Trying to find the best transmission to put with my 1993 ford inline 6, 4.9L motor looking for a little feedback on what would be best

 

Welcome to FTE.

The "best" depends.

Stock or modified? What trans do you have now? What will you use it for? (all highway, land speed, off road, etc) 4x4 or 4x2? Budget?

 

its a modified inline six turbo custom built, building an overlading rig so its going to be for offroading and highways, dont really have a budget just looking into a good manual tranny 4x4 rig

 

The transmission most everyone would probably recommend would be the ZF 5spd. These came in late 80's-96/97HD F250's and F350's with a 300 or 5.8L V8( the diesel and 7.5L/460 ones won't work ) .


My personal preference would be the NP435 4spd with some kind of add on OD unit. The BW T-18 or T-19 4spd's are pretty close to the same thing as the NP435's with some minor differences. The NP435 isn't the perfect transmission but they are tough, dependable and dirt cheap.

The ZF 5spd is a good transmission. It's a more modern manual transmission. But I have had issues with them in the past. I hate the internal hydraulic slave cylinder set up on them( no clutch fork ). When there is a problem with it you are stuck pulling the transmission out to fix it. I've had to change a few of these when they failed. On the NP435 slave cylinder set up. It's external, so if you have a problem you pull one clip and it's off. No need to pull the transmission. I've also had the ZF 5 spds that had gears fail, synchro's go bad and a couple that broke the cases. The ZF's have a one piece bell housing/transmission case. I know there are a lot of people that love the ZF 5spds, I'm just not one of them.

The NP435 is an older truck type transmission with grany low 1st gear. Their gear spacing is a little wonky. There is a pretty large gap between the 2nd and 3rd gear ratio's that bugs some people. But the biggest issues I've ever had with them is bad synchro's and noisy input shaft bearings. But I've never had one leave me stranded. I think the most I've ever paid for one of them is $150 or $200. But most of mine have been bought for around $50 each. Just to compare, in my area the 4x4 small block ZF 5spds go for $500-$800 for a used one.

My dream set up is a NP435 with the Advance Adapters Ranger OD aux. transmission in front of it.But I believe the Advance adapters unit is around $1600 or $1700. So that's out of my budget right now..

I'm sure some other guys/gals will give you some more choices.

 

ZF or NV4500 which would use a conventional throw out bearing, avoiding the issues raised above. Neither is inexpensive.

 

Here's your dream setup as well as mine: 1986 NP 435 with Advance Adapters Overdrive unit. This ones going behind a 1991 300 i6 with a Comp towing cam and FI Tech throttle body fuel injection

 

Mtphammer, that looks amazing.
I really, really wish something like that was feasible in a Bronco! The rear driveshaft already has to use a double cardan joint because of how short it is, so shortening it by another 8" or so is just too much. One of the ONLY reasons I'm considering a ZF5.
Otherwise, NP435 all the way.

 

Yeah, I totally get that. The driveshaft in the '53 F-250 that this combo is going in will be pretty short as it is.

 

Man @Mtphammer you just have to keep rubbing it in don't you!!

 

I wasn't trying to rub it in, just thought I had some decent pictures of the setup that was being talked about. I am proud of it though; I worked my butt off to buy all of it.

 

I was just joking around. You should be very proud of that set up, it's a wicked setup!

 

Agreed! That's a drool-worthy setup. You have some bragging rights.

 

If you have a 4spd lying around go with an overdrive box in front of it.

If you don't have a 4spd lying around go with a ZF

A light flywheel is going to greatly improve the durability of the rest of the drive-line at the expense of drivability.

Is this rig mostly for commuting with an occasional dirt road? Mud? Rocks? Dunes?

Every part of the system from the air filter to the tires works together. Without knowing more about the kind of results you're looking for and the rest of the system the best we can do is lob general advice that probably isn't quite right at you and if that's all you want there's better places to find it.