Hello-

I was fortunate to be able to visit with "Red" at McLeod Industries today to talk with him about, and see, one of the new TKO's. Red put the new TKO-500 along side the old TKO to show me the differences. For those of you who may not be familiar with Red, he helped Tremec design the new TKO, he was an original member of SEMA Foundation Inc. (SFI), and he is known in the industry as one of the brightest guys around. Mcleod Industries specializes in clutches, pressure plates, flywheels, bellhousings, and related parts.

Hopefully, this information will help clear up questions you might have regarding the new TKO's. To some of you, this may be old information but here is what I noticed:

1) The new TKO has hook up locations for both a mechanical speedometer as well as an electric speedo (new). However, you will still need to purchase a speedometer gear adapter if you have a mechanical speedometer or a proper plug in connector if you have an electric speedometer.

2) There are new mounting holes tapped into the transmission tail housing that will line up with a GM transmission mount (new). However, the crossmember mounting location for the new TKO is identical to the old TKO meaning that you will still need to modify your crossmember. I was hoping that this would not be the case but it is.

3) The rear shifter that comes standard with the new TKO can be unbolted and rotated 180* (new) fairly easily which will result in moving the shifter position forward by 2 3/4" (from 19.5” to 16.75” from face of bellhousing).
4) A far as timing is concerned, per the people at Tremec, there is apparently a large shipment (200?) of TKO-500’s scheduled to arrive at Tremec’s Tennessee plant on April 22-23 +/-. Apparently the TKO-600’s are still on schedule to start arriving in Tennessee during the first half of May.

5) The new TKO looks really nice for whatever that's worth!

I hope this is helpful to you.

Jeff

Hi Jeff. I had a question about item 3. I will be installing one of these in my 68 camaro with a console. Do you mean that by rotating the shifter it will fit the factory console? Is this all there is necessary to change, or are there some internal changes that also need to be done.
Also, I haven't decided yet if I want to buy the TKO 500 or 600 due to the different first gear ratios for my application, but why is the TKO 500 rated lower (500 lb ft) if the only difference between the two is the 2.87 vs. 3.27 first and slightly different overdrive? Thanks,
John

John-
Good questions.
Here are your answers:
1) I have not personally tried to rotate the shifter 180* so I am going by what the people at Tremec have told me as well as my visual inspection of the TKO-500 when I say that it is "fairly easy" to do. The Tremec folks have told me that it is simply an un-bolt/re-bolt process without any internal changes which would make it "fairly easy". I intend to explore this myself as soon as I receive a TKO that I can experiment with - should be soon. I can't give you a more definitive answer until then but I would assume that it's not to complicated.

2) Again, according to Tremec, when compared to the TKO-500, the TKO-600's higher torque rating is due to it's different gear ratios only.

I hope this helps.
Jeff

Another update....

<good news> Wooohooo, the TKO-500s have arrived!
graemlins/hurray.gif
<bad news> They're all Ford versions!
:confused:

At least they are rolling in. Hopefully we'll have some GM TKO-500s in a few weeks.

If any of you are in a big hurry, we can convert a Ford to a GM unit for $250 (cost of parts, free labor).

And I just acquired a GM TKO with a 2" offset shifter if anyone is interested.

take care,