Modified T5 Transmission - No Time To Lose

Horse Sense: The two main gear types offered in the Pro GF/T5 are straight cut and helical cut. The straight-cut-or spur-gear is strong, but it isn't the most streetable as you can't downshift the box easily (it's possible to do, but some people find it difficult). The helical-cut gears offer quieter operation for street use, and the angle-or helix-of the gear is adjusted for optimum strength while offering a possible alternative for Factory Stock, Pure Street, and Real Street NMRA racers.

Strong and light. These two words don't often go together in a performance environment such as drag racing. But that's exactly what Pro Motion Performance Powertrain has to offer racers who will row their own gears in Factory Stock, Pure Street, and Real Street next season. Pro Motion has devised a modified Tremec T5 (yes, we said T5) that can handle high-nine-second e.t.'s in a 3,000-plus-pound race Mustang. How is this possible when your buddy can crack his T5 like a two-minute egg in his bolt-on '87 GT? Simple-build it strong with the right parts.

We spoke with Walt Leaman of Pro Motion to get the skinny on his new T5 baby and find out all the juicy details. Walt started Pro Motion more than 14 years ago, specializing in high-performance manual transmissions. A stocking Tremec distributor, Walt's company is well known for its Pro-Shifted Tremecs used in FFW, NMRA, and WFC racing events. These transmissions feature straight-cut-or spur-gears. Straight-cut gears offer superior strength by having the gear teeth parallel to the axis of rotation.

While the gears are strong, give a racer a chance and he'll figure out how to break a part. So, in 2000 Walt teamed up with Leonard Long and his affiliate company G-Force Transmission to make the T5 better and stronger (cue the Six Million Dollar Man theme). What the duo came up with Pro Motion now calls its Hi-Alloy, Straight-Cut-Gear, Face-Tooth, Pro-Shift Transmission. If that's too much for you to remember, just call it the Pro GF/T5-S (for straight). Debuting at the '02 NMRA finals in Bowling Green, the trans was ruled illegal for "stock-type" classes including Factory Stock, Pure Street, and Real Street, where a production transmission with a helical-cut gear was required.

Walt told us that while they could have put a 1-degree helix into the gear and been legal, they instead went through the entire transmission, determining the best helix angle for each gear. For example, the First gear of the T5 is generally the strongest gear, so a small helix angle adjustment was made, whereas on the Second and Third gearsets, the helix angle is slightly less than First gear's. The high-nickel alloy content-made from 9310 steel-did not change, nor did the additional width of 31/416 inch on the gears for added strength.

This transmission is known as the Pro GF/T5-H (for helical). Common to both transmissions, Pro Motion upgrades these T5s with 26-spline input shafts, a cluster support plate, and high-alloy shift link plates. As an option, they can be fitted with bronze shift forks and a high-alloy 28-spline output shaft. They can even have the Fifth-gear assembly removed.

This all sounds good, but you might still be thinking, Why use the T5 and not the beefier models? You just answered your own question there, Sparky, with the word "beefier," as in "heavy." The typical Tremec 3550 TKO has a rotating mass of approximately 50.52 pounds (without Fifth gear installed), whereas the T5 weighs in at a mere 34 pounds, a savings of 16.5 pounds of rotational weight. The weight savings is especially evident in non-power adder cars, where it's usually good for 1.5 tenths e.t. and 1.5-2 mph.

We thought this would be an interesting--if not different--reason to throw some parts on a test car and dyno the outcome. We had Rick Anderson at Anderson Ford Motorsport (who is also a Pro Motion stocking dealer) stick a Pro GF/T5-S with a helical Fifth-gear option into his red coupe and make before-and-after runs to see what kind of improvements one could expect with a transmission such as this in the tunnel. Check out the following captions for an overview of the trans and the dyno results.