I've acquired an A833OD that supposedly came out of a '76 F-body. It included the bellhousing, and I will also be getting a clutch fork and flywheel. It did not include the slip yoke, the shifter, or the shift rods. From the articles and posts I've been reading, it sounds like I need the following to complete this swap into my '64 Dart, currently with cable-shift A-904 and 225.

-A-833OD shifter and shift rods
-'76 A-833OD slip yoke (not sure how wide the year range is on this)
-'63-'66 A-body clutch pedal assembly and Z-bar (3 or 4-speed)
-'67 and down slant 6 flywheel, or a spacer to adapt later flywheel to my early 225's crank register
-Shorten/modify current driveshaft to fit A-833OD yoke
-Cut floor tunnel to clear shifter linkage and build hump to cover the hole (I don't have a problem fabricating this myself)
-New clutch and throwout bearing, which I presume I can buy at a parts store for a '76 F-body.

Anything I'm missing? Any tips on how/where to acquire the pedal assembly, Z-bar, shifter assembly, and slip yoke? I'll make a post in the Parts Wanted section, but I want to check and make sure I'm looking for the right stuff first.

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Somehow I ended up owning three 1964 slant six A-bodies. I race one of them.
Escape Velocity Racing

A-833OD sip yoke depends on year of the A-833OD...it can be the same as the A904, in some years it's the same as the A-727 yoke... (1975-1976 tends to be the A727 yoke)

Too bad there isn't a junkyard nearby with some A-bodies...you might be able to find the correct driveline there and save some $$$$...

Look at various kits, LUK used to offer a kit that had the pressure plate, disc, and new TOB in the package....

That being said, stock clutch selection will be tough, the 9 1/4" stocker is very capable, but after a lot of hard launches and driving it may leave you in the lurch, the 10" clutch would be better, but after some abuse it has a tendency to frag....if you are road racing this, you might look at some of the threads for alternate clutches and stay away from Spec clutches they work OK at first then wither out badly....

Good Luck on the conversion.

Ooo, nothing wrong with your parts list, but road racing with the wide ratio OD gearbox is the pits. You might as well put in a 3 speed as you'll never get into OD unless you have deep gears and a long track. I was thrilled, I mean completely wowed when I ditched the OD box in my '66 Dart for a '68 model-year A833. See if you can trade the transmission itself for a standard version. Or learn for yourself like I did.

I'm going to see about building an adapter to use a Nissan 350Z 6-speed that I have behind a slant. Major floor surgery will be required as this is a big gearbox, but imagine if you will a close ratio 4-speed, plus a real serious low gear and overdrive.

1st 3.794, 2nd 2.324, 3rd 1.624, 4th 1.271, 5th 1.000, 6th .794, Rev 3.446

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Joshua

Frank will probably only use 2nd and 3rd gear, so I doubt the OD 4spd will be too bad.

I would also caution that the auto trans will probably be more reliable and give you faster lap times due to shifting times/choices and parts complexity on the 4spd. Of course, the 4spd will probably be more fun. The E30/6 is a joy with the PB auto. Jason is supposed to be beefing one up for our next outing (sept, most likely).

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

The automatic has better ratios than the A833OD and the "regular" 3-speeds. If the automatic is working well I would retain it if the OD was the only other option. The 1:1 high-gear 4-speeds have well spaced ratios and allow the engine to stay in the meaty part of the torque curve which the A833OD and 3-speeds do not. I'm racing LeMons in July with Keith Johnson DDS in his 4-speed Duster and am looking forward to it!

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Joshua

Hmm. Sounds like I may want to re-evaluate my choices.

The 904 is shifting solid, but I can't get it to reliably upshift and downshift at the right points with the kickdown linkage. I think there's something wrong internally. I think I'll start another thread about sorting that out.

In the meantime, I guess I'll just hold onto this 833OD unless someone with a standard 833 wants to trade for better highway mileage.

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Somehow I ended up owning three 1964 slant six A-bodies. I race one of them.
Escape Velocity Racing

Okay, so our current transmission gearing is the early 904 set:
2.45:1 - 1.45:1 - 1:1
We have 3.55 rear gears and 25" diameter tires (225/45/17). At the end of the back straight at High Plains Raceway, we were hitting 4200 RPM in 3rd gear. That's about as fast as we typically go on a road course, so I guess we don't really need an OD gear. Our speeds will generally increase as we improve the car to compete in LeMons Class B, but the top speed probably won't increase that much.

