Revhendo
Well-Known Member
- Local time
- 12:06 PM
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2008
- Messages
- 1,765
- Reaction score
- 186
- Location
- Southern California
Well kids, it's time. The old '73 Bird has been sitting long enough. I got her down to the shop and I am going to start the transplant. I'll post pics as best I can as I go. I am doing this in my spare time so be patient.
What I've learned so far on doing a 440/4spd conversion into a smallblock/auto iso-car.
I checked on this one. You can use 74 and later B car B engine spool mounts on a A engine car. From what I have been able to measure though, it would appear the motor will end up a bit tall in the chassis. It's a geometry thing, but I think it's about a half inch, or a touch more. (I was a bit drunk through that portion of high school.)
I'm living this one. On the stearn urging of my clutch buddy/friend, I bought the 11 inch clutch setup for this combo. Flywheel to T/O bearing. NOW that I have the engine/trans together, my advice would be not to go with this setup.
1. The parts are more expensive.
2. Finding a bellhousing for an 11 inch clutch is a pain. Most of the ones I found were close to 400 bucks and rattle can restored. There are very nice repop bells for the 10.5 clutches for just over 200 bucks.
3. The larger flywheel moves the starter out farther which limits starter choices and...........
4. Header selection for large flywheel clutch cars is very limited. I'm pretty sure the reason for this is the starter being just that much farther out.
I am going to go with the shifter for a non-console car. It's all I could come up with at a reasonable price. I could have gone with the Pistol Grip shifter, but, that would have raised the cost of the project by almost a thousand dollars.
Now that I am on the down side of the spending spree and into the personal labor side of it. I would have to say that moneywise, I probably would've been better off going with one of the TKO five speed conversions. It would've been a few bucks more, but not by a whole lot. And I would've had the OD gear.
The other thing I learned is that if it wasn't for my "friends" cutting me "deals", I would have beer money left.........
Rev.
What I've learned so far on doing a 440/4spd conversion into a smallblock/auto iso-car.
I checked on this one. You can use 74 and later B car B engine spool mounts on a A engine car. From what I have been able to measure though, it would appear the motor will end up a bit tall in the chassis. It's a geometry thing, but I think it's about a half inch, or a touch more. (I was a bit drunk through that portion of high school.)
I'm living this one. On the stearn urging of my clutch buddy/friend, I bought the 11 inch clutch setup for this combo. Flywheel to T/O bearing. NOW that I have the engine/trans together, my advice would be not to go with this setup.
1. The parts are more expensive.
2. Finding a bellhousing for an 11 inch clutch is a pain. Most of the ones I found were close to 400 bucks and rattle can restored. There are very nice repop bells for the 10.5 clutches for just over 200 bucks.
3. The larger flywheel moves the starter out farther which limits starter choices and...........
4. Header selection for large flywheel clutch cars is very limited. I'm pretty sure the reason for this is the starter being just that much farther out.
I am going to go with the shifter for a non-console car. It's all I could come up with at a reasonable price. I could have gone with the Pistol Grip shifter, but, that would have raised the cost of the project by almost a thousand dollars.
Now that I am on the down side of the spending spree and into the personal labor side of it. I would have to say that moneywise, I probably would've been better off going with one of the TKO five speed conversions. It would've been a few bucks more, but not by a whole lot. And I would've had the OD gear.
The other thing I learned is that if it wasn't for my "friends" cutting me "deals", I would have beer money left.........
Rev.
Looking Good, I had thought about doing my guages in white, that really came out nice.
