Im doing a T5 swap soon and was wondering If I need a block plate, what does it do and where does it go i dont think I have seen any block plate mentioned in any T5 swap articles but I saw someone selling one in a T5 conversion kit.
i have a t5 fromt the factory and it has a block plate. basically it is about 1/8 of an inch thick and goes between the bellhousing and the block. i'm not really sure what it does, i think 1 purpose of it is to act like a shim for the starter. i would think your gonna need it if your doing the swap.
Your block plate positions the starter in the bell housing, I beleive you have to have it. It goes between the flywheel and block, if I remember right.
as far as I know all 302 based blockplates for the T-5 are the same. One note of caution though- do not overtorque the bellhousing to block bolts or you can easily warp the blockplate causing it to hit the flywheel.
i think the auto already has a blockplate, but it is larger than the t-5 one, you WILL need a t-5 specific block plate... and they can be had for pretty cheap off mail-order, like 50-60 bucks from what i remember...