Most people that are upgrading to either the TR3650 or TR6060 are doing so because they are boosted and the T5 can't take the extra power very well and it shifts about as well as a Mack truck. Personally my mileage stayed the same when I did the swap to a TR6060 but I'm running 4:10s and that puts 6ths very close to were 5th was with the stock 3:31s and T5. So if the TR6060 uses any more power it is very very minimal.

 

I doubt it uses any extra. The gear tolerances in the 6060 appear to be rather generous (hence the occasional rollover noise). If anything I'd say the 6060 is likely a bit more free internally.

 

Made one further mod to the transmission swap setup that I think is worth sharing.

The adaptor plate thickness (a half inch) pushes the transmission back about the same amount from where it would sit in a car with a modular V8. Not really a big deal, but it was causing me one issue and one concern, due to my particular setup.

The issue was I'm using the MGW GT500 shifter (which is AWESOME btw). Unfortunately unlike the floaty rubber bushed Ford TR-6060 shifters, the MGW was found to be very sensitive to that 1/2" offset. It wasn't left with enough room to be fully free to slide in the transmission tunnel opening with drivetrain movement, and would occasionally pop out of gear into neutral if I was in 3rd or 5th and hit a very harsh road bump.

The other concern was that the GT500 driveshaft I'm using from DSS specifies a measurement between 3.25" and 3.75" between two parts of the CV joint housing on it. Mine was measuring just outside of spec at 3.125" due to the CV slide being compressed by the adaptor offset. Frank at DSS verified this should actually be okay, but still I would have liked to be closer to the middle of their spec than falling just outside.

Giving the whole matter some thought over the past few weeks, I came up with what I feel is a fairly elegant solution: move the engine, and hence the transmission forward a 1/2"...

I checked under the car, and around the front of the engine, and nowhere could I find anyplace where shifting the drivetrain forward by a 1/2" would cause a clearence issue or other problem, so to work:

I picked up a set of Prothane Bullet engine mounts off eBay. I disassembled these to separate the bullet mount portion from the plate that bolts to the subframe. I then took measurements of the mounting plates, so that I could reproduce the correct dimensions, but changing one thing: the hole that the poly bushing fits into would get moved from the center to 1/2" closer to one end of the piece.

I then used emachineshop.com to draft up the new mounting plates and have them produced. I also made two additional changes in the process. I removed the decorative milled out depressions on the top of the Prothane brackets, as those always struck me as just a place for dirt to get trapped, and I had the new plates powdercoated in black rather than leaving them bare aluminum color.

Here's a side by side shot of the Prothane bracket next to the one I had made up:



As you can see, pretty much identical except for the poly mount position. Here's one of the new mounts assembled next to a stock one:



Installed the new mounts this afternoon. Everything went fine, and the test drive showed the issue with the linkage has been nicely fixed. Shifting overall was even better as getting the factory hydromounts out of there limits the drivetrain slop as well. There's a bit more engine vibration transmitted, especially on a cold start, but nothing obnoxious, and it smoothes out once the engine is warm.

Here's one of the mounts in place (need to detail the lower frame based on the pic):



One additional benefit is that this will also unload the transmission crossmember mount (the crossmember has to be drawn up by the bolts, as the hole in the rubber transmission mount doesn't line up quite perfectly due to the adaptor thickness. This really isn't a "problem", Nice Pony ran his for something like 100K with the bushing loaded with no issues, but still better to not have the offset load on the mount).

 

Nice fix for this issue. I thought about doing something similar to that on mine but I now have a BMR K-Member that has it's own urethane motor mount bushings and the way they are setup will not allow this modification.

 

Very impressive work Paul.

 

Thanks. I'm really happy with how it turned out.

 

Just wanted to add one further detail, in case anyone else wants to use the MGW TR-6060 shifter.

It is a VERY precise unit, and in one case maybe a little too precise. I've been running fine, but the past few weeks started having annoying problems getting the transmission into reverse on a cold start in the mornings (it would go in with some effort, but tended to pop out under power), once the engine/drivetrain is warm the issue disappears.

What I eventually figured out is that there's not a lot of leeway built into the MGW aluminum plate included that seals the top of the transmission tunnel, and includes the rubber boot that seals the shifter shaft coming up into the cabin.

The alignment was fine as long as the weather was above 40 degrees, but let the car cold soak overnight on a cold day, and the drivetrain would shrink in length just enough so the boot assembly on the plate would interfere with pushing forward into reverse.

Solution was simply to remove the plate, and using a step drill increase the mounting hole size in it to allow the plate to be shifted forward a bit. Didn't need much (only about 1/8") to get it set so everything was happy, cold or warm,