Bell Housing & Clutch for 351W and Top Loader

As far as bellhousings go, I believe if you get one with a "T" as the third digit in the part number, it'll be too deep as it's a truck part. I'm not sure if there were any 4-speeds offered for SBFs in trucks, so I may be off base. Of course if I'm wrong, that it's actually no problem as you couldn't mess it up, now could you?

Now another thing to look out for as far as the toploader itself goes is, tailshaft length and input shaft length and input & output shaft size. Galaxies and other big cars and trucks have the longer tailshaft, so you may need a shortened driveshaft. Most of these longer housings have multiple bosses to move the shifter forward however. www.4speedtoploaders.com is David Kee's website and has breakdowns on part numbers and such.

The FE powered trucks that had toploaders had the deeper bellhousing that required a longer input shaft. If you have one of these and they did make a deeper SBF bellhousing, this might be the easiest solution, although the better one would be to have the tip of the pilot shaft shortened (this is what's longer). If you decide to go to a steel scattershield (I recommend), you typically have to clearance for long tube headers and sometimes the clutch linkage. Usually these go for around $100 on Ebay and if they're modified, the SFI rating on them is no longer any good (and it's only good for a couple of years anyway).

There are big input/output shafts and small input/output shafts. The big I/O trannies came in BBF powered vehicles and the small I/O typically came in small block vehicles although the 390 toploaders are small I/O trannies. Typically the big I/O trannys have a 2.32 first gear ratio called a "closed ratio" tranny. The small I/O trannys typically have a 2.78 first gear ratio and are called an "open ratio" tranny.

As far as clutches go, I prefer the long style clutch and the stock z-bar setup. Some guys like the diaphram clutch and the cable setup. It's more preference than anything I guess.

David Hearne aka D.Hearne probably knows as much about Toploaders as anyone on this board, hopefully he'll chime in and put in his two bits.

GP001 is probably the most experienced when it comes to putting in a hydraulic clutch if you want to go that route. He has a pretty slick setup on his 6-speed tranny. He also used a scattershield.

You can use a bellhousing from a 289, 302, or 351w. The best one would be from a 302 or a 351w that is made for an 11" clutch. Of course you should also acquire a flywheel for an 11" clutch (or what eversize your bellhousing is made for.)

If your son is going to drag it, aftermarket solutions would be best. Lakewood makes a bulletproof bellhousing that is cheap insurance on the street. They are made to handle 11" or smaller clutches.

As far as clutches go, any major manufactures should work. Specifically check out the Centerforce Dual Friction.

1320stang said:

The FE powered trucks that had toploaders had the deeper bellhousing that required a longer input shaft. If you have one of these and they did make a deeper SBF bellhousing, this might be the easiest solution, although the better one would be to have the tip of the pilot shaft shortened (this is what's longer).

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I think its the other way around; the big block inputs had a shorter pilot bearing snout. I believe it was something like a 3/4" snout for big blocks and 1 1/4" for smallblocks.

Larry's got you on the right track. The 390 specific Toploaders came in both close ratio ( 2.32 1st gear) and wide ratio ( 2.78 1st), if I'm not mistaken. The 390 toploader is the one with the small input and short front snout and is the one that'll give you problems if used with either a pickup truck bell for the FE bigblocks, or a small block bell, since all the small block toploaders had the longer snout. If you've got a Galaxie toploader, you're better off trading it for a Stang/Fairlane one, the Galaxie unit uses a completely different trans mount and won't bolt up to a C-4 cross member. As for shifters and parts, Hurst still makes everything you need, but to make the swap a hassle free deal without cutting the floor, you need the correct tailhousing for your car along with the correct shifter and installation kit for your application. For example, if you happen to have a 390 topoader ( and this is aside from the problems with the shorter front snout) it's shifter mounting holes are farther forward than one from a small block application. But there were also some tail housings with both patterns, in that case you'd use the rear set. If you have a big block Toploader, this one has a larger diameter input ( 1-3/8" vs the small block/390's 1-1/16") and you'd be well off to sell it ( they bring big bucks on ebay) to someone who needs this one for the torque of a big block. And don't think that the small block one is weak either, I used to run them behind both a 390 and later a 427, and never broke either from the torque. The small ones from what I've learned over the years are good for up to about 600 hp or ft/lbs torque.