While the vast majority of technical information wepresent in this magazine is drag-race oriented,occasionally we will veer off in another direction.

Lately we’ve been trying to do a better job of covering thecars and racers in the NMRA’s Tremec True Street class, asmany of your own cars compete in this class when the NMRAcomes to town. The subject of this particular article, Project5.0V2, features one of the brand-spankin’-new 5.0 Liter“Coyote” engines stuffed into a 1993 Fox coupe, which ismuch like one of the cars you might find competing in TrueStreet. The car, put together by none other than KurganMotorsports’ Bart Tobener (he of EFI Renegade fame), uses amix of stock and aftermarket parts to achieve its goals. Inarticles past on this project, we covered the car’s creation,including the installation of an engine control package fromFord Racing (May ’11, p.78) and a fuel system setup fromFUELAB and Fore Precision Works (June ’11, p.48). WhenTobener originally installed the engine, it was in front of thedonor car’s Getrag six-speed manual gearbox, but he realizedthe car’s potential could be unlocked much more easilybehind a quality automatic transmission.

As this particular car was designed from the outset to be anextremely-potent street car that could make the occasionalstrip trip, he looked at some of the automatic transmissionsthat were on the market to see what would work best for thisapplication. With the forecasted street miles in the car’sfuture, Tobener realized rather quickly that he wanted to beable to retain the car’s overdrive to keep it as livable as possi-ble. That narrowed the list pretty quickly as the number ofautomatic overdrive transmissions on the market that willhandle the expected 800-horsepower- output of this Vortech T-Trim supercharged Coyote is not quite so large as the pur-pose-built racing transmission market is for PowerGlides andC4’s. However, one of the options on the market caught hiseye pretty quickly—the 6X transmission package from TCIAutomotive, a member of the COMP Performance Group. TCI has been in the transmission business for decades, and isan innovator in the marketplace, with their Pro-X line of transmission products performing brilliantly for racers liketwo-time AFCO Drag Radial champion Jason Lee, along with

>> TCI Automotive’s builder Paul Wilbanks assemblesthis 6X using only heat-treated steels, which helps toextend the service life of the transmission. It has theadded benefit of improving clutch holding power.

>> The four-pinion planetary units are used in the 6Xafter an intense and thorough examination of all critical tolerances. The overdrive drum has an overrunsprag assembly inside it and the overdrive planetaryfits inside that.

>> A TCI 6X TRANSMISSION WAKES UP PROJECT 5.0V2six behind five

>> Six clutches in the overdrive drum mean plenty ofpower-handling capability for the 6X. The electronictransmission control in this state-of-the-art transmis-sion means consistency and longevity.

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[ six behind five ] written by jason reiss > photos by kurgan motorsports and tci automotive

Tobener realized ratherquickly that he wanted tobe able to retain the car’soverdrive to keep it aslivable as possible.

former three-time DR champ and record-setting racer JohnKolivas among others. Tobener was curious as to whether the6X would work for his intentions for this car, so a consultationwith TCI’s Scott Miller was had and Tobener was off to the order-ing sheet. Miller explained some of the details on the trans-mission for us. “The 4L80E is essentially a Turbo400 trans-mission with an overdrive. In stock form many of the sameparts, clutches, and other parts are used between the 4L80Eand the Turbo400 transmissions. There are a number ofcrossover internals that we use in both pieces when we buildthem,” said Miller. There are so many unique features of thissetup it’s going to take us an entire article to detail them all, soread on for the facts on the 6X and what it takes to put one inyour ride!

AN AFTERMARKET SIX-SPEED AUTOMATIC?As world governments have cracked down on automotivefuel consumption, requiring higher MPG ratings from nearlyevery type and style of motor-driven vehicle on the road, themanufacturers have been installing transmissions withmore forward gears in an effort to keep engines in themeatiest part of the powerband. For the past 30 years or so,many manufacturers were stuck on using a four-speedautomatic transmission with overdrive, but innovation andexperimentation has resulted in six and seven-speed OEMautomatic transmissions, which helps immensely with fueleconomy as they allow the engine to stay in the “sweetspot” for fuel consumption much longer. The wizards downat TCI Automotive have taken this idea a step further for theperformance market, as they’ve built this transmission tohave six forward gears and bolt right behind just about anypopular application where there is an aftermarket bellhous-ing available. It’s incredibly attractive in this particular appli-cation, and since the Coyote engine uses a standardModular-style bellhousing, the swap itself is not difficult at

>> The half-inch-thickpaddleshift assembly

bolts right to theback of any aftermar-

ket five- or six-boltsteering wheel with

the supplied installa-tion kit. Right-side

paddle for upshifts,left-side paddle for

downshifts.

