T56 conversion experience
05-06-2014, 09:39 PM
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T56 conversion experience Let me start by saying that LS1tech has been a good resource for lots of things I've done to my car over the years (bought it in 03) and this big project was no exception. The point of this post is for the guys on the fence about doing something like this who like to gather all the info they can, so for those guys I thought I'd share how the last few months have gone with the car.
A little backround on me and the car, I'm a full time technician at a Chevy dealership, I'm not the go to tech for transmission work, my strong points are electrical and driveability. So when it came to building the trans I failed and sent that to Tick Performance, more on that to come. My Camaro is a 2002 that I've had over 10 years, went 10.6x multiple times on spray, Forged 370ci nitrous engine that I built, Performabuilt 4L60, Moser 9" and all the other supporting mods. I built, installed, and did all the tuning on the car myself, alignments, everything. Well I have been getting bored with the drag strip, and really didn't want to modify the car (cut it up, or install a cage) to try and go faster then 10s, or make it harder to drive on the street. It is and always has been my weekend toy, not a trailer queen.
On to the swap, I started by removing the column and the shifter. Once the trim, console, and steering shaft is out of the way these parts aren't that hard to remove. With the steering column out you can take the cable off that keeps the key from turning off until the shifter is in park. Its just one screw and easy to get off the ignition switch. Then there is plenty of room to remove the pedals and bolt up your new ones. I bought pedals from a 6 cylinder car not thinking about it being drive by wire, so I had to cut the gas pedal off my old brake pedal, it was not as bad as it sounds and if you look up in there you can't tell if its done right. With the pedals in place it's very easy to see where the clutch master cylinder hole needs to be cut. I used a hole saw that was too small, and then used a burr in my die grinder to oval the hole making as close to factory as possible. I used a Hawks 3rd Gen adjustable master cylinder (exactly the same as a Tick), it is not easy to get any master cylinder in an f-body but already having the steering column out helped a lot, the larger adjustable cylinders fit tight to the frame. Don't forget you'll also have to find a clutch reservoir. With this stuff done I put the column back in.
Now it's time to get the auto trans out of the car, now I could make the hole for the shifter. It's pretty obvious where this will go because the top of the trans tunnel has a flat section, I bought a floor cut section of tunnel out of a donor car so I would have the factory flange and holes. This was trimed down and fitted so I could cut out that section and weld this peice in. With all of that fixed up I need to change some wiring. What I did was take the pink power wire out of the A4 trans connector and splice it to the reverse lockout solenoid pigtail, the other side of the reverse lock out I connected to the tan/blk wire in the A4 connector, I then removed pin 42 (same tan/blk wire) in the c2 (red) PCM connector and moved it to pin 44 to control the reverse lock out. I then lengthend the speed sensor wires because its further back on the T56. I didn't bother with the skip shift solenoid, but it's easy to hook up as there is a white wire in the A4 harness that already goes to the correct pin in the PCM and you would connect the other side to the same pink wire the reverse lock out is hooked up to for power. Next is the back up lights this needs to run up under the console as those wires hooked up to the automatic shifter, its the brown and light green wires, polarity doesn't matter. While we're talking about the shifter there are 4 other wires on there that need to be addressed, take the purple/white wire and the dark green wire and run it down to the clutch pedal start safety switch (if you don't want to have to push in the clutch you can just connect these together. The last 2 wires on the shifter are orange/black and black/white, these need spliced together so the hatch release button will work. The last wiring to be done involves the clutch pedal position switch, the factory switch has 4 terminals on it, terminals A and B cancel the cruise, and terminals C and D send a ground signal to the PCM when the pedal is up. I haven't found one of these switches to install at this time, but so I can install one in the future I took the purple wire off the brake pedal switch (used to send a signal to the PCM for TCC control) and grounded it, then moved terminal 33 (same purple wire) in connector C1 Blue over to terminal 32. I can splice the switch into this circuit later, but this makes the cruise control work, and keep the tune in the correct "in gear" tables. All of the wiring is done assuming the tune will be changed to that of a T56 car.
