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QuickTime bell housing install notes - 2002 c5 manual
Hey all,
I'm currently going through this monster of a job and wanted to give pointers, as there is not much coverage of this particular install.
The bell housing will not fit without some significant work.
Obviously, if you have long tube headers, you'll need to drop them to gain access. The clutch assembly must go in first, and then the bell housing tries to slide over. However, there is no clearance unless the front subframe of the car is dropped an inch or 2. I just lowered the nuts for the subframe all the way, and then removed the rear nuts and dropped the cradle on a jack. I do have an ACT single disk clutch in it, and so other clutches may have more or less clearance, maybe you won't have to drop the cradle.
Additionally, long tube headers require some significant cutoff wheel work on the bell housing to clear, at the 4/5 o'clock and 7/8 o'clock positions.
If your slave cylinder has a shim on it, like some manufacturers recommend to get the proper clearance of the throw out bearing, then your slave and remote bleeder lines will interfere with the bell housing - requiring more cutting. I haven't checked without the shim on the slave, but the clearance is so tight that it may require some cutting straight out of the box with a factory style setup.
The bottom of the bell housing assembly hangs almost 2 full inches down under the oil pan, and that would be a very unfortunate thing to have smacking all over the ground or speed bumps, as these cars have pretty low ground clearance anyway. This, again, requires some significant modification to bring it anywhere near an acceptable ground clearance height.
A final note, the engine plate to bell housing nuts and bolts are almost impossible to attach with the motor in the car. Just forget about it.
Holley sells this thing with essentially no install instructions other than "remove old bell housing. Install new bell housing" and leaves the rest to the consumer to figure out, which is unfortunate.
Figured I'd post this to perhaps help the next guy who thinks that this is almost a factory replacement - not even close.
Questions are welcome, and I'll let you guys know anything you'd like about this particular job.
I'm currently going through this monster of a job and wanted to give pointers, as there is not much coverage of this particular install.
The bell housing will not fit without some significant work.
Obviously, if you have long tube headers, you'll need to drop them to gain access. The clutch assembly must go in first, and then the bell housing tries to slide over. However, there is no clearance unless the front subframe of the car is dropped an inch or 2. I just lowered the nuts for the subframe all the way, and then removed the rear nuts and dropped the cradle on a jack. I do have an ACT single disk clutch in it, and so other clutches may have more or less clearance, maybe you won't have to drop the cradle.
Additionally, long tube headers require some significant cutoff wheel work on the bell housing to clear, at the 4/5 o'clock and 7/8 o'clock positions.
If your slave cylinder has a shim on it, like some manufacturers recommend to get the proper clearance of the throw out bearing, then your slave and remote bleeder lines will interfere with the bell housing - requiring more cutting. I haven't checked without the shim on the slave, but the clearance is so tight that it may require some cutting straight out of the box with a factory style setup.
The bottom of the bell housing assembly hangs almost 2 full inches down under the oil pan, and that would be a very unfortunate thing to have smacking all over the ground or speed bumps, as these cars have pretty low ground clearance anyway. This, again, requires some significant modification to bring it anywhere near an acceptable ground clearance height.
A final note, the engine plate to bell housing nuts and bolts are almost impossible to attach with the motor in the car. Just forget about it.
Holley sells this thing with essentially no install instructions other than "remove old bell housing. Install new bell housing" and leaves the rest to the consumer to figure out, which is unfortunate.
Figured I'd post this to perhaps help the next guy who thinks that this is almost a factory replacement - not even close.
Questions are welcome, and I'll let you guys know anything you'd like about this particular job.
When I bought mine, Bret cut the bottom lip level with the oil pan. I later added a pair of breather holes at 10 and 2 with a hole saw. It installed easily enough, but did take a lot of work on some of the bolts up high. I don't have the car running yet, no exhaust, so I'll cut those when I get to them as needed.
Here's one part of the install. I know there are other shots somewhere further down with the breather holes cut.
I gave up and pulled the bell housing back out for ease of cutting. The first picture shows what I had to cut to clear the headers and my initial cut along the bottom for the oil pan clearance. The second picture shows the slave and bleeder cutouts, which impacted and broke off the bleeder into the slave cylinder. Those will need to be clearances too, but I'm not quite sure how much yet. I'll reply back once I get it figured out.
Last edited by blondellama; Jun 26, 2025 at 04:55 PM.
QuickTime bell housing install notes - 2002 c5 manual