>> Tobener installed one of TCI’s Outlaw shifters in thestock location, using an adapter plate from HolcombMotorsports. This shifter is required in order to for alldrive gears to be engaged.

>> TCI Automotive completely reworks the valvebody fluid path to change the operation from the factory’s origi-nal intent. By doing this along with some other internal mods they are able to create a six-speed automatic thatwill handle a ton of power.

all. The 6X transmission’s six gears have a nice ratio spreadof 2.97, 2.23, 1.57, 1.18, 1.00, 0.75, which will help theengine to stay in its powerband much longer than a typicalfour-speed would allow. Fuel economy will be greater, but themore important benefit in our eyes is that the car will accel-erate more quickly. With the six forward gears, this car willaccelerate as quickly as a manual-transmission-equippedcar without the hassle of tuning a clutch.

We’ve covered a buildup of the Turbo400 in these pagesbefore (May ’09, p. 86), so we won’t get too deep into thetransmission’s internals, as they are much the same, withsome parts that even interchange according to TCI’s Miller.The intriguing part to us was the addition of the two extragears, and Miller explained how that achievement cameabout. “We made some valve body modifications, whichchanges the direction of the transmission fluid in the valvebody and sends it through a different circuit. The extra set of

“When the transmission goesinto sixth gear, that set ofclutches applies and locks theplanetaries in a different way.”—Scott Miller

>> If you are concerned about whether you can race with a 6X Six-Speed, don’t be. The completepackage comes with the correct SFI flexplate foryour application.

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clutches now applies where it normally wouldn’t in a stocktransmission, then we had to get the electronics to tell theclutches to apply properly. There aren’t any extra pieces inthe planetary, but a different gear ratio to help us get the gearspreads correct. That necessitated a custom planetary set tobe made for these transmissions,” he said. Miller continued,“The clutches we use are Alto’s Red Eagle brand, and the num-ber of them in each transmission is modified in some casesdepending on the level of transmission performance that thecustomer needs. Depending on the application, some couldget as many as seven in the forward, intermediate, and directclutch packs, some get five, five, and four, it all depends onthe application. We can run as many as seven in each pack. Alot of it depends on the type of clutch we’re using. One of thethings to remember is that the more clutches you try to stickin each pack, the thinner they get, and the thinner ones heatup more.”

PUSH AND PULLThe transmission is computer-controlled, thus the TCI engi-neers needed to come up with a way to make it work with allof the various engines it might be installed behind. Thus, theidea for the EZ-TCU. This ingenious design allows the user toprogram all shift points into the transmission, and alsoallows the use of a paddle-style shifter to be mounted behindthe steering wheel. As the package Tobener used had all ofthe bells and whistles offered by TCI, it came with both anOutlaw shifter to be mounted on the floor, and the aforemen-tioned paddle shifter which necessitated the use of a steer-ing wheel from Grant Products. Tobener selected the ClubSport steering wheel (PN 452) along with the correspondinginstallation kit to round out the package.

>> Tobener used a bolt-in transmission crossmemberand mount sourced from a 1998 Mustang Cobra. Thisis the easiest solution if you can find the parts; other-wise a custom crossmember needs to be fabricated.

>> The TCI transmissioncooler that came with thepackage was hidden infront of the radiator on thepassenger side of the car.This will ensure that it seesplenty of airflow withoutblocking the future homeof the supercharger inlet.

“Once I got everything wired up intothe car, I was able to scroll throughand put in the shift points that Iwanted into the EZ-TCU.”—Bart Tobener, Kurgan Motorsports

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>> Size can be deceiving—although this piece looks nearly too large to fit, it went in “like a glove” with someslight wiggling around the Kooks headers. According to Tobener, the most time-consuming part of the installwas the wiring portion.