Now that I was at this point it's basically just a transmission install. Install the flywheel, clutch, and pressure plate, I used a Monster level 2 kit. Bought a new bellhousing from Hawk's Ebay store, a new GM slave. Decided to go with a UMI torque arm relocation crossmember like I had for the auto, but the rubber trans mount is the same. Don't forget to get trans to bellhousing bolts, your original bell to engine bolts are the same. I never had to move the exhaust to pull the auto, but to install the T56 the trans has to start off much further back to get the input shaft in so the exhaust will have to come off.
For a T56 I bought one from Ebay that was broken, obviously this is a risky chance to take and mine had a bearing failure on the input shaft. There were multiple issues with the trans and after I rebuilt it, it was not right. There was far too much noise and it didn't shift as good as I wanted, so I decided to send it to Tick Performance rather then try again. I opted for their level 2 rebuild so the internals would get cryotreated. Now that everything is back in the car I can say that I made a wise choice. It works as good or better then any T56 I have driven. They are obviously busy for a reason, as it took 4 weeks to get it back, but worth the wait. Needed a few more parts then what typically come with their rebuild so I ended up spending $2500 with Tick. If I had it to do over I'd have just bought a T56 Magnum conversion that a few companies offer as a direct replacement, but thats the chance you take.
Once the trans was in I bled the clutch, filled it with fluid, installed the driveshaft, secured the wires under the car, and put in the shifter. I picked up a new console top plate, ash tray lid, and shift boot, then swapped over the other little parts, and put my interior back together. And thats pretty much it. There are many ways to go about doing one of these swaps, you can get mostly used parts and put it together much cheaper then I did, or you can build it like I did with mostly new parts, and high quality parts so it can be abused without falling apart. I spent in excess of $6000 on this swap, but like I said it's high quality new parts and they are not cheap.
After putting some break in miles on the car all I can say is that these parts live up to the hype. Tick did a great job on the trans, it works just as good as a T56 ever could. The Monster clutch, and adjustable master cylinder offer a firm but liveable pedal that work beautifully. The hurst shifter is a nice part and works better then any stock one I'd driven. Over all I'm very pleased with how it turned out.
A little backround on me and the car, I'm a full time technician at a Chevy dealership, I'm not the go to tech for transmission work, my strong points are electrical and driveability. So when it came to building the trans I failed and sent that to Tick Performance, more on that to come. My Camaro is a 2002 that I've had over 10 years, went 10.6x multiple times on spray, Forged 370ci nitrous engine that I built, Performabuilt 4L60, Moser 9" and all the other supporting mods. I built, installed, and did all the tuning on the car myself, alignments, everything. Well I have been getting bored with the drag strip, and really didn't want to modify the car (cut it up, or install a cage) to try and go faster then 10s, or make it harder to drive on the street. It is and always has been my weekend toy, not a trailer queen.
On to the swap, I started by removing the column and the shifter. Once the trim, console, and steering shaft is out of the way these parts aren't that hard to remove. With the steering column out you can take the cable off that keeps the key from turning off until the shifter is in park. Its just one screw and easy to get off the ignition switch. Then there is plenty of room to remove the pedals and bolt up your new ones. I bought pedals from a 6 cylinder car not thinking about it being drive by wire, so I had to cut the gas pedal off my old brake pedal, it was not as bad as it sounds and if you look up in there you can't tell if its done right. With the pedals in place it's very easy to see where the clutch master cylinder hole needs to be cut. I used a hole saw that was too small, and then used a burr in my die grinder to oval the hole making as close to factory as possible. I used a Hawks 3rd Gen adjustable master cylinder (exactly the same as a Tick), it is not easy to get any master cylinder in an f-body but already having the steering column out helped a lot, the larger adjustable cylinders fit tight to the frame. Don't forget you'll also have to find a clutch reservoir. With this stuff done I put the column back in.
