I installed an AOD to replace my C4 a few years ago. These years have been full of trouble and I am fed up with the AOD. I am now considering a manual shift, preferably one with overdrive.
What options do I have?
What are the challeges?
Clutch pedal?
Vibration etc, but I have shut down that topic after 1 year of posting here and many repairs. I also heard AOD sucks HP.
What manual shift options do I have?
you an swap to a C4 and use a gear vendors OD unit if you want over drive. or you can change the AOD valve body to one from lentech or silver fox. or you an swap to a manual transmission.
you have plenty of alternatives. four speeds you have the top loader, and the borg-warner T10. five speeds you have the T5, and other tremec five speeds, along with the richmond five speed. for a six speed you have the richmond rod six speed, and the tremec T56. how much do you want to spend?
no real challenges actually. the clutch pedal is easy enough to find and deal with, clutch linkage is also easy enough. in fact all the bits are available from a variety of sources, and there are bits available so that you can build systems cheaply. for instance dazecars has the bits you need to build a nice hydraulic clutch system for the T5.
the T5 is probably the cheapest way to go, they are plentiful, and have decent strength. remember to get the bell housing that goes with the T5 you select.
T5 is going to be the most economical option with overdrive. The TKOs and T-56 will require modification of the transmission tunnel to get the right pinion angles. It will bolt right up and all you need is a T-5 crossmember which you can buy for $150 or just fab up yourself. No vibrations and absolutely pain free install, the worst part of the install was getting the pedals set up correctly and bleeding my hydraulic clutch. The swap can easily be done in a weekend. The only drawback with the T-5 is it can't take much power but you should be fine with your setup. I have 5000 miles on my setup with 400rwhp and haven't had any issues, but I baby my transmission no sticky launches or powershifts. I would recommend a cable clutch setup like mustangsteves, if I could have done that I would have. I have a hydraulic clutch which works fine now, but what a nightmare it was to bleed to get running right.