5 spd. conversion thread

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I did the complete conversion from Hurst Driveline conversions and love it!. They took great care of me. I had been hearing lots of horror stories lately about Keisler. Keep us posted on how it works out
 
subzero05 said:
I did the complete conversion from Hurst Driveline conversions and love it!. They took great care of me. I had been hearing lots of horror stories lately about Keisler. Keep us posted on how it works out
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what have you heard? i know shafi a little bit. i am working with him to test some stuff,long story.
 
finally! a little head way! i came home from work yesterday (after 12 hrs) and felt like messing around a little with the tunnel cutout. i was,am,apprehensive about doing this. it sucks cutting a huge hole in an 88,000 original mi. body! but,so be it. here are a few pics of what we got done. you first have to find the front of the torsion bar mount and the center of the hump and drill a 3/16" hole. this sucks because the hump is not really symetrical and the torsion bar mount is not in the center of the hump. i didn't like my first hole,so i drilled a 2nd and liked it better. then you measure 10 1/2" forward in the center of the hump and drill a 2nd 3/16" hole to locate the front of the template. i cut out most of the template and used the drill to locate the rear hole,lined up the front hole,and taped it down a little. i traced the template out with a sharpie and ready to cut!:cheers: although i am really not looking forward to doing the cutting,i am getting it over with today and them having a drink!
after i cut the hole,i am going to weld the torsion bar mount to the floor pan for some extra rigidity,and maybe some other spots as well. i am also drilling the corners so the are radiused,squared corners tend to crack.

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wracks71 said:
what have you heard? i know shafi a little bit. i am working with him to test some stuff,long story.
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wow,that all looks great.!. well done. I had a shop cut my tunnel, no way I was going to attempt that!.. Anyway, in regard to keisler I do know they are no longer a Tremec dealer. Hence the reason now they are trying to offer their "own" transmission option for the conversion. They cannot get Tremec tranny's anymore. I've seen posts on other forums also where there have been some real unhappy people dealing with them, but that happens anywhere from time to time I guess
 
Nice work! You have steady nerves in spite of being nervous lol! Radiusing the corners is an excellent idea..
 
thanks guys! i'll have to ask shafi about the tremec deal. i've heard bad stuff about all of them it seems. it's like some people get pissed off because a company doesn't kiss thier ***,so they bad mouth them. who knows?

i guess being nervous made me focus more! lol! i am going to weld the torsion bar support to the floorpan as well on front and back for some more strength. the front hole cuts out two spot welds,o i figure welding the whole thing through there should be plenty to replace it. i am going to need all the help i can get to try to get to the optima street car challenge! we need some more mopars in there!
 
a little update. yesterday,1-5-11,was f'n disaster! i messed around with some little things while waiting for help. long story short,the motor wasn't leaned back enough to let the splines engage. knocked the exhaust loose,then loosened the motor mounts,then the oil pan is into the center link. of course,it says in the instructions to knock it off,but where's fun in going by the instructions! so i don't have a tie rod separator,off to my buddy down the road and get his.
i am going back out this morn to knock the center link off and get the motor laid back somehow! if i can get ths damn thing in i can check the fitment,measure for the driveshaft,and temp. screw the tunnel cover on before welding it in. pray for me! lol!
 
I did this conversion with a TKO-500. You can drop the centerlink by pulling the pitman and idler arms. Leave the tie rods connected. Pull the distributor and loosen the motor mounts. I had to disconnect the three firewall connectors too. It is a tight fit getting the trans up and around the torsion bar support member. Aligning the bell housing was a big project. They are looking for 0.005 inches or less on the runout. One thing that really took a long time to figure out was I had extra thick motor mounts. They messed up my clearance. I got a pair of "Magnum mounts" from Mancini. They lowered the motor and got me the needed clearance. I also shimmed the motor forward a 1/4 inch by putting washers on the bolts of the motor mounts.

You will like the extra gear and the crisper shifts. The trans is lighter too. Running modern synthetic gear oil also gets more HP to the rear wheels.
 
