It looks fairly compact, so it should be swap friendly.  I would not be the guinea pig though.  The original 3550s had some teething issues if I recall, and I'd be curious to see what people think of the shift feel, as that's been a problem with Tremecs forever. 

Raymond_B wrote:

TKOPerformance wrote:

It looks fairly compact, so it should be swap friendly.  I would not be the guinea pig though.  The original 3550s had some teething issues if I recall, and I'd be curious to see what people think of the shift feel, as that's been a problem with Tremecs forever. 

You're gonna' have to change your screen name
 

Heh, it is confusing.  It starts with TKO and I know a lot about transmissions...

Actually its left over from an old side business I ran TK is my initials, O stood for Original.  That business did in fact rebuild and improve primarily transmissions, transfer cases, and rear ends. 
 

Heard they fit with no tunnel modification.  Just not sure if its worth spending $2800 on a transmission for a 350hp 302.

I have raced my 95 Mustang GT for 18 years with the Tremec TKO. Early on shifting was interesting, but may truck driving days paid off with the techniques to double clutch and sync all those speeds. Then TKO recommended some carbon synchronizers and things got better/easier. Guys I race with have had many new trannys in their cars and always carry a spare. At year 15 my original TKO lost 3rd gear in a spectacular fashion. Other than changing the synchronizers that was first failure. Most of the guys in my class have regular T5 failures even with all the super gear sets and high dollar rebuilds. My 65 has more than another 100 HP than the race car since there are no rules. So I think I will try the TKX for it.

Yea the first TKO I had was a 3550 with a TKO tag on it which meant it was supposed to have upgraded steel in the gears and such. And yes it got shifted at 7500 with a strong arm and lasted a lot of years and it also got hard down shifts which is when the 3rd finally let go. The only time it was apart was to put in the carbon synchros and it went several more years until 3rd said enough! I always ran the GM synchro fluid in it based one where I bought it. I sat in the paddock a lot of Saturday evenings dinking beer watching my competition change out T5's for the Sunday race.

Road racing in this part of the woods is quite tough. The competitors and the tracks are very challenging for the hardware. I am going on my direct data and it says the T5 ain't up to 500HP, or 430HP in a 3300 pound car on a tough road course being chased by the best. My situation is that I am not willing to swap trannys every weekend to to keep things going. The TKO does that nicely and I am still there to keep those guy honest. And most importantly, Have fun without crazy amount  of work.

DC wrote:

Road racing in this part of the woods is quite tough. The competitors and the tracks are very challenging for the hardware. I am going on my direct data and it says the T5 ain't up to 500HP, or 430HP in a 3300 pound car on a tough road course being chased by the best. My situation is that I am not willing to swap trannys every weekend to to keep things going. The TKO does that nicely and I am still there to keep those guy honest. And most importantly, Have fun without crazy amount  of work.

We're not going to reach an agreement on this, because the fact that not a single T5 I built for any racing application, including D1 drift racing, which is brutal on transmissions, ever came back says that if the builder knows what he's doing they can work.  Now it could be a lack of anyone getting back to me and just going to another trans.  As I knew these would be used for racing I was always clear that there was no warranty on them, but that doesn't mean anything to some people. 

Don't get me wrong, the Tremec from an inherent strength standpoint is a superior design, basically because Tremec learned so much from the T5.  They moved the shafts further apart to prevent case flex, they beefed up the mainshaft to prevent flex, they made the gears larger and from better material, and eventually mandated you swap to a 26 spline input shaft to prevent failures.  But there's still a fair amount of T5 in there.  They used the needle roller bearings under the speed gears, the high strength/low weight case design, the internal rail shifting, the 5/R layout & design, and ran them in ATF.  They should have copied the synchro design too, but I'm wondering if there was patent issues that prevented it, as I can't remember exactly when they acquired the T5, but I'm pretty sure in the early years it was still made by Borg/Warner as Tremec was making the 3550 and original TKO. 

Last edited by TKOPerformance (11/14/2020 7:16 PM)

Used quite a lot actually.  The countershaft support plates that are now common and popular came specifically from road racing where guys were experiencing 5th gear failures on long straights pulling 5th gear at high MPH and RPM.  The original plate was designed by either JTR (Jaguars That Run) or 5speeds.com, depending on who you believe.  Most of the ones out there now are knock offs made in China if you buy them from eBay, etc. 

No argument at all.  I would never say the design of the T5 was as good as the TKO; if it was I'd wonder why Tremec had sold so many TKOs.  Like I said, its an inherently better design, part of that owing the the fact that they moved the shafts farther apart.  This allowed the gears to be physically larger, and larger gears have a larger tooth contact area, which maintains proper gear mesh better when torque starts flexing the case, mainshaft, etc.  Tremec was also not constrained by cost to the extent Borg/Warner had been when choosing gear material.  This allowed them to use a better alloy, which further improved strength. 

What I'm saying is that the T5 can be made to live under the same HP/torque/traction as a TKO if its built properly.  Cost wise its probably a wash on the trans, but there are typically savings not having to swap other parts you have to change when going to a Tremec.  Also there are times when class rules prevent you from being able to run a trans that was not factory installed in the chassis you are running.

Another major factor is driver skill.  A bad driver can break anything, and I'd bet a lot of those guys breaking their built T5s would find a way to break a TKO. 

The rules I run to spec the ratios. They are basically the T5 ratios from the Fox body days. The easily available 4 speeds T10s  M22s and such seem to die too. It took me almost 15 years to break a TKO so I will stick with that. Yes there would be a weight advantage to a most 4-speeds but the ones that hold up well enough are very pricey! There are a couple of hoses now making correct ratio gear sets for them. 

As I sit here I've been enjoying everyones viewpoints, and my biggest concern with the T5 has been the power and torque rating, really that is why I haven't pulled the trigger on one. Now comes along TKX really it fills all the checkmark for me . can handle a bunch of torque and you can beat on it.  ( hopefully) we will see

Interesting, it seems to actually be a little more compact that either the T5 or the TKO.  I'd like to tear one apart, because its pretty obvious that the design is a fairly radical departure.  One thing that immediately leaps out at me is that it seems like it has a midplate like a T10/M20/M21/M22. 

I still think I'd wait a bit on buying one.  My thoughts on anything new is let other people be the guinea pig.