Question for you nailhead guys... Does anyone make a reasonably priced adapter to bolt a turbo 350 to a 401? A friend of mine would like to put a modern tranny behind his 401 in a 65 GS..? any ideas?
Get a ST400 for the nailhead. THE BEST transmission. For adapter info, do a search-there are several threads on this. Lots of talk about adapters, nobody ever has said "I have one and it works". The nailhead has a unique back end, it extends over the torque convertor, then the trannie appears shorter than the usual chevy or later BOP trannies. The best rant I have seen on this is on the Cadillac 500 cid website, he goes on about the torque of the engines, and with torque one does not need as much gear. The first thing he convinces people of is that they let go of the fixation on Chevy engines, then convince them to let go of the chevy drivetrain! I could not agree more! These big torque engines like the ST400, and with the switch pitch one can run a numerically lower gear (3.08:1 or 3.23:1) for highway friendly cruising, and all the rpm's the engine needs to smoke 'em off the line. Thanks, that was a little more than .02!!
adapter phoemix transmitions 817 599 7680 www.phoenixtrans .com they have all adapters for 3 difert trans their in texas sorry i didnt put this in my other reply
ST400 mount in a 65 grin: Rob, you can use a piece of steel plate and extend the trans mount back the necessary distance to install the ST400. That way you don't have to cut and weld on the support. I can send you a pic if you like. Or you can go with your new 4 speed set up. I'm jealous. :beer :
I just finished a TH400 in a 65 GS conversion:jd: what a fiasco. I managed to not modify the frame ,the crossmember mounts to the factory frame brackets. i modified a crossmember from a 68 skylark, lots of recontouring and cutting and reasonably factory looking. stock factory floor shifter clearence was an issue and some cutting and grinding on the trans case cured that , no manual first though because of the shifter but a small price to pay having 3 foward gear makes a world of difference (BIG) it's a completely different car now:beer actually uses all the power added to the motor last year, headers , cam , Qjet carb and intake , and 3.55 gears and no more 2 spd trans :eek2: this was for a customer and i wouldn't do it again not even for myself. well mayby
Sean, just wanted to confirm that was a nailhead trannie to start with? is it a ST400? On the boxed frame is there just the one spot to mount the transmission frame member? I can hardly believe Buick in 65 came up with a totally separate 2-speed for the GS. Someday I would like to have a 65 GS, and would like the 3-speed. Sounds typical of the projects I like-
