TKO600 Install in my SPF

Velox · #1 (**permalink**) 11-08-2006, 03:31 PM

I had decided I needed to change out the TKOII that was in my SPF as it had the 3.27 first gear which made it essentially useless for stop and go traffic driving for me

I decided to go with the TKO600 having had good experiences with this trans in another car and as it had good HP/Torgue ratings and was available with the 2.87 first gear (TCET 4617). I got it from JimiG and was very impressed - superfast shipping etc. Doing this swap without help in my basement with the car up on stands and using various jacks for transmission support I had to proceed very slowly and double check everything. Well I got to the point of mating the trans to the engine and could not wiggle it anywhere close

This was really amazing as the TKOII and TKO600 have the same case, or so I thought

Finally I did the unthinkable... RTFM (read the f*****g manual) and there it was... the newer TKO has a vertical brace extension below the rear tailshaft behind the cross member mount that is not casted in the TKOII tailshaft... This has to be "relieved" to allow proper installation, at least for my SPF it did. I thought I'd post this in case any SPF people are thinking of changing transmissions - the cross brace on my SPF makes for a very tight installation space

Here is the RTFM that saved me:

and here is the result after a little "relieving work" on the new TKO

Tony Aprile · #2 (**permalink**) 11-08-2006, 05:41 PM

I did the same swap with the TKO II and the TKO600 for the 600 ft/lbs of torque rating and the gearing, 3.27 first gear sucked....and the .68 overdrive was too much of a drop between 4th and 5th.. My only other change was to swap out the 3.73's in the rear to 3.27's. Now it's a pleasure to drive in traffic and still has a good top end.

Tony