The Getrag F23 Tutorial - By Emc209i (Page 20/28)
Napoleon_Tanerite JAN 02, 08:02 PM

quote
Originally posted by ksibley:

Great thread overall. Thanks to everyone who has contributed info. In particular, I'd like to send a + to the most recent posts' members:
Kaistallings for making a .pdf file of the original F23 Turorial.
Cam-a-lot for info and links to the GT Forum info on this F23 swap topic.
Lunatic for great info and some awesome 3D modelling and design work.
Trinten for concise answers to NoLimits questions.

I currently have a '84 notchback I bought two years ago. I like to track-day the car...it is awesome to blow by 911s, Boss 302s, Camaro SSs, and the like. It has a Gen I SBC 355 V8 swap and many custom body mods. But it still has a stock 4-spd tranny. It is time for me to upgrade the tranny and refresh the engine. So this thread on an F23 upgrade is very useful to my research on what tranny I might go with. I have a low miles stock '86 Fiero Getrag 5-spd in great condition that came with the car's spare parts inventory.

I am still wondering if I should just pop in the '86 tranny or go with an F23? Or go with something newer even like a 6-spd F40 with a Quaife LSD? My main criteria for selection is durability and longevity, secondarily is ease of installation. And I would love to have the extra performance capability of an LSD. What do you guys think?

Thanks in advance for any replys.




I think the F23 will be your better option for the reasons listed in this thread; HOWEVER, for track day and such I believe you will be disappointed with the gearing in the 60* bellhousing units from the Cavaliers. They are simply too short and you run out of gear very quickly. I am in the process of swapping in the FY1 gears from the 2010 Cobalt (the eco package offered on some models of that car). This doesn't change the individual gears, but does change the final drive from 3.93 to 3.63, which will make a pretty significant difference for the performance, though I can't speak to it personally because I haven't finished the swap yet.
Trinten JAN 02, 09:32 PM
Quaife also makes an LSD for the F23 -- I have one in mine Thought putting it in does require about 100 dollars (give or take) of speciality tools to take the transmission apart and put it back together properly.

If I remember correctly, the F40 has some other issues that will creep up, and make getting your starter in place more complicated (this might only apply with the LS motors... so grain of salt).

The other benefits to the F23 (and probably the F40), is the abuse they can stand up to. There's been very low numbers of these two transmissions failing. One of the failures was from the axle snapping and whipping around, breaking the transmission housing. The factory Fiero Transmissions will stand up to the torque loading of the SBC... but not likely to last as long*.

*My original muncie 4 speed stood up to some intense activity over the course of a decade, but I consider this more luck than anything.

I can't speak for the gear ratio part, I'm pretty happy with mine, and my objectives are more for 1/4 mile than anything else.

Napoleon_Tanerite JAN 07, 07:15 PM
I found this video on youtube which should be really helpful for anyone wanting to split the case on this transmission. I'm splitting mine tomorrow to swap in FY1 gears.
Napoleon_Tanerite JAN 19, 07:23 PM
In case anyone needs them, here are the part numbers for the intermediate shaft seal and oil guide that are destroyed in the case splitting process.

Seal (referred to as a "cap): ACDelco 9120610
Oil guide: ACDelco 9120609
CorvetteFan86 AUG 16, 03:52 PM

quote
Originally posted by kaistallings:

NOTE: If anyone in is having trouble viewing the images associated with this tutorial, I've downloaded the archived images using a VPN. I then reassembled & reformatted the tutorial for easier reading & uploaded the result >here< as a PDF that you can freely download & view locally. Cheers.




kaistallings, thanks again for pulling the document into a PDF. Repped. I noticed in the original post by L67 it was started 10-19-2011 and he modified 12-30-2011. Is there any way to get the updated pictures with the modifications?
Monstertone APR 23, 11:26 AM
The you tube vid on swapping the bell housings evidently no longer exists. Nor is it included in the excellent pdf file. Before I jump into this both feet flat footed, are there any special tools needed to perform this swap? Are the seal & oil guide mentioned the only parts that will be damaged in the process?
ignorant prodigy APR 23, 06:49 PM
Trinten APR 23, 06:52 PM
When Emc209i did my F23 swap, he had me get this toolkit for him:

A Kent-Moore J-44470. Just need to make sure it has all the parts!

Now part of why he needed it was because he was installing my LSD. I'm not sure if you'd need this toolkit only to swap bell housings.
Monstertone APR 23, 09:36 PM
That's the vid I was looking for. Thanks for the sppedy reply.
Wow, I didn't think I was going to have to go to GM school just to swap out a bell housing. Am I going to need to purchase that tool kit as well? And if the answer is yes, I have some other questions.
I noticed two threaded bosses, feet if you will, on the bottom of the Cavi trans. Aside from the fact that everything inside that trans has seen twenty years of service, it would seem perhaps more accommodating to just swap the differentials (final drive ratio), keeping the whole Cavi case having not only the metric bell housing, but what looks to be more convenient mounting feet on it's under side as well. And if going to that much trouble, since all the rest of the gear ratios are the same, why not just lift out & swap all three gear sets, along with all the newer internals? Please tell me why no one has done this.
I realize this is a hell of a lot of trouble just for the difference between 3.63 & 3.94:1 fdr & mounting feet but, I end up with a ten year newer Cavi trans having the taller fdr & mounting feet & what's left to gather dust would be an Ecotec tranny that was not so accommodating for mounting, having a 3.94 fdr, & ten year older guts.

[This message has been edited by Monstertone (edited 04-24-2020).]

Will APR 24, 09:47 AM
Pretty sure the 2.2 pushrod transmission has a 3.94 FD.

The shafts are retained in the outer case half by bearings which are pressed in place. The bearings at the outer end handle the axial loads on the shafts from the helix angle of the gear teeth.

The pinion of the ring & pinion is integral on the output shaft. That means you have to remove the output shaft from the transmission in order to swap the FD from one outer case to another. You can't remove just the output shaft, though. The input cluster and output cluster have to come out together.

IOW, swapping cases on the same gear clusters is a whole lot more work than swapping the bellhousings on two different transmissions.