CUDA69 said:
I did this conversion with a TKO-500. You can drop the centerlink by pulling the pitman and idler arms. Leave the tie rods connected. Pull the distributor and loosen the motor mounts. I had to disconnect the three firewall connectors too. It is a tight fit getting the trans up and around the torsion bar support member. Aligning the bell housing was a big project. They are looking for 0.005 inches or less on the runout. One thing that really took a long time to figure out was I had extra thick motor mounts. They messed up my clearance. I got a pair of "Magnum mounts" from Mancini. They lowered the motor and got me the needed clearance. I also shimmed the motor forward a 1/4 inch by putting washers on the bolts of the motor mounts.

You will like the extra gear and the crisper shifts. The trans is lighter too. Running modern synthetic gear oil also gets more HP to the rear wheels.
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that .01 T.I.R. seems a little excessive doesn't it? they can't tell me the factory gets them that close in a high production situation. i dropped the center link today and got the motor down enough. had to cut the floor a bunch more also.
 
well i made a little head way today! i got the motor leaned back this morn so we could get the friggin thing slid in. on the initial test fit,we figured out i had to cut a piece out of the torsion bar mount. i got that all cut out and we put it BACK in t find i had to cut more of the hump. we let the trans rest on a jack and let it down enough to work on the hump after covering the trans up. i got the hump cut and jacked the trans back up and installed the crossmember. i guess the pics can tell the rest of the story. i had to walk away for a little bit! lol! while it is up in the car,i am going to fit the hump cover and get it ready to weld in.
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wracks71 said:
that .01 T.I.R. seems a little excessive doesn't it? they can't tell me the factory gets them that close in a high production situation. i dropped the center link today and got the motor down enough. had to cut the floor a bunch more also.
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Factory spec was 3 thou. and Keisler's is 5 thou.
 
nothing more to ad,YET! i got side tracked working on my jeep suspension,so i haven't touched it in almost two weeks. i hope to get back on it on my next four days off.
 
Keep up the good work, Eric! Looking good.

I saw a mention that we don't or can't get Tremec transmissions, but that is not correct. We still sell them regularly (every day). However, our new KEISLER Rallye Sport RS 5-Speed has taken off, and Tremec sales are way down. The RS product for your car is planned to be a NO CUTTING installation with correct driveline angle.

We'll know soon when the engineering design is released.

See you soon!
 
KEISLER said:
Keep up the good work, Eric! Looking good.

I saw a mention that we don't or can't get Tremec transmissions, but that is not correct. We still sell them regularly (every day). However, our new KEISLER Rallye Sport RS 5-Speed has taken off, and Tremec sales are way down. The RS product for your car is planned to be a NO CUTTING installation with correct driveline angle.

We'll know soon when the engineering design is released.

See you soon!
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some other dude mentioned that about the tremec supply. cutting my floor sucked! if i would have known about the RS trans,i may have waited!
 
just keep the pieces that you cut out of the floor, if you decided to go back to stock. not hard at all

80,000 miles, 200,000 miles, or a million miles, no real difference
 
Unless I am missing it, the Keisler RS package for the A-body is not up on their website yet.
 
340plot said:
just keep the pieces that you cut out of the floor, if you decided to go back to stock. not hard at all

80,000 miles, 200,000 miles, or a million miles, no real difference
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screw that! them pieces are scrap metal! this will not be back to an auto as long as i own it.
 
last week i toyed around with my floor plate to fit it before i pull the trans back out. thre hours of bending hammering and bitching! i wanted to get it formed so hopefully the carpet fits right,we'll see. other than welding it in the corners and to the car,this is it. i plan to pull the trans tomorrow and do some welding,planning to anyway.
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i got a little more done today! i got the slave cyl. mount installed,but i am going to have to modify the shock tower to get the actual slave cyl. in. the other thing has nothingto do with the trans,but since i had to put the new pedals in,i got the pushrod for my brakes installed correctly and got the brake light switch where it hits good now.
i'll attach a couple pics when i figure out how with our new PC.
 
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