket shifters?