30 chebbie....what tranny???

i'm midway through the 30 2 door sedan.......my dilemna...i am putting in na 54 235,split manifold.thickstun 2-1 intake,i have 308 gears in a donor diff....now what do i use for a ******? p/g,th350,t5,700r4..i don't have a lot of bucks here...help

 

I sold gear jammer a flakey 3 speed overdrive from a late 50s Chevy to put in his 31, seems to work good enough...the kid even drove it up to vegas, too bad the mag quit on the way home.

I'd recommend an old 3 speed, the non-synchro one used with the open driveline cars and trucks 55-64ish. find a sparkomatic shifter, and you're in business.

with those gears you don't need overdrive, and it's $$$ to adapt a th350 to the stovebolt 6

 

thanks squirrel...will give that some thought.

 

With your high rear gear and low budget, I'd suggest a Saginaw 4-speed with a low first gear. The 3.08 rear gear doesn't need an O/D for good highway RPMs (especially with a tall tire) and the 3.50 or 2.84 first gear will help you get it moving. Here's an ID chart from some other website. You'll need a '55-up bellhousing to make this work.

 

Atually the 2 ring saginaw has ratios of

1st 3.11
2nd 2.20
3rd 1.47
4th 1.00

just a slight correction.


jerry

 

T5's also bolt in. You'll want the truck ones since they have the more appropriate shifter location. A few stovebolt pages outline the swap, off the top of my head you'll need to shorten the input shaft like an inch, and use a clutch from an Astrovan.

 

probably also need to swap the rearend gears to 3.55 or 3.73 to use 5th gear!

 

Probably not if you get going fast enough. I've seen plenty of cars with 2.73's and overdrive that dont have an issue.

 

yeah, but I've watched a 31 chevy with a 235, 3.55 gears, and an ovedrive 3 speed have trouble going up slight grades at highway speeds.

 

yah, but with gears that low (2.73) and an OD, you will be crusing on the freeway with the motor running under the power curve and have no torque....heading up hill

 

bttt