Now it's time to get the auto trans out of the car, now I could make the hole for the shifter. It's pretty obvious where this will go because the top of the trans tunnel has a flat section, I bought a floor cut section of tunnel out of a donor car so I would have the factory flange and holes. This was trimed down and fitted so I could cut out that section and weld this peice in. With all of that fixed up I need to change some wiring. What I did was take the pink power wire out of the A4 trans connector and splice it to the reverse lockout solenoid pigtail, the other side of the reverse lock out I connected to the tan/blk wire in the A4 connector, I then removed pin 42 (same tan/blk wire) in the c2 (red) PCM connector and moved it to pin 44 to control the reverse lock out. I then lengthend the speed sensor wires because its further back on the T56. I didn't bother with the skip shift solenoid, but it's easy to hook up as there is a white wire in the A4 harness that already goes to the correct pin in the PCM and you would connect the other side to the same pink wire the reverse lock out is hooked up to for power. Next is the back up lights this needs to run up under the console as those wires hooked up to the automatic shifter, its the brown and light green wires, polarity doesn't matter. While we're talking about the shifter there are 4 other wires on there that need to be addressed, take the purple/white wire and the dark green wire and run it down to the clutch pedal start safety switch (if you don't want to have to push in the clutch you can just connect these together. The last 2 wires on the shifter are orange/black and black/white, these need spliced together so the hatch release button will work. The last wiring to be done involves the clutch pedal position switch, the factory switch has 4 terminals on it, terminals A and B cancel the cruise, and terminals C and D send a ground signal to the PCM when the pedal is up. I haven't found one of these switches to install at this time, but so I can install one in the future I took the purple wire off the brake pedal switch (used to send a signal to the PCM for TCC control) and grounded it, then moved terminal 33 (same purple wire) in connector C1 Blue over to terminal 32. I can splice the switch into this circuit later, but this makes the cruise control work, and keep the tune in the correct "in gear" tables. All of the wiring is done assuming the tune will be changed to that of a T56 car.
Now that I was at this point it's basically just a transmission install. Install the flywheel, clutch, and pressure plate, I used a Monster level 2 kit. Bought a new bellhousing from Hawk's Ebay store, a new GM slave. Decided to go with a UMI torque arm relocation crossmember like I had for the auto, but the rubber trans mount is the same. Don't forget to get trans to bellhousing bolts, your original bell to engine bolts are the same. I never had to move the exhaust to pull the auto, but to install the T56 the trans has to start off much further back to get the input shaft in so the exhaust will have to come off.
For a T56 I bought one from Ebay that was broken, obviously this is a risky chance to take and mine had a bearing failure on the input shaft. There were multiple issues with the trans and after I rebuilt it, it was not right. There was far too much noise and it didn't shift as good as I wanted, so I decided to send it to Tick Performance rather then try again. I opted for their level 2 rebuild so the internals would get cryotreated. Now that everything is back in the car I can say that I made a wise choice. It works as good or better then any T56 I have driven. They are obviously busy for a reason, as it took 4 weeks to get it back, but worth the wait. Needed a few more parts then what typically come with their rebuild so I ended up spending $2500 with Tick. If I had it to do over I'd have just bought a T56 Magnum conversion that a few companies offer as a direct replacement, but thats the chance you take.
Once the trans was in I bled the clutch, filled it with fluid, installed the driveshaft, secured the wires under the car, and put in the shifter. I picked up a new console top plate, ash tray lid, and shift boot, then swapped over the other little parts, and put my interior back together. And thats pretty much it. There are many ways to go about doing one of these swaps, you can get mostly used parts and put it together much cheaper then I did, or you can build it like I did with mostly new parts, and high quality parts so it can be abused without falling apart. I spent in excess of $6000 on this swap, but like I said it's high quality new parts and they are not cheap.
After putting some break in miles on the car all I can say is that these parts live up to the hype. Tick did a great job on the trans, it works just as good as a T56 ever could. The Monster clutch, and adjustable master cylinder offer a firm but liveable pedal that work beautifully. The hurst shifter is a nice part and works better then any stock one I'd driven. Over all I'm very pleased with how it turned out.
