[Formulajones]

Yes, they do make round bar handles that look stock. In fact, if you have a Comp Plus round bar handle already, you can simply unbolt that and bolt it directly to a TKX shifter. They use the same sticks and interchange.

It's the shifter itself you'll want to buy with the correct offsets to work properly with your car to come up in the floor in the correct location. They make various offsets depending on which brand you go with.


Yes the back drive linkage will no longer be functional with a TKX. What I do is keep that in the locked position so the steering column won't move and you can remove your key. For the back up lights you'll just jump a couple wires off the switch on the column and run them down to the switch on the side of the transmission. Tremec sells a small weather sealed plug for that connector on the side of the trans to make it simple, or you can make your own.

On the gear stuff, I've posted about that many times and have been pretty set on the .68 overdrive deal. Especially now that Tremec has decided to raise it to .68 instead of the previous .64 In my opinion that was a mistake as I now don't like running as much rear gear as I once did with it. The whole idea with an overdrive is to get the highway cruise rpm down, not up. I mean you'll be investing $4000+ so lets take advantage of what it has to offer. I don't even look at the .80 overdrive deal and have never sold/installed one for anybody either. Quite simply if that's all the overdrive you want, you're pretty close at this point of just making a small rear gear change or maybe tire height adjustment to get the same result at far much less cost $$$ But you hurt the other end of the spectrum. 5 speeds cure both ends, but take advantage of what it has to offer.

What you really gain with the swap is the 2.87 first gear, and the overdrive to boot. Drivability on both ends is improved.

If you're worried about the 3.31's and a .68 overdrive, I wouldn't be.

I run the same 255/60-15's on the back of our camaro and use a TKO .64 overdrive in that one. I'm just running 3.55's out back, and even with the little 302 it's perfectly fine cruising as low as 35 mph in 5th. A big 455 Pontiac will have no issue at all pulling your car around with the 3.31's , especially since the new TKX is now .68 overdrive. In fact with that small overdrive change it comes out almost exactly the same as our Camaro. So in your case, in overdrive it's essentially like cruising in 5th with 3.55's now that they have raised the 5th gear ratio. Not anything I would be concerned with in your case.