And here I thought you were going to offer to let me have it :D

I'll have to check it out at some point :yesnod:

 

I have the Keisler Tremec 5 speed in mine. I finished up my install last Halloween. :eek: Boo! So far it has been very nice to drive. Nice cruising speed of 80MPH gets me down to about 2000RPM. I do have a 3.36 rear gear though. I am pleased with it. I live closer to Keisler and visited with them to see if I couldn't get mine home sooner. But I did order mine last July so I may have missed out on some of the boom for the tranny.

 

Psyche! :jester

Shoot me an e-mail or PM when you're ready so I can tidy up the garage first!

 

Dave

I have been going through all the options over the last year or 2 and here they are:

1. W/C T5 swap

Pros: Cheap (I bought one for $400, sitting on work bench), internal rail shifter
Cons: Not very strong but should work if not beat to death with slicks, have to do some customizing (trans tunnel, tranny mount bracket, driveshaft)

2. Tremec

Pros: Strong Trans, internal rail shifter
Cons: Expensive (prolly $2500 or so for swap total)
Same type of mods as the T5

3. Keilser Tremec

Pros: Same as Tremec plus pretty much bolt in
Cons: Expensive ($2900), even more than a standard tremec, long lead time

4. Richmond

Pros: Strong trans, pretty much bolt in
Cons: Somewhat expensive ($1900 or so), 1:1 5th gear so no 'real' O/D
External shift linkage

I am now leaning toward the Richmond since it is about $1000 cheaper than keilser (I do not want to do any customizing) and I think I should have no problem getting someone to swap me a 3.08 rear end for my 3.70 which yeilds about the same first gear ratio as my muncie and 3.70 rear end.




[Modified by Fevre, 4:27 PM 2/27/2004]

 

Thanks Chris :thumbs:

 

No problem Dave, I have been waffling all over the place on this and bottom line is I don't really want to modify the car other the cross member, so it is either the keisler unit or the richmond, for $1000 less (maybe more if I can track one down used, saw one on e-bay for $1000 a few days ago but now gone :()) I think the richmond will work fine.

 

There is an outfit in Syracuse called Autogear that is developing a 5 speed Muncie, supposedly will be ready this summer. I am waiting to see how that comes out. It is based on the M22 gears and will somehow use the same case as the 4 speeds. Last time I checked they didn't have anything on their website about this but there is a guy that frequents the C2 forum that is affiliated with them. Check out Autogear.net.

 

Seems I heard that 2 or more years ago but I have not heard any real concrete info on it. Plus it would def be a new design so I would be a little worried about the kinks that always crop up on new stuff.

 

Ahhhh.....60 degrees in February!!

A 5-speed has now moved to the top of my list of "Significant Improvements" to the vette. Driving around today I kept doing the math for an OD.
"I'd only be turning like 2500 rpms right now...."
"I could be going this speed and turning the rpms I normally do going 40..."

Manual steering, manual brakes, manual everything else, crummy radio, carb that runs extremely rich at idle. None of those would make as much overall difference as an OD

So......what are we talking in terms of modifications necessary? Just crossmember changes? Can they be done with the body on? With the engine in and only the trans out? Do I need to cut the crossmember off the car?

 

As far the crossmember is concerned it sounds from all the feedback i have read that it makes it much easier to go ahead and cut it to make it removable. Everyone I have seen has used to 'U' shaped sections that wrap around the bottom and sides and then welded it to middle section and use bolts on the outer section. One I had in mind to keep the orig section that was cut out was to weld plates on both ends of it along with plates on the section left on the car then run 4 bolts on both, the plate would protrude toward the front and back of the car, this would give it a little more of OEM look to it then having the 'U' shaped section IMO. I am looking more toward elimating the section cut out and going with the design in my thread that turned to lightening and other 'things'. :) My main reason for that is to allow removal of the exahust without dropping the whole center section plus it would be lighter as a bonus.

My taxes return is going to much better than I anticipated so I am now itching to do this myself. I am going to do some more research on the Richmond 5 speed to see if is really what I want but again that would require swapping rears with someone which I think that will be the least of my worries. The ext rail shifter doesn't worry me either, will have to be better than my old worn one I have now.

I'll start a thread on the richmond 5 speed both here and in the C1/2 section to get feed back.


[Modified by Fevre, 9:08 AM 3/1/2004]

 

Been looking at corvettefaq.com and the TKO install doesn't look that difficult. The crossmember definitely has to come out and be modified regardless of the install.

I wonder if a stock crossmember could just be moved back on the frame the couple inches or whatever it is.

 

Dave,
This sounds like what I've been saying in my head for the last few summers. I finally decided to do something about it. The answer was LS1 & T56! (However, it's NOT a cheap endeavor. At this point, I think I'm close to my initial "budget" and there are still many things left to do. I'll probably end up being about 50% over budget, but I figure that if I'm going to do it, I'm gonna do it right the first time.... )

BTW, I like the manual steering and brakes, so that part's staying.

 

I have a TKO and a unmodified crossmember... I used the standard GM TKO and I only paid $1745 for the transmission and $215 for the take apart transmission yoke... I also upgraded the clutch... which cost me additional $350


[Modified by GrandSportC3, 10:53 AM 3/1/2004]

 

Is this the same trans Oliver? http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...category=33733

 

ttt