• Welcome to the Contour Enthusiasts Group, the best resource for the Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique.

    You can register to join the community.

RWD transmission for Duratec V6?

The Five-Oh! said:
for the love of god no T5's haha

if you're going to do a custom bell housing and crap, use a TKO500/600, 3550, or T56.
Click to expand...

The TKO series(TKO/TKO500 or 600/3550) is notchy as all hell and noisy which is fine for a race car but putting one on a duratec... no. I have one in my Cobra for the added strength but honestly I hate how it is very hard to shift into 2nd gear quickly. The T-56 is fine but not necessary for a car that doesn't make a TON of power. The myth about 6 speeds that you have an extra gear is also oftentimes false. Like with the Cobra T-56 which has a 6th gear only very slightly deeper than 5th gear in many 5 speeds. The thing with both of them is that they are HEAVY and LARGE and in a swap car you very often won't have the room. The T-5 has a zillion gearsets availalbe and can be built to take pretty big power. Astro Performance makes a gearset for the T-5 that takes over 700 ft lbs and if you can get that much out of something you put in a Contour then more power to you(unless you are insane and put a LSX engine in there or something...).

Anyway, nothing at all wrong with a T-5 and it is one of the best transmissions out there due to its size, weight and oem/aftermarket support. It kind of sucks how much bad info there is out there on it. If you build them with the best gearsets you have a VERY strong VERY light transmission and in turn you have that much less parasitic loss from the small rotating mass compared to the bigger Tremecs. If I could do it all over again I would probably just have installed a built T-5 in my Cobra instead of the 3550 but the 3550 is fine for now and holds up to routine beatings whenever I drive the car lol.
 
To be fair, the T-5s capable of reliably handling big power and heavy abuse are relatively recent developments. The T-5 picked up a bad reputation for durability because it was being used far beyond its original design level. Even the 94-95 Mustangs had some serious engine calibration changes from the factory to protect the long-term durability of the T-5 used.

I'd venture that a RWD contour, using a Duratech 3.0L and a typical WC T-5 would probably be fine long term up to 350-375hp depending of course on how much it gets abused and the original condition of the T-5, lol.
 
The T5, with everything i looked into when i had a mustang, was not cost effective at all to build for power, it was much cheaper to go with a TKO trans. The T5 in my fox body, before the SC and other parts, started dying. The T5 in my friend's camaro is also on its last leg, and his car has never been beaten on. I just don't have much trust in the T5's durability in a stock form, and to build it up was never a cost effective route when considering other options.
 
Yeah, the stangs from 94/95(mine is a 95 so I know lol) have a tip in retard that pulls a ton of timing from the motor between shifts. This makes it alot less stressful on the trans during hard shifting although you give up alot time(and fun)wise. Ways to fix it are to downgrade to the foxbody computer, chip the SN95 computer or just powershift.

As far as the T5 goes, built ones are now actually very comparable to the TKOs and cheaper than a built T-56. I would not put a stock one behind a 375hp motor, even a duratec. At any rate, we'd have to wait for someone to do it to see. At this point I'm more concerend with my Cobra for RWD and I'll probably just do the 3.0L swap with a diy turbo and a built rod shifted MX-75 when I go nuts on the CSVT. A guy at my father in law's work has a 500+whp Civic hatch and runs 9s at the track with FWD so I think FWD in the CSVT is fine lol. Like I said, already have a RWD car that has probably the largest aftermarket out there except maybe the 350 small block.
 
ScottyDsntKnow said:
Yeah, the stangs from 94/95(mine is a 95 so I know lol) have a tip in retard that pulls a ton of timing from the motor between shifts. This makes it alot less stressful on the trans during hard shifting although you give up alot time(and fun)wise. Ways to fix it are to downgrade to the foxbody computer, chip the SN95 computer or just powershift.
Click to expand...

Yup. Glad you mentioned it as a downgrade to the A9L; too many people don't realize that the J4J1, and well, any EEC4 is significantly better platform than the EEC3, they just get hung up on a few of the calibration parameters and think the whole thing sucks. I'm glad the shortsightedness of switching back to the EEC3 is wearing off in the mustang crowd. Fwiw, I do know a thing or 3 about mustangs ;) I've paid my dues many times over in the Mustang world, lol.

As far as the T5 goes, built ones are now actually very comparable to the TKOs and cheaper than a built T-56. I would not put a stock one behind a 375hp motor, even a duratec. At any rate, we'd have to wait for someone to do it to see. At this point I'm more concerend with my Cobra for RWD and I'll probably just do the 3.0L swap with a diy turbo and a built rod shifted MX-75 when I go nuts on the CSVT. A guy at my father in law's work has a 500+whp Civic hatch and runs 9s at the track with FWD so I think FWD in the CSVT is fine lol. Like I said, already have a RWD car that has probably the largest aftermarket out there except maybe the 350 small block.
Click to expand...

First, in light of the application, I would never consider a built-up T56. They are very expensive, and not all that great anyway, hard to shift, durability isn't the best when run hard, and a typical OEM T56 is more than adequate to support more power than any driveable Duratec 3.0L has been able to produce. (I'm not counting that silly Duttweiler Focus wagon). I think a regular T5 would be fine given the Tq curves of typical high power Duratecs. Unless you're running nitrous, there just isn't hit of tq. If its for drag racing on really sticky tires, then I'd start wondering about the input shaft, and 2nd gear, but otherwise, I think it would be fine even at the elevated power levels. Certainly not OEM durability, but it would be decent enough. I've seen 500hp turbocharged 5.0L mustangs run stock T5s for long periods of time with no issues as long as the car isn't being abused. Heck, a few of them I've seen the blocks split in half before the T5 lets go.

My CSVT is certainly staying FWD, just because I'd rather have it as an enjoyable daily driver than a garage queen; and simply doing a 3.0L and some other upgrades to it nearly turned it into a garage queen, I don't want to make it worse ;)
 
Great update...

I spoke with David Godfrey. He also has a lot of information out there on cutom pistons and rods.
Duratec 3.0 Engine Swap - T5 Transmission Adapter

This is what it sounds like and I'm loving it.

He makes the Transmission adapter and it will work with the T5 and the TKO 600 bell housing. He said he can make it for me.

Cobra R Bellhousing with the TKO 600 transmission. I would have to get a custom flywheel. Which is about $2200. He has other contacts and when I'm intrested he is going to see if that price can go down. He has been running 6psi for 2.5 yrs with no issues and loves the engine. He also has the specs on the clutch that will take 500lbs or more. pair that up with the TKO 600 and man you got a great setup. He is going to email me more details and pictures tomorrow. If I find any information I will let you know. If anyone else intrested in the RWD setup PM me please... David is very very knowledgeable about the Duratec 3.0

Astroperformance.com - Your Manual Drivetrain Specialist
$2200 for a new tranny...

$376 for a new Cobra R Bellhousing
Clutch is unknown but once I get the cost for it I will let you guys know.

Right now all the prices are new but I will shop around for used or parts and the yard to see what I can get them for.

So it looks like the Tranny setup will be about $6000 - $7000 all brand new... Might be able to bring it down to $4000-$5000 with used parts, for the flywheel you can't do much about that. Hopefully with the other contact the price will go down and people intrested in it.
 
You're making this far more difficult(and expensive!) than it needs to be. I want you to stop thinking bellhousing adapter, and start thinking about adapting your existing bellhousing. No custom flywheels or expensive part, just a custom hubbed CDW-27 clutch disk with a t-5 spline. ;) PM me if you want to discuss this further, I've kept this off the boards for a reason.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top