hi guys,i'm getting ready to put a tremmec 5 speed in my car.anything i should be aware of befoe i drop it in?doing it in about three weeks.thanks ahead of time for the help....matt
Hello and welcome to the forum. First i never did the tremec swap but i did a toploader swap. You must buy a flywheel with the right balance (28 or 50oz) depend of which balance your engine use also your flywheel size and clutch with must match with your bellhousing. A search on this forum should give you all the info you need. good luck
Yes I know all about your transmission swap. I also know there is little to no information available on the swap on the forums. You can probably count all the members that have done this swap on one hand...yes that is including me and yes to date I can honestly say I have probably posted the most information about it. It really is a worthwhile swap. So I guess I should start out with the biggest question...Are you just putting in a tremec like a 3550 or are you putting in a TKO? What type of clutch are you planning on using a diaphram or Borg & Beck? Are you going to go with a Hydraulic clutch like I did or are you going to try and rig up a cable actuated clutch, or maybe have your hand at building some linkage? Are you using a Tremec bellhousing or a toploader bell housing? If you are using a toploader bell housing do you have the correct input shaft on your transmission? The toploader bellhousings are a couple inches shorter then the Tremec bellhousings so the input shaft used with the toploaders is shortened to match the bellhousing. So the first couple questiong actually all go together. The 3550's and usually the tko 500's use a smaller 10 spline input shaft then the 26 spline 3550 TKO's and TKO 600's so that can limit your clutch choice if you have a TKO you are pretty much going with a diaprham clutch and trust me they arent cheap. And they are a pain in the butt to find other then ordering them from somewhere like summit or jegs. If you have just a standard 3550 or a tko500 and the 10 spline clutch, that is just a standard ford clutch and you can either use the borg & beck or a diaphram...but, yes there is a but attached to that statement.. The clutch style is also limited by your bellhousing, the Tremec bellhousings are set up for a diaphram clutch and the toploader bell housings are setup for the Borg & Beck style clutch, so that will make a difference. Also to note the clutch fork is actuated differently on the two different bellhousings, the toploader bellhousing is designed to be used with a clutch linkage and is actuated by pushing from the front. The tremec bellhousing is designed to use a cable style/hydraulic clutch and that is actuated by pulling from the front or pushing from the back. This goes to the question of the engine too, if you are going to use a toploader bellhousing and you are going to use a cluch linkage, the newer 5.0 engines dont have the pivot provisions built into the block for the cluch linkage like the earlier 302's do. So if you have a 5.0 engine installed and you want to use clutch linkage you are going to need to get a pivot ball kit for your engine block. Make sure you have the correct flywheel for whatever clutch you are using!!!! the Borg and Beck flywheels are SAE and the Diapram flywheels are metric. If you try to use one type of clutch on a flywheel designed for the other type of clutch then you will end up having problems and your clutch will chatter and possibly have a premature failure. The diapram clutches use metric alignment pins and they are needed. Do you have your transmission mount made yet? The transmission for all the tremec tranmsissions utilizing the tremec bellhousing matches the distance for an AOD transmission mount...Another way to explain this is to say if you measure the distance from the front of the transmission bellhousing to the centerline of the transmission mount then the AOD transmission and the Tremec have the same mounting points. I used a clearenced AOD transmission mount to hold my transmission up. You will have to cut the transmission support in your tunnel to get your transmission to fit. Also you need a different driveshaft yoke, if you have the larger TKO then you have the 31 spline output shaft, if you have the smaller 3550 then you just need a T5 output yoke. I was able to use my stock C4 driveshaft with an adaptor 1330 series to 1310 U joint on the slip yoke, the 31 spline output shaft is the same as the one on the C6 transmission. Also if you dont have a driveshaft you can use a fox body mustang driveshaft with an adaptor U-Joint on the rear and it will work just fine, you can actually pick up a brand new ford racing aluminum driveshaft that will work for $300. If you have any questions feel free to PM me I work swings so I might be a little slow in answering but I can usually give you a response fairly quick I guess I should add this to give you a good Idea of what you have to do to get it to work in the car. http://mmb.maverick.to/showthread.php?t=80140
Yes, been there done that! As mentioned above it is a very worthwhile swap. I replaced a six cylinder with a 91 5.0 EFI at the same time. Our swap was a perfect fit and enjoyable to drive. All the best on your experience.
agreed I tend to forget about the tremec T5 when people say they are doing a tremec transmission swap
Great information - you've just saved me time in research as I'd already determined I'm going with the TKO-600 and had been talking with someone in Texas who did the 5.0/5spd exchange. He had gone with a hydraulic clutch and stated it was fairly simple, (he must have excellent mechanical aptitude), just had to drill another hole or two in the fire wall to accommodate updated mechanical technology. Appreciate the education!
Picking the location for the placement of the clutch master cylinder was pretty easy. If you look at your firewall from the engine compartment you can see where the clutch rod would go through, (this is assuming you are doing a manual transmission conversion) just drill that hole out and then use your clutch master cylinder or the backing plate like my setup came with, as a guide to drill the mounting holes and just bolt it together. I used stock maverick clutch pedals I purchased from a member here and when I set up the pedals It only involved me drilling the three holes in the firewall for the M/C and one hole in the clutch pedal so I could bolt the heim joint up that was screwed on the actuating rod. My car originally came with an automatic floor shift so atleast I had the hole in the floor already, but if yours is a manual car already it will just save you one hole to drill on the firewall because you should be able to use the existing hole already. I really liked the rosehill performance TKO hydraulic clutch kit(Ironically rosehill performance is located in Texas), the bracketry bolts the slave cylinder directly to the bellhousing so there is no fiddling around with the alignment of it, just a little final adjustment when you get the system bled. For the clutch master cylinder I got a willwood 3/4" diamater master with remote resivor also from rosehill, I showed all the mounting I did and how I attatched the master cylinder to stock maverick pedals in the transmission thread I posted earlier. The total cost of the hydraulic clutch setup with braided stainless hydraulic line, master cylinder, slave cylinder setup and a 5/16" heim joint came under $300. You use just a standard T5 ford clutch fork that you can get for about $15. I am running with a Centerforce DF clutch as shown in my thread and I love it, but the bad part about the centerforce DF clutches for that transmission input shaft is they dont come with a throwout bearing. The reason being is the clutch will work with the newer modular engines too not just the windsor series so you have to buy the throwout bearing seperately, so when you look at clutches keep that in mind, I also had to buy the pilot bearing seperately too. And remember like I said before If there is any other questions you have feel free to ask, or PM me and I can ramble on directly too you.
My son's car was amanual on the tree. We used a Mustang clutch cable which works great but I would be inclined to use a hydraulic setup for the next one. I made my own transmission mount using a carboard template transfered to flat stock which was then bent, cut and drilled. As you can see, the shifter hole was cut only where needed. The five speed swap, in this case a T-5, was a perfect fit and a great upgrade.
hey mark do you have rosehills number handy.i would like to get the set up you have sounds about as simple as it can get.thanks..matt oh where did you pick up that trans mount .# ?
I just paid through paypal and ordered it that way here is the link to their product page http://rosehillperformanceparts.com/Products_Page.htm#-:Tremec 3550, TKO 500/600 Bracket Kits:- looking at their site it doesnt look like they have a phone number just have to contactk them through email.
thank you sir.called them today its in small print at the bottom. i'm waiting for them to call me back
clutch pedals does anyone have a set of pedals i need to turn my auto into a manual?if you do would you please contact me. hafer.matthew@yahoo.com or 513-314-0446 or here thanks
