TurboTim

iTrader: (9)

Go to PRI and ask the right person at the Holley booth face to face.

It's a great way to get oddball things done. I was able to talk to the actual programmer of their Sniper firmware and get unofficial confirmation that things that aren't supported are actually supported, etc.

I will attempt to find the quicktime guy and ask about the miata bellhousing.

Labora

iTrader: (1)

That sucks to hear, while I didn't think it is something that would fly off the shelf you'd think they would have a few or not mind making one.

Kanaan

I got a message back from QuickTime and they told me it is now discontinued with the only way to get it is a “custom setup” blows my mind they just cancel everyone’s existing orders just to have to custom order the same thing but cost probably a lot more money…

Kanaan

Just got off the phone with Holley which is all you can get ahold of regarding QuickTime, they told me it’s discontinued and that it would be atleast 3200$ to “custom make one” even though they have been making it for 10 years or more at this point.

Midtenn

iTrader: (15)

Nothing like something interesting finally coming to light, only for the MFG to decide it's not worth their time anymore.

Labora

iTrader: (1)

Right. :( This was on my upgrade radar, seen 3-4 people do it now. I wonder if they could be swayed by a company like American powertrain selling this as a "kit", to make a few dozen.

ryansmig

Yeah I'm pretty discourage about it now. I had placed an order and called around to many places that were out of stock. I'm not sure how many orders they need to continue making them, but I know there's are a few of us posting about it here and on the FB page

Labora

iTrader: (1)

I'm surprised none of the Miata vendors have put this together as a kit, these bells are used for a wide variety of transmissions too so seem like something that would sell all be it slowly. Certainly as stock transmissions age out this will become more common for anything making more than 300+hp. My plan was to get one when my 6spd dies.

ryansmig

That was my thought as well. I'm surprised that the only real kit now is the ZF swaps, but those transmissions are going up in price and not getting any newer at this point. When I priced it all out, the price for TKX over ZF was only a little bit more. At this point I'm not sure how I will proceed

ryansmig

Have you taken measurements of the diameter of the front bearing retainer as well as the spacing between the 4 mounting points on the TKX? It does seem like it might be fairly straightforward to turn something down to press fit/weld in

Kanaan

yeah honestly all in all its really not all that much more expensive to just go with a tkx over the zf swaps considering the transmissions are 1000+ now and kmiata wants 3k for the kit... it is more but at this point its a drop in the bucket and the fact your buying a new transmission with a ton of aftermarket and support aswell as all the resources on repairing anything that might arise later down the road. with the zf they are all 25+ year old gambles when you buy one...

its all pretty standard info as gm has used the same 4 bolt pattern for a while and the center retainer, I had a hard time finding those specs but surely they are out there, When i do measure them ill post back here.
Atleast using the gm version it won’t be enough to reuse the stock hole on the back of the auto housing as it isn’t thick enough I don’t believe. I haven’t taken super precise measurements yet but if my rough math is correct I need to somehow make the bell housing 8-10mm shorter and while it looks like the auto housing has a lot of meat there on the inside it’s carved out so you can’t really mill it down that far. i came up with 181mm total length of the auto housing flange face to flange face and the tkx diagram shows it to be 170mm from the flange to the tip of the shaft. But the actual splines don’t reach as far so you have to move it even closer to account for that. im at the point where I think I’m just going to find a 1/2” sheet of aluminum have someone mill off the bell housing to the height I need and bore the hole i need in the plate and i can trace out the bolt pattern and drill those and just weld the plate on... The issue is getting it perfectly centered down to the runout specs tremec needs, but I believe if I just set the plate on top and index it like you would any other tremec trans and then tack it into place I don’t see why that wouldn’t work for centering it and seems about the only way to do it. If anyone has any tips or criticism here on this feel free anything is welcome at this point. But i guess ill never know if itll work till i try.








a random picture of the exact thing im going to try and achieve i found online but mating to a t5 for example.

