Samcro92

I have a '85 that I'm planning on putting alot of work into. It already has full exhaust and an air pump delete. After heads, cam, intake, etc, I should be pushing 350-400HP and 450-500FT-LB at the crank which from what I read will blow up the 700R4. So my question is what would be the best manual swap for my setup? ZF? T56? Any other possibilities? Thank you in advance.

1985 Corvette

Used T56 prices are absurd right now. I see them on eBay at $3000. A year ago they were $2,000. I don’t know what has caused the major spike on a used trans but I see new-in-the-crate T56 Magnums for $3500...go figure.

You’d be better off with a ZF. It’s not a hard swap and the transmissions can be had for $1000-$1500 area. If you have a D36 out back, I’m not sure how long it would take a beating from those power figures. 1984 manual trans cars had a D36, but it also helped that there wasn’t a lot of power there to beat up on the D36. 1985 was the first year for the D44 rear but only available with the manual trans option. I’ve heard the D36 will be fine if not aggressively launching the car.