I will be doing a countach kit within the next few years and I'm very interested in using a porsche tranny that can handle the abuse of the 383 stroker I intend to use. My question is, with the normal 5 inch stretch is there enough room to mount the 383 and porsche tranny. It must be mounted longitudinally, I know, but I have not been able to find this setup in a countach. There are plenty of them out there in diablo's but they have an 11 inch stetch, so if anyone has any experience with this I would greatly appreciate the insight. thanks

Do you have the dimensions of the porsche tranny you intend to use?? have you looked up Rod simpson Hybirds on the internet? he does Porsche to V8 conversions. Popular with the 914 crowd (both tail and side shifter) Rod can probably tell you the exact length of the transmission.

Also depends on what tranny , if you want I can measure the trannyin our 94 911 , and I have 2 914 trannies and one 901 laying around. I believe there all pretty close in length.

IF you wanna go a cheaper route try a toronado tranny , heavier , but easily able to take the torque of a 383. I don't think there are any problems with the 911 tranny taking the abuse of the 383 , but not too sure

ZF and Hewland trannies are also good , but expensive, and hard to find.

Also may want to look at a C5 tranny , while they are mounted in the back of a New corvette , they can easily be mated to a SBC or LS1. (this is our next corvair project , mid mounted 66 corsa V8 using the C5's 6spd tranny)

JM

Thanks for the insight. I was leaning toward the 911 tranny simply because I've been told it's very strong and durable. Rather than doing it half-a$$ed and going with the stock fiero tranny I figured I would do it right the first and go with something that could handle the torque.

Realisticly my kit is probably at least a year away so I obviously do not have any 911 trannies laying around that I can measure for dimensions. Also I'm away from home right now and won't be back for about a week so I can't readily go out and start measuring everything on the car. However, if you could give me a few rough estimates for dimensions I would be very grateful. I guess what I'm worried about the most is the overall length, but the placement of the axles is also important too as I'd like to keep them aligned as straight as possible. So the dimensions I'm really need are the overall length and the length from the axles to the bellhousing. This will give me a good idea of how close the fit will be once I can get back home and do some measurments of my own within the engine compartment.

I'm also going to look into the C-5 and tornado transmissions as you advised. I hadn't heard of anyone using these before but I'm open to suggestions. I guess the first thing I'll do right now is start by looking up Rod Simpsons Hybrids. Again, thanks for all the suggestions.

The Porsche trannies need to be run upside down or modified by having the ring gear flipped to the opposite side unless you want the V8 hanging out the back. Depends which one you get as to what needs to be done. Anyway, that makes no difference for length, just something to remember. Porsche trannies have been used in Countach replicas before, so I guess that means it will fit. Contact Renegade Hybrids or Kennedy Engineered Products for info on which trans to use and what mods are needed. They can also supply you with an adapter. http://www.renegadehybrids.com/ http://www.kennedyeng.com/
The Toronado trans is a much cheaper way to go, but you only have the option of a 3 or 4 speed automatic. I used a 4 speed auto in mine. http://www.fortunecity.com/silverstone/impala/403/longv8.html

JM, do you wanna sell that 901? How much?

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Jon Lagler
'87 GT
4.9 liter V8 Testarossa Spyder (under construction)

I don't believe that would be enough room w/ a 4 inch strech. I have mounted the V-6 SHO
engine w/ porsche trans. in a TR w/ 7.5 inch stretch (and moving the firewall forward) - The 930 trans is the best way to go.
I used Kennedy Engineered Products for the adapter ...

Here is the thread:
https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/008880.html

Just scroll down to my pics ... let us know how you get along.

We used a kennedy adaptor plate on our 66 Corvair with a 4.2ltr olds aluminum V8 , 23 years after the conversion everything still works great

also bought the reverse grind cam from kennedy (the original one) they build good stuff

JM

gabriel, I checked out the other thread. Very impressive. That SHO engine looks great. Was it a horrible job to move the firewall and how badly did it effect the passenger area.

I'm hoping that moving the firewall forward and adding the 5 inch stretch would be enough room, but I'll have to keep asking around. Has anyone out there done this before, or does anyone know of someone who has? I would love to hear directly from someone who has done the job before.

Also, gabriel, you mentioned that with your SHO V6 and Porsche tranny (I'm assuming a 930) you could also mount it transverely. How does that work. I thought all porsche trannies required a longitudinal mounting. Any input?

Slammed, you don't happen to have axles and CVs for the 901 laying around do ya? I'm putting a 4.3 and 901 in my VW, and I don't have any CVs or axles yet. Maybe just CVs would work, since I'll probably need to get some custom axle lengths. Anyway, sorry for butting into the post guys. Let me know Jonathan!

Bryce
88 GT

sorry, I almost forgot. When using a porsche tranny, what axles do you use? Can you simply use stock porsche axles or what? thanks

Hi.

>Was it a horrible job to move the firewall and how badly did it effect the passenger area.

I cut out most of the firewall area, welded 4 inch tubing around the cutout & welded another plate on that to replace the missing firewall area. Not too hard. As for the axles, well, nothing in that suspension is stock Fiero. Along with the tubular suspension, I made up custom camber plates & such.
I'll try to get a more detailed photo in the thread next week. I still have to measure the axle lengths to see what to install there.

The info on the tranny mods I recieved from another (Porsche) source, but I've never tried it, so I don't know that first hand. -Yet.

> Maybe just CVs would work, since I'll probably need to get some custom axle lengths

Kennedy engineering might have input for that question. They do the adapters for the VW/ Porsche swaps.

You could always get a Held motosports tubular engine cradle.
http://www.heldmotorsports.com/cradle.htm

I've already considered the Held Motorsports cradle but their FAQ page says that it's built for an 11 inch stretched Diablo. They said if the firewall was modified it may be possible to fit it in a shorter stretch, but this is still questionable. If could modify the firewall in order to make this work successfully I would definitely go this route. I'll send off an e-mail to Held and see if I can't get more information out of them. If I find anything out I'll post it here for anyone else who might be interested.

>I've already considered the Held Motorsports cradle but their FAQ page says that it's built for an 11 inch stretched Diablo.

Fix, that is a VERY expensive item. Actually, it will fit in a 7.5 inch stretch if you move the firewall a bit, as I did ... I considered this item, but decided to fab my own cradle for much, much less. They do make great stuff though...

Just curious,but what kind of a shift linkage does one use with a flopped-over 901?

I just recieved some information from Dave at Held Motorsports regarding his tubular engine cradle and I thought I would pass the info along to everyone else. According to him the cradle will not work with a V8 even with a 5 inch stretch as the firewall will not offer enough clearance. Also even a V6 will require some firewall modificiations so it appears the only way to install the V8/Porsche setup in a 5 inch stretch is to fabricate something yourself. I'm sure it can be done, because I've now read of cars with this setup, but I need to investigate further to find out exactly what it will take. If anyone can offer some advice please do so. thanks

>Just curious,but what kind of a shift linkage does one use with a flopped-over 901?

If you look at the URL that I posted above, you will see part of mine.

It's all custom made.

We had our axles made by a company that has now Defunct. They are hard to find though (901 axles). I know of a few people that have had mosler engineering (builder of the raptor) make them axles , or modify existing axles

JM