The EZ-TCU monitors and controls all of the transmissionfunctions, after the user sets a few parameters like shiftpoints into the system. Tobener raved about how easy thesystem was to set up once everything was installed. “It wasplug-and-play, really. Once I got everything wired up intothe car, I was able to scroll through and put in the shiftpoints that I wanted into the EZ-TCU, and that was about it—I didn’t have to do much else with the programmer,” he said.Once the transmission is shifted into “D”, the computercontrols all of the transmission’s internal functions to takeyou through all six gears, unless you flip the toggle switchTobener installed to activate the paddles. Turning on thatswitch means that a simple right-side-pull on the paddle toupshift and a left-side-pull to downshift is all that’s neededto change gears. Wiring the EZ-TCU was simple for Tobener

>> The converter that TCI sent with the packageshould stall around 3000 rpm according to Miller. Thatwill work perfectly with the 2.97 first gear and 3.73:1rear gearing and 20-plus pounds of boost from theVortech T-trim supercharger.

[ six behind five ]

[ source ] Grant Products800-952-6947grantproducts.com

Kurgan Motorsports815-669-7223kurganmotorsports.com

TCI Automotive888-776-9824tciauto.com

as every connection was neatly and cleanly labeled in typ-ical TCI fashion. In fact, he mentioned the the most time-consuming items to install were the pair of shifters. In thisapplication, the Outlaw shifter and the paddle shifter wereused together and an external toggle-switch was installedin order to make the paddle function operate properly. Thepaddle-shifter functions only work when an external toggleswitch is turned on, and only in the forward drive gears—the floor-mounted Outlaw shifter handles Park, Reverse,Neutral, and Drive (in non-paddle configuration) to keepthis system as user-friendly and trouble-free as possible. Ifthe paddle functions are turned off, you can just hammerthe throttle and the transmission will handle everything. Inaddition, one of the functions of the controller is to preventyou from selecting the wrong gear so as to protect thetransmission from damage, much like an OEM-equipped“slap-shift”-type transmission might function. TCI alsooffers “pushbutton-style” shifting with an optional Outlawshifter with two buttons mounted on the handle. The EZ-TCUwas mounted out of sight up under the dashboard, as itdoes not typically have to be accessed once the transmis-sion is installed. The controller hooks up using a suppliedserial cable and all changes are made with the four-buttonhandheld module.

SIZE CAN BE DECEIVINGWe spoke to Tobener just a few days after the pallet arrivedfrom TCI with all of the goodies for this install, and he wasconcerned that the transmission wouldn’t fit up in the tunnelof Project 5.0V2—overdrive transmissions are typically larg-er in size than their older non-OD counterparts, and they aredefinitely larger than a corresponding manual-shift unit like aT-5 or Tremec box might be. “I wasn’t sure this thing was goingto fit in the transmission tunnel, but once we got rolling it wasapparent that the TCI engineers had done their homework. Itfit in like a glove even though I didn’t think it would,” saidTobener. Coming from a guy who has likely modified moreMustangs in his 20-plus-year career than anyone you’ve evermet, that’s high praise. The pallet arrived with everything heneeded to complete the install down to a case of TCI’s newMax Shift fluid, which is designed to reduce internal frictionand heat buildup while promoting clutch lock-up, to help shiftquality and improve the transmission’s life. TCI takes a num-ber of steps to help with heat dissipation, and this transmis-

>>The transmission’s “black box” was mounted out ofsight next to the heater box. It interfaces with thefour-button transmission controller with the suppliedcable for shift point adjustments.

>>There are three simple buttons on the controller—apower/menu button, and an arrow for both up anddown. Shift point adjustment adjustment is simple andquick, unless you’re in Manual mode—then it’s up to you.

sion receives a patented HDT Coating to help keep operatingtemperatures down while improving drivetrain efficiency.Each transmission is triple-tested on TCI’s transmission dynobefore it is shipped, ensuring that each transmission has thecorrect line pressures and operating performance before itever leaves the TCI factory. Although Tobener has not had anopportunity to road-test the vehicle yet he is confident thatthis well-engineered package will perform as advertisedonce the rubber meets the road. g

“It was apparent that the TCI engineers had done their homework.It fit in like a glove even though I didn’t think it would.”—Bart Tobener

>> TCI’s new Max Shift fluid comes in four differentvarieties depending upon your application. It is formu-lated to resist viscosity breakdown and contains frictioneliminating, anti-foaming & extreme heat additives.

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>> The paddleshift assembly comes with plug-and-play harnesses, and needs a steering wheel like our GrantProducts Club Sport wheel to work properly. The shifter communicates with the TCU through a wireless CAN signal that won’t be affected by interference.

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