Kanaan

i tried telling them this on several emails, messages and phone calls but they dont seem to care, few of the shops i talked to when calling around for stock mentioned the same thing that quicktime went to crap after they were bought out by holley.. imagine that big corporation buying a small company and turning it to ****, cant say ive seen that happen before 😂

ryansmig

I actually thought about messaging the founder of QuickTime on LinkedIn the other day. I guess that would be similar to reaching out to them at the tradeshow booth

ryansmig

Exactly my thoughts on the ZF swaps as they stand today.

I'm looking for those specs now. I don't have the tooling myself to make an adapter plate, but my plan was to draft it up in CAD and then see how much it would cost for someone to make. Maybe I'm missing something, but why mill down the inside of the auto housing? Does it cover up one of the 4 bolt holes?

My thoughts were moreso to fill in the back of the auto housing with a donut shaped adapter plate

Kanaan

If only i had the PTO and money to fly to whatever tradeshow they are at to ask them why they quit making it. I believe its just probably do to it not being sold much, considering every bellhousing is made out of the same material it cant be a material sourcing issue. If you do end up doing that be sure to give him a swift kick in the nuts for me will ya

matt leblanc

Keep me in the loop too. I had my order for the bellhousing canceled too.. 2 days after I got the trans and all the other stuff. Great timing.

Kanaan

Only reason for milling is to make it shorter(moving the transmission closer to the engine) and making room for the adapter plate.

I dont really have the tooling either, im going to have to find someone that will mill what i need and im just hoping it doesnt cost a ton, considering its pretty basic work for a mill im hoping it isnt much. Only big thing im hoping i can pull off is centering up and welding the plate on and i dont think puncing and drilling/tapping the mounting holes shouldnt be hard. If this works out as i have planned it i really dont think theres anything from stopping me from building a few extras but im a long way from making that call i gotta build my own first and make sure it all works out. My dad ended up knowing someone with a machine shop and was going to swing by my place tomorrow to check out the project and see if he could mill what i needed so hopefully i get the ball rolling soon.

wombat57

at long last, at 66 yrs old after truly never owing an automatic transmission car in my life, I am going to. I went thru all this too. Currently I have this in my shop, with an NB adapter from Domiworks due about Christmas. 8 speed ZF8-hp45. Torque rating 370 ft-lbs, but being raced at much more. Weight without torque converter 147#. TC weight 36#, NB stock fw & pp approx 30 #. Overall length ~ 29' vs NB 5 sp 34".
TKX weight ~ 100 lbs without fw and pp., so 35 lb increase for 3 more gears?

Able to be run as automatic or paddle shifted. Shift speeds similar to DCT's used by Porsche and BMW.

Adapter + flexplate ~ $1500; TCU ~ $1500. Literally 45pgs of these transmissions on Car-Part, with over 20 pgs less than 50k miles and under $500.

ryansmig

There is someone on the high horsepower miatas page running a pretty custom BMW 8 speed swap. It's pretty sweet and definitely something I considered. Can't deny that it is faster on track either

I've reached out to Tremec looking for a few things. One is for a dimensional drawing of their GM 4-bolt in relation to the front bearing retainer. The other is if they do custom input shaft lengths. I spoke with a custom bellhousing shop and they said that was something that could be offered. May be a better solution than milling the auto housing. Though I'm not sure exactly how to measure how deep the input shaft should go just yet

Kanaan

Interesting, keep me updated. I think building the bell housing around the gm input shaft is easier than a longer input shaft tbh. I’m guessing you would run into isssues using the common internal slave/throw out bearings then. A company that makes the housings should easily be able to make it to any length. As for measuring the input shaft not too sure, I can measure the difference of the auto housing sitting on the tkx and reference it to a stock 5 speed if your planning on using Miata fltwheels and clutches. I’d have to think about it a little harder but then I think you’d just measure the overall distance of the tkx flange to end of the shaft minus the difference.