seijirou said:
Can you tell me about what you did with the input shaft? Did you swap yours, does the 03 cobra one just work? What about pilot/throwout bearings?
The one answer I have not been able to find is how standard t56 guts are. T5's for example have alot of different guts in them from car to car, so you can't necessarily just change an input shaft for your application. I can get my hands on an early 90's camaro t56 but i know the input shaft is wrong.
I could -maybe- use a chevy clutch disk with ford fly/pressure plate but i'm not 100% sure that'd work, plus I don't know that it will work with the pilot bearing etc. etc.
Since you managed a swap on your own I figured you might know some of this more detailed info.
When I did my swap, I was on the phone for hours with Red Roberts from McLeod, who is like the president or something, and he was extremely helpful and knowledgable. So just call their tech line if you have any questions about their products or the swap or anything.
Ok first of all pretty much all the standard T56's are the same, the LT1 and LS1 T56's may be a little weeker because they have an aluminum 3/4 shift fork which breaks from time to time and is not as strong as the steel 3/4 shift fork in the Cobra and Viper T56. The LT1/LS1/Viper T56's have a 26 spline input shaft which is a little stronger than the Cobra 10 spline.
The LT1/LS1 and the Viper T56 have a close gear ratio which is 2.66/1.78/1.30/1.00/.74/.50 and they have the .5 6th gear which is nice for highway or if you want to run 4.10 gears. The Cobra T56's have a wide gear ratio which is 2.97/2.07/1.43/1.00/.80/.62.
What makes the Viper T56 stronger is that it has a 31 spline output shaft, carbon fiber syncros and blocker rings, all steel shift forks, bronze fork pads, and billet slider keys. I was thinking of uprading my tranny to Viper spec this winter which would cost about $800 in parts, and then I would have the .5 6th.
I was originally going to use an LT1 T56 which I got locally for $400, but decied to use an 03 Cobra T56 with 20k which I picked up off Corral for $800 shipped. I bought McLeod scattershield bell that I was going to use, but decided to go with one of Mcleod's adapter plates. At the time, the only adapter plate they had was one that allowed a Toploader bellhousing to bolt to a T56, but I think they now sell a plate that allows a T5 bell to bolt to a T56. I had to adapt the toploader bell to fit the 5.0 clutch fork and pivot ball and also had to fab a mount for the clutch cable since the toploader used a push style clutch fork.
With the Cobra T56 the shifter comes up in the exact spot it should. But with an LT1/LS1 T56 the shifter would be about 4 inches further back. Mcleod can make a custom offset short throw shifter for about $225, but I was just going to make my own.
If you use an LT1 T56, the input shaft is way to short and you would have to swap it out with an LS1 T56. You could actually make good on that because the LT1 input shafts are not made anymore and are getting very hard to find, so you can sell them for around $400 and buy an LS1 input shaft for about $100 or less.
Mcleod also told me that the Cobra input shaft is too short and would have to be swapped with and LS1 input shaft, which is what I did so I could have a 26 spline input shaft. But when I recieved the the Mcleod scattershield bellhousing it was about 1" less deep than the T5 bell, which means that the input shaft would be an 1" closer to the crank/pilot, so if you use that bell with a Cobra T56 you may not have to change the input shaft. I bought a special pilot bushing from Mcleod that would fit a Small block Ford, and an LS1 input shaft.
From what I could tell, all T56 bellhsougs are interchangeable among the different Ford and GM T56's, although that is not what I was told. The adapter plate I had bolt to both the LT1 T56 and the Cobra T56 as did the Mcleod scattershield bell.
As for the crossmember and mounts, I did a little bit of fabrication. Where the crossmember needs to mount with a T56 is about 4" further back than the stock mounts which are spotwelded on. So I used 4 cylinder Mustang crossmember mounts, which have a single bolt that go through the frame, so I just drilled some holes for them. But then the V8 crossmember was not wide enough to fit, so I got an extra V8 crossmember from the junkyard and cut both of them both and welded them back together at the right length.
I had my driveshaft shortened for about $100, and it will need a different yoke (can't remember the spline count off hand).
A lot of people don't know what to do with the reverse lockout cylinoid, but I just took it off and put a plut in it. It's pretty much impossible to put the tranny in reverse while driving.
I'll post up some pics in the next thread here. If I was unclear on anything just let me know.
I really really wanna do this next summer. t-56, centerforce clutch, mgw shifter and autometer cluster. And I sure as **** didnt wanna pay 3k. Does the Autometer speedo plug right into the tranny?
