My T5 swap - Project wrap-up and pics

Well. the T5 swap was finished about a month ago and I finally got some pictures together for a project wrap-up post.

Overall I'm very happy with the outcome. The 5 speed is a heck of a lot of fun to drive and makes it feel like a whole new car. Plus, the overdrive is a godsend on the highway with 3.73's. With the automatic I'd be running 3000 rpm at 60mph. With the T5 in 5th I'm down to about 2000rpm at 60mph. The noise is much quieter from the engine not revving so high and mileage has gone up a good 20%.

My only complaint is the amount of legroom with the manual. Now I understand why I keep seeing these threads about lowering and/or moving the seats back.

Total cost for this swap was about $1350

- $700 for used T5. This was sold to me as everything I'd need to swap an auto out for a manual in a fox body. In hindsight the extra parts like the fox body pedal assembly weren’t useful to me and I should have just bought the transmission, bell housing, shifter, and output yoke.
- $150 to have the fox body flywheel resurfaced and the unbalance changed to 28oz (came with the transmission but could have bought a new one for only a few $$ more than what the machining cost me).
- $200 for a new king cobra clutch kit.
- $150 for junkyard aerostar aluminum drive shaft and the cost to have it shortened.
- $40 for used clutch pedal from ebay (lucked out)
- $60 new brake pedal pad, clutch pedal pad, clutch pedal trim, brake pedal trim.
- $50 for shifter boot and bezel
- $40 for fox body clutch cable.
- $30 for steeda firewall cable adjuster.
- $40 fluids, paint, other misc supplies.

Here’s a pic of the cleaned up T5 beside the old FMX. The FMX looks huge beside the T5 and was almost double the weight.

Here’s a picture of the fox body flywheel that I used. The machine shop drilled a bunch of holes in the weight in order to lower the unbalance from 50oz to 28oz. The nice thing about swapping from an automatic is that I was able to use my original starter.

For a crossmember I just modified my old FMX crossmember. All it needed was to be lowered approx 1.25” I was able to use a factory FMX transmission mount but had to flip it around backwards and slot the holes in the FMX crossmember in order to get it to move ahead 0.75” to where the T5 mounting pad was. You can buy aftermarket crossmembers for this swap but I’m always trying to save money for new parts.

Here’s a pic of the FMX crossmember after modification

And here’s a picture of the driveshaft. It’s an aluminum shaft originally from an Aerostar minivan. I had a local shop sorten it nearly 12” for use in the mustang. The driveshaft only cost $25 from the junkyard, but cost $125 to have it shortened L It still worked out way cheaper than a custom shaft and only ended up costing more $50 more than it would have cost to have my stock shaft shortened

Here’s a picture of the ebay clutch pedal I bought. I got lucky and snapped 1 up with a $39.99 “buy it now” price. In this picture you can see how I have modified the clutch pedal so that it can be used to pull the clutch cable.

For a clutch cable I shortened a fox body cable and installed it with a steeda firewall clutch adjuster for easy pedal adjustment.

I kept my original pedal assembly and brake pedal, but needed to cut down the brake pedal so that it would fit beside the clutch pedal. Once cut down to size, the original manual brake pedal pad and trim slipped right on perfectly.

Here’s a pic of the pedals as they are today:

And finally, here's a pic of the new shifter. I used the original style chrome bezel and 3 speed manual boot with the factory fox body shifter handle and knob. It looks great in there I just need to repaint the shaft. While the stock shifter works well, I do find that I’m reaching a bit when I go to put it in 5th. I will probably change the shifter handle 1 of these days. But for now it’s perfectly driveable and since 5th is rarely used, I hardly notice when I do have to reach for it.