Original post date: 08.22.2010
Alright, disaster update time now. Been some major drama going on about my transmission adapter plate, and as a result instead of picking my car up today, I’m taking a new bell housing over to Austin for my car.
The people down here in San Antonio that I had making the transmissions adapter plate are some friends of mine that do swaps of all kind, and have done this swap in two S13’s. The first plate they made was absolutely disgusting, and would in no way work.
Here are some of the pics from when I first picked up the tranny with the plate off of it.
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Hmmm, those holes aren’t lining up too well, are they?
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Weird, neither are those ones… Both of these pictures were taken with two bolts inside the top two holes, which we later found out are the only ones we could even bolt up at the same time.
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Weird, that’s not sitting flush on the tranny! What am I suppose to do with a flared adapter plate?
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Hmm, there’s suppose to be a hole drilled in the transmission right there so you can actually use the corresponding hole in the adapter plate, along with the housing shaved down a little so you can actually use a socket on it…. Where is it?
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Damn man, the other sides not sitting flush or anywhere NEAR flush! Is driving with a transmission cockeyed the new fad?
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Umm, aluminum is not thick enough? How is this suppose to sit flush on the tranny with engine bolts in it when they all pop up through the counter sinks?!
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That counter sink is pretty pathetic, did they even do a test with a wrench? And also that engine bolt doesn’t look like it’s going to fit through there… And low and behold, the engine bolts didn’t fit into any of them.
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What’s this? Are those aluminum shavings?? They’re even in the input shaft, AWESOME!
So, as you can see it was very disturbing and pathetic. That adapter plate was NOT worth $350; it wasn’t even worth the $50 that payed for the aluminum. Yes, there are some things that can fix part of it (like the engine bolt holes) with a little bit of fabrication, but if I’m paying $350 for the part, why doesn’t it come complete, ready to bolt on? ESPECIALLY if they had the transmission there the entire time!
They ended up buying me a new bell housing and we gave them the altered one back, so they have one to use for another project of theirs. Going to go with a steel plate from Craig’s friend in AZ who also makes the ECU’s, no shaving required (although there’s going to be some shaving done to make it fit a bit better) and goes all the way around the tranny, utilizing a lot more mounting bolts.
