Overall I'm very happy with the five speed conversion utilizing the
Ford Sierra transmission. The shift linkage has an annoying tendancy
to resonate and buzz. It would be nice if the shift lever had a
nylon bushing in it which doesn't have much slop, but still doesn't
buzz.
The kit was fairly straightforward and easy to install. All the pieces
seem well made and the instructions were easy to follow.
Speedo:
The one thing not covered by the ford fivespeed conversion was
recalibrating the speedometer. It seemed to read about 20% low. I've
heard that it is possible to get different speedo drive gears for
transmissions so that they work with different final drive ratios, and
I wish that the kit had done this.
While my car was on the dyno today, I took the opportunity to
calibrate the speedometer. I did so by running it up to a particular
speed by the speedometer then reading the digital guage on the chasis
dyno.
In fourth gear: fifth gear:
indic. actual RPM
10 12.4
20 24.2
30 37.5 1950
40 48.6
50 60.2 3550 60.3 2930
A week or so ago, I talked to Palo Alto Speedometer about replacing
the right angle gear that screws onto the back of my speedometer with
one that gears up properly. Unfortunately they say that they don't
have one, they'd have to cut the cable in the middle and install a
converter mid line.
I'm going to investigate just buying a new speedometer that is geared
properly for the transmission and which I'll be able to easily get
speedometer cables for.
If anybody else has solved these issues and has suggestions and parts
numbers, it would be great if you could share them with me, and/or
distributors and manufacturers of the kits.
Larry
--
I've found something worse than oldies station that play the music I used to
listen to. Oldies stations that play the "new" music I used to complain about.
lrc@red4est.com http://www.red4est.com/lrc
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