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Installing Quick Time SFI Bellhousing with T56.


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This was not fun. Two of the groups that I race with require a SFI bellhousing, otherwise this would go in the "not worth it list." Lets start with no instructions with the item to include no torque settings. Next is design issues, like: impossible to index with any confidence in being correct. Bolt kit incomplete wirh no instructions or inventory list to know how to use the hardware that IS included with the bell. The big hole in the rear of the bell, that I assume is where I should run a dial indicator, but the hole is irregular and has thick powder coating on one side and barely any on the other. After wasting most of my day trying to verify indexing to the crank. Finally I said "screw it" and bolted it together-hope it is right. The bolts that come with the kit are a few threads short, but the next available length is so long that they bottom against part of the bell housing. So I went with the shorter bolts (we are talking 2 threads). The steel of the bellhousing is soft-I had my first known torque wrench failure and I over torqued one bolt before I realized that the wrench was understating torque. I pulled the bolt thru the bellhousing. I think by a strike of luck that I can back that bolt up with a nut and salvage the situation. Will go on hardware search tomorrow to find the proper size nut. Also worth noting is that by measurements, I needed a slave cylinder shim (which by another miracle I had in hand). If anybody has successfully indexed this bell with confidence I want to hear from you. By ls1tech statistics, less than 50% of guys check index at all, but those who do check it always find an issue.

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There's a guy in another sub-forum who asked the question: "how do I learn to work on cars?" My answer would be: " buy one and learn from your mistakes." Or the mistakes of others.

 

This may be all about nothing if when I check the bellhousing alignment it all checks out perfect. But that has not been my experience in the past. So I found a video that answers most of my questions. It seems that since the QT BH has no machined center hole to measure from, we can recruit the front plate of the transmission, bolt it on and measure from the center hole in it. Not wanting to open up another can of worms (that should be my avatar name: "Can of Worms!"), I ordered a T56 front plate from Hawks Third Gen, and a complete set of adjustable dowel pins from RobbMc Performance. He said that I could return any unused dowels. I called QT and got the part number for their T56 hardware kit then ordered 2 sets from Summit. Time to tear it all back down and wait for parts. BTW-the QT BH for LS is part no: RM-8020. I sent mine back to QT to have their "window mod" done. There were big time delays involved in coordinating this "factory mod" caused by the fact that QT does no direct retail. I have found holes in my BH helpful for inspection, trouble shooting, and dust clean out. I eish the window was bigger, big enough to get a hand in there. The hardware included in RM-8020 is for attaching the BH to the block; bolts to attach the trans to the BH are in a separate kit, RM-170, avaiiable thru Summit. By the way, for all you sophomores: BH is bell housing, not butt hole-hehe. Best to do all this before you install your engine, rather than on your back as I am doing.

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Edited by RebekahsZ
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Bellhousing is on. This was a bitch but would have been no trouble if done with motor and trans outside the car. As such, I can skip Crossfit this week-Im all paid up to the gods of Rogue!

 

Here's what you need for this job:

A buddy-not your wife.

Quick Time bellhousing RM-8020

Quick Time T56 trans bolts RM-170

Either the front plate off your tranny or, you need to buy another front plate. VERY IMPORTANT: you need the bearing race from the transmission input shaft bearing. This bearing is available at Advance Auto for $7! This race gives you the surface that your dial indicator will indicate from. This race is the "center" that must be consentric to the crank-this is the whole point of indexing the bellhousing.

Harbor Freight dial indicator and magnetic stands

3/8" drive torque wrench

Adjustable dowel pin kit (I showed part numbers above)-buy a three sizes.

Big ass rubber dead low hammer.

Every other tool you own.

 

You disassemble all your stock stuff ti you get down to the crank. Install the motor plate that comes with the bellhousing. Install and torque the flywheel then remove two bolts. Install AND TORQUE the bellhousing. Reach into the bellhousing(BH) and install magnetic base in spot vacated by the two bolts you removed. Install AND TORQUE the front plate with the bearing race installed. Configure your dial indicator to mount on the post to measure off of the race. Have your buddy turn the crank from the harmonic balancer bolt while you watch the dial indicator. Repeatedly adjust the scale on the bezel of the dial until you find the minimum reading. Calibrate bezel so that point is zero. Mark the lowest point with a sharpie and tape. Rotate crank until you find the maximum measurement; mark the magnitude and location of that. The measurement half way between the min and max should be close to half. Of your measurements make sense. You are half way home. If your BH is centered within .005" from the factory based on this measurement, you can stop now. Mine was off .034". Now, tear back down to the flywheel. I had to remove the headers to get access (yeah for my short tube JTR headers!!), but you can get to the stock dowels in the block from the front side to top them out with a drift and a hammer. You can't get them out with vice grips like your redneck cousin used to do! To determine which offset dowels to use: find that maximum measurement from the dial indicator and divide by two. Chose the offset dowel that is closest to that number. Save the others to send back to the supplier to get your money back. Or put them in a box to give to your worthless son-in-law when you die. Or keep them for your next dream car. "Clock the offset dowels in-line with your maximum measurement angle. The fat side of the dowel points toward the maximum measurement. Put everything together to take another measurement. TORQUE the BH and front plate each time or you will get garbage measurements. Sweep the dial and you may find that you need to tweak the clocking of your dowels with an open end wrench, so leave the set screw loose until the end. Once your dial indicator is sweeping a TOTAL of less than .005", you are golden (I quit at .003"). Tighten your dowel pin set screws -dont go crazy on torque or you will break them. Strip back to the flywheel and put it all together for good. Don't forget to check to see if you need a slave cylinder shim before you bolt up the trans. You need to make that determination as soon as you remove it from the box, and you need a stock BH to measure from. Use that torque wrench. 37# BH to block, 25# trans to BH. 52# pressureplate to flywheel, 74# in three stages flywheel to crank. 100 INCH-POUNDS slave to trans. Enjoy the pics. Feel free to text or PM me in the middle of the night if you need help with this project.

