Two decades into the new millennium, it’s the undisputed Golden Age of performance. Not only can your order 1,000 reliable horsepower with nothing more than a phone and a credit card, but you can find the project to wrap around it just as easily.
But whether you buy a crate motor, an entire vehicle or have your dream quarter-mile car built for you, the very next step is finding the right transmission to put all that power to the wheels. And while Tremec has been building the most reliable manual transmissions in the business, there are two major features of your new drivetrain that’ll need to be addressed:
- Bellhousing Alignment: Your new Tremec manual transmission has been engineered to provide the driving experience you’ve come to expect from the best name in the business, but there’s a very important link in that chain of power that shouldn’t be overlooked: the bellhousing. Literally standing between the motor and the transmission, making sure the bellhousing is properly chosen and aligned is the difference between the strongest and weakest link in your new drivetrain chain. The tech experts at Tremec can guide you through the basic tools you’ll need and the procedure to align your bellhousing correctly.
- Driveline Installation: Once the bellhousing and transmission are in place on one end and the rearend has been mounted on the other, it’s time to spec your new driveline. While the correct universal joints and input shaft are necessary, there are three rules to making sure the driveshaft is balanced and will spin freely:
a) Universal joint operating angles at each end of a driveshaft should always be at least 1 degree.
b) Universal joint operating angles on each end of a driveshaft should always be equal within 1 degree.
c) For virtual vibration-free performance, u-joint operating angles should not be larger than 3 degrees