So the question is, if we want to swap in a 4-speed, which gear set is the most appropriate for road racing? I see the following options on this site's 4-speed article:
3.09:1 - 1.92:1 - 1.40:1 - 1:1 (64-66 A-body /6 & LA, 4.35" IBR)
2.66:1 - 1.91:1 - 1.39:1 - 1:1 (64-70 B/RB)
2.47:1 - 1.77:1 - 1.34:1 - 1:1 (70-74 T/A & AAR 340s)
3.09:1 - 1.67:1 - 1:1 - 0.73:1 (75-87 Overdrive)

Granted, our current gear ratios are in effect a little shorter across the board when you factor in torque converter slip. I assume the first listed option will be the most common and easiest to install if we get the whole transmission. This will give us a shorter 1st gear that we will never use on track (we barely use our current 2.45 1st gear as-is), a 2nd gear between our old 1st and 2nd (which would be useful), a 3rd gear a bit taller than our old 2nd (which I think would be nice for high-end acceleration), and a direct-drive 4th gear to replace our direct-drive 3rd.

I don't think the 2nd option (from big block applications) would be an improvement, since the only real difference is in 1st gear. Would it make any sense to try to find an example of the third listed gearset, from a high-performance LA application? I figure this would require more work to install behind a slant six. All the gears would be taller, but it theoretically could give us a 1st gear that's usable on track. I guess it depends on which track you drive and where you typically shift. For reference, we're planning to keep our shift points around 4000 RPM for the sake of equipment longevity. It seems like this motor has the most torque in the 3-4k range, but I might not be the best judge of that.

Please help, I'm lost in numbers and don't know what I'm doing.

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Somehow I ended up owning three 1964 slant six A-bodies. I race one of them.
Escape Velocity Racing

No, you do not need an overdrive for your use.

#1 is the ball-and-trunion output A833 which is probably the least expensive to acquire and would feel just like #2 except for low gear. If you're not using low gear in the A904 then either low gear A833 is fine, but 3.09 is better for idling through the pit and paddock.

#2 has the same ratios as the common '66 and newer A-body box. This is the one I used in my Dart when road racing and I did use 1st gear to come out of really slow corners.

#3 You are highly unlikely to find one of these.

#4 You are highly unlikely to enjoy the 2nd to direct RPM drop and OD would be useless on track.

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Joshua

Disregard 1st gear, on a road coarse you should only be using first from the pits.


You want to adjust your gear ratios so you're at or just below peak torque when you're coming out of a turn for max acceleration.

You want to max out in 4th rpm wise at the end of the longest straight if possible (so overdrive is probably out). Being rpm limited at the end of the straights might be faster if you can accelerate out of the turns more (2nd and 3rd have priority over 4th)


I see most of your driving being in 2nd and 3rd gear........

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Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes

Yeah, it looks like I'm going to be in the market for an earlier A-body 833 (the first option I listed with the shorter 1st gear). Luckily I can swap its guts into my aluminum-case 833OD to add lightness. Unfortunately, I think the 833OD I bought has an iron bell housing; I'll have to check. Did they make an aluminum bell housing?

Now the main question is what to do with the tailshaft and driveshaft. It sounds like I've got a line on an early A-body 833 with the ball & trunnion-style output flange. Would I be able to swap the tailshaft assembly from the early 833 onto the aluminum 833OD case? This would prevent me from having to modify my driveshaft again.

On the other hand, the early extension housing is definitely cast iron and would sacrifice some of the weight savings of using the newer case. The other option is to track down the appropriately-splined output flange for the 833OD and just spend more money to re-modify my driveshaft (I've already had the ball & trunnion joint removed/upgraded).

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Somehow I ended up owning three 1964 slant six A-bodies. I race one of them.
Escape Velocity Racing

One thing to keep in mind that on the 833 straight 4th and the a833OD 3rd is direct...so the assembly is locked which will keep the torque for spreading the countershaft cluster away from the mainshaft cluster (which results in egging the countershaft holes in the aluminum case and causing extra clearances in the meshing...)

1976-1980 OD Bellhousings were Aluminum (5.125" OD IBR)

I would be curious to see if the 1964 "guts" can be assembled on the 833Od mainshaft and the 1964 countershaft gear cluster stuffed back into the A-833OD case....(using the late bearings and seals).