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Edited by RebekahsZ
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Ha! Spoke too soon. Went to hang the exhaust and the passenger side below the starter totally conflicts with the head pipe. An hour with the cutoff wheel and the pipe passes. I may have made my bellhousing un-re-certifiable if required, but for now it's done. I love the taste of burning iron!

Edited by RebekahsZ
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  • 8 months later...

Wow that seems like quite the complicated process. I just got my qt bellhousing last week and will order my t56 magnum next month. I assumed I would just bolt that bad boy on there and carry on but apparently it's not quite that simple. I will have to figure out how to find out if I need a shim with no oem bellhousing. Thank you for doing this write up though, it will save me a significant amount of research and time.

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Just watched the YouTube video he does a really good job of explaining it. It actually doesn't seem to bad when in engine is out of the car. I'm still a little nervous to pull the faceplate off of the trans since it is the most expensive part I have ever purchased. But the video gave me some re assurance and I'm going to go for it. Would you mind positing up some more picture of this "window mod" you speak of I'm curious if it's something I can do myself.

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Oh yeah, this would be pretty easy with the engine out of the car. And, what makes this tough is figuring out what point to measure from. I will look for some pictures of the window mod. It is definitely something you could do yourself, but I fear that if you did it yourself you might ruin the SFI certification. IF you race in a super anal organization that requires that you keep your certification up to date, that could be a problem. The organization that I run with does not currently make SFI dates an inspection item on anything other than seatbelts. If you aren't racing in a club that has a rule book, or at a track that has a rule book, I don't know that I would bother with a steel belhousing. I would just use a stock one and skip all the hassle. The steel belhousing is larger and heavier than the stock aluminum version. I had to "clearance" mine in order for my exhaust to clear, so if I ever sent mine in for a new SFI sticker, it would probably fail. But, they don't currently climb UNDER the car to check it. They just look thru an open hood to see that you have it. And even that probably varies from one inspector to the next. The rule books are so complicated that it takes a pretty sharp guy to see everything. Some inspectors try to fail everybody, and some try to pass everybody. Just a matter of luck when you are going thru tech. Driving 9 hours each way to race, I wanna pass.

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That is fair, my only fear is of taking the faceplate off the transmission after paying 3k for it I don't particularly want to start disassembling it. Certification is not my greatest concern at this point although I'm sure it will become a concern eventually. I was buying a new t56 magnum anyways so no bell housing was included. But with a target horsepower of 700hp my concern was more on my clutch removing my ankles, ever since watching that video I was showed on ls1tech called death of a trans am I'm a bit spooked and that car had around 500hp when that happened. I wonder if you can make a window on the bell housing that has a bolt on cover to keep the bell housing in certification.

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Send a text to 256-366-4685 asking for bellhousing pictures.  I just took some, but I haven't figured out how to rotate pictures on my new phone.  I can send them right away.  When a bellhousing needs re-certification sticker, you send it back to the manufacturer, so I would assume that the manfacturer would want to see their modification, and their modification only, but I'm not positive. After I received my bellhousing from Speedway Motors, I contacted QuickTime's tech support line and got a job number, then sent them a letter with the job number asking them to do the window mod.  QuickTime doesn't have a retail capacity, so you can't just do it all at once with them.  You have to buy from a distributor, then send it back to the company that made it in the first place.  Kind of a "round-robin"  but that's what it takes.   I want to say it took 6 weeks to get it back from them-they aren't in any real hurry.  The value of a window in the bellhousing was seen this month when the hydraulic line retention pin backed out to the slave cylinder on my truck.  I could see the pin backed out and the line dangling.  So, I just grabbed the line just as it exited the bellhousing and carefully guided it back into the slave cylinder.  Then I took a long screwdriver and pushed the retention pin back into place.  Then, I bled the system with my remote bleeder.  A 30 minute job.  Without a window, I would have had to remove the shifter and console, drop the driveshaft, the crossmember, the exhaust and the transmission, the reassemble repeating the process in reverse.  The window mod is a hassle to add to the bell, but it is really handy for visual inspection and little things like that hydraulic line repair. 

Edited by RebekahsZ
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Perfect thank you I will shoot you over a text here very shortly. That makes sense with the certification I guess doing a window mod myself would make it pointless to get a steel bell housing in the first place then. I do definitely see where the benefit of the window comes in though and I really do want one so I may have to go about it the same way you are. Anyways I will text you here shortly thanks again for all the help.

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Couple words of wisdom here... CAREFUL when installing the bellhousing Dowels on your block.  Make sure you hone the surfaces of both, and take care not to use excessive force installing the pins... Mine were tapped on with a deadblow plastic mallet and we created a fracture than ran from the drivers rear oil galley plug all the way up to the dowel hole on the block.  The material on the back of the LS blocks is very thin and the casting is very porous.  so take care back there... Jamie Taylor resolved the issue for me by tig welding the area.

 

Mike

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