I've looked on the internet and can't find anything anywhere. The torque converter on my C6(behind a 400) is pretty much fried and I want a manual transmission, but I wondered if I could just put a clutch on the C6 and have something unique. I'm sure there are complications but I just wondered if it is pretty much impossible or if it could be done with some minor fab work. I figure I'll probably need a manual bellhousing and then cut the C6 bellhousing off and weld them together, but I'm not sure what else will need done other than obvious things like getting a clutch pedal and all that hooked up. I probably won't do it if it's very hard but I just thought I'd get some peoples opinions.

 

It was done in drag racing for a while 20-30 years ago.

Extreme Automatics Where winning is easy

http://www.moparwiki.com/index.php?title=Clutchflite

Turbo 400s and Torqueflites were most popular, I only found one Ford C6 reference, so maybe those were out there too:

NEW clutch C6, tranny info for BB/SB Fords - Ford Mustang Forums : Corral.net Mustang Forum

For what you want--forget it. It would not work for long in a street vehicle, especially a heavier vehicle. Much easier to have your trans rebuilt and buy a new torque converter.

Or, convert to a manual trans--quite a project in and of itself. You can go with the ZF 5 speed with a bit of effort.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...zf-tranny.html

 

A big problem with doing that is getting the truck to launch, even for normal street driving. FIrst gear in a C6 is 2.4:1. That's not a lot of torque multiplication to get going. The torque converter can double the torque going into the transmission, which makes the effective ratio about 4.8:1. You lose all of that if you replace the torque converter with a clutch.

 

Ok, thanks for the info. I'd had the idea for a while and looked on the internet several times without ever finding anything, now I know why haha. I'm sort of thinking about just swapping to a T19, from what I see on here it looks a lot easier than a ZF5 and the truck isn't really a daily driver so I don't really need overdrive.

 

For those of us not familiar with torque multiplication can you give us a brief tutorial how that works with the torque converter?


TIA

 

Briefly, the impeller in the torque converter pushes fluid to the turbine. This is like a fan pushing air to another non-powered fan. The air makes the second fan turn. In the torque converter a part called the stator catches the fluid after it comes off the turbine and redirects it back into the turbine, adding force to turn the turbine.

How Stuff Works - Torque Converter

 

Our diesel truck club pondered this idea a few years back using a torqueflight and converting it. Like Mark stated, getting it out of the hole would be tough and then the case strength (we felt) was not there to handle the torque in a drag racing scenario. Ive seen 500hp BB mopars destroy them.

 

The old clutch drive automatics were used before high stall converters were used.
Prior to stalls, you couldn't get the revs up high enough for a good launch.
With clutch you combined the infinite stall of a manual and positive shifting of an auto.
High stall converters eliminated the need for the clutch mod.

I had one on an old mustang, worked very well, but as mentioned it eliminated a lot of street functionality. Since then I went straight manual for everything.

 

If you've got a clutch pedal, you might as well have the full deal.

T-18 for you.

 

Ahhhh.... The old "ClutchFlights". Did a couple of them and the hassle outweighed the benefits, I felt. Then came the high stall speed converters, rendering the clutchflights all but obsolete.

They basically gave one the launch capability of a clutch with the security of not missing a shift. But they had a hard time coping with the instantanious surge of power on launch and there were a ton of failures because the race prepped autos just weren't a strong as a race preppped manual, from my experiance. Tried one in my FI / supercharged hemi Dodge and grenaded it on second run. Back to the 4 speed I went.