Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

cabc26b wrote:To address a comment made earlier - with the exception of the transmission mount ( fabricated ) all the associated parts were bought as new parts - bell housing, clutch disc, transmission, tail-shaft , shifter, yoke to driveshaft etc.

I'd really be interested to get more details on the parts used, specific parts numbers, suppliers etc. With this is potentially is a close to bolt in solution as we're ever going to get.

The parts have been discussed, rwd.com bell, Saab annular/concentric slave. And some elbow grease.
What have I missed?

Mark, the supplier for mine and cabc26 is Modern Driveline. George (cabc26) can correct me but I
believe he ordered MD-552-0251-FS-F package, using the MD-301-4010 shifter.

I tried to order the same a while back but they were out of stock on the T5Z. So, I had a local
builder build a T5z for me (remember, it's a 2.95 first and 2nd, 3rd and 4th are the same as our
semi close boxes).

Bellhousing is from rwdmotorsports. It mates a T5 to a Kent block.

I then ordered the MDL tailshaft and shifter. They need to go together.
Tailshaft is MD-510-1001. The shifter is MD-510-4010.

The tailshaft is basically a Chevy S10 with a Ford shifter 'box'. My mounting is simple and
pictured below. I turned the stock mount backwards and bolted it to a 'cantivered' mount that's
bolted to the tailshaft. There's rubber between the two.

One has a choice of .63 or .73 5th. I chose .73

In my opinion, the shifter can go more forward than this setup and MDL has a shifter for that
purpose but I chose to make my own, as pictured. Comes out exactly as stock.

I had the driveshaft custom made. I simple brought a stock driveshaft to the builder and asked
them to replicate it except it needs a 28 spline yoke. The 6 cylinder 66 Mustang automatic is a nice
narrow yoke to use.

George used a Tilton throwout bearing that he currently had. I also went with a Tilton 60-6104, as
recommended by Tilton for a 8 1/2" bent finger diaphram pp. I also changed the master to 3/4" as
recommended. I'm sure any hydraulic throwout bearing could be used as long as it fits the T5 input
shaft bearing retainer. It's larger than the 4 speed one.

One caveat: George didn't have to shorten the input shaft but I had to. 1/4" off the front and 1/4" off
the front of the splines.

Any clutch place can make a disc that is 8 1/2" with the standard ford hub of 28 spline 1 1/16" diameter.

The exhaust is a challenge because this gearbox is big and the tailshaft is fat. Almost no room. I've
got a temporary exhaust on now using flexpipe until I figure out what kind of collector I need. My Dave
Bean big bore headers point straight into the gearbox and I have a cobbled collector kinked up to
point in the right direction.

It's not quite plug and play. You have to decide how to drive the speedo. George went electronic which
requires some frame mods and I chose GPS.

Very interesting, thanks for the information Greg.

Can you be specific about which T5? Mostly for the input shaft.

T5s were in a wide variety of cars and even are different within a car. Mustangs for example have at least 5 different T5s.

I just picked my GForce T5 up from there today! lol (for my '65 Mustang Fastback)

-Kyle

Kyle, I wish I could. I know there are many variants and maybe George can chime in as to what MDL
installed in his. Mine is for a 289/302 and the diameter is perfect for the larger input bushing that
the close ratio (I think) takes, ie, the .670 i.d. Just needed shortening by a quarter of an inch.

Quite detailed and very interesting, thank you ! These boxes and components are probably more difficult to source in Europe, but the end result appear very convincing to whomever willing to embark on that journey.

As for the exhaust, even the Lotus 5 speed requires a modification to route it aside, I would not consider that as a major fettling compared to the rest of the mod.

nmauduit wrote:As for the exhaust, even the Lotus 5 speed requires a modification to route it aside, I would not consider that as a major fettling compared to the rest of the mod.

Pardon the tangent, and I assume that that refers to 2-seaters, but since some Plus 2s came with the five, is this true when retrofitting a five to a Plus 2 that was originally equipped with a four?

I am using the Ford 10 spline , and a Ford 2.3 turbo 4 cyl clutch disk that’s the same size as the 2000e disk . The disk is available from most parts suppliers.

The Veg wrote:

nmauduit wrote:As for the exhaust, even the Lotus 5 speed requires a modification to route it aside, I would not consider that as a major fettling compared to the rest of the mod.

Pardon the tangent, and I assume that that refers to 2-seaters, but since some Plus 2s came with the five, is this true when retrofitting a five to a Plus 2 that was originally equipped with a four?

2 seaters also came with the Lotus 5 speed (though not many initially), but headers and exhausts are not made specifically for this option as far as I know... in any case, when I installed a Lotus 5 speed gearbox in my '68 S4se I also installed a fast road TTR line, and that required a little fettling, which I did more or less according to the description in the Hollnagel paper.