I understand. I like the idea that I don't have to weld a seam all along the floor, but in the end a one piece tunnel welded all the way around probably is less welding in the end. Time will tell.
I don't think the 8HP tunnel is anywhere close to the size of one that fits a T56 in my case either. The T56 seems to be much taller just looking at how far up into the firewall my cuts are compared to yours.
If I were to do a one piece tunnel, I would consider a tunnel out of a late model Mopar like @Cool Hand did here.
But I wouldn't want it to go so far back. And it would be buckets only.
And no idea where I would even source the tunnel.
You won't have to take the tunnel modifications back as far as they did with that late model tunnel, but they do have to go back pretty far. Mine goes pretty much all the way back to the front of the floor reinforcement for the rearmost bucket seat mounts. The removable panel behind my shifter is open in the center so the shifter (not the handle) can be in place when the transmission is installed or removed. I did that so that I could install/remove the transmission by itself without having to angle it down like 1° at a time while I was sliding it back out of the bell. Otherwise the shifter stub would hit the tunnel. The way mine is set up it can come pretty much straight back until the input shaft is almost entirely out of the bell before you have to start dropping it down. If anything, if I were to do it again I would probably take that opening back another couple inches.
I run the A-body console in mine, it sits further back than the factory location to line the shifter up with the console. Doesn't leave a ton of space for the Procar seats, but there is some.
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