I did most of the conversion myself but had a workshop do the welding and fitting for two reasons. Firstly I'm not as young as I was and I'm not strong enough anymore to wrestle the transmission on my own.
Also, however good or bad my welding may be my insurers could be forgiven for having reservations about DIY. There are times when it is prudent to have someone else to blame.
The cutting and welding itself is pretty straightforward. I hope John Tullett will forgive me for naming him as someone who has come up with a simple plan involving a removable section that allows transmission removal from underneath or inside the car. For no other reasons than conservatism and lack of structural engineering expertise I decided to leave the crossmember as intact as possible in my conversion and make life far more difficult for myself.
The part of the project that took me most time was the vertical shaft for the gear linkage. Per my previous post I ended up with a beautifully engineered vertical solution that takes up more tunnel room and took hours to craft in glass fibre. John assures me that an inclined shaft can be made to work well and requires far less work. Up to the individual to decide.
Given that there are now a few V8s with Mopar overdrive transmissions and most of the issues have been addressed I'm inclined to suggest you go for the known Devil that is the 46RH. It may also be easier to get signed off by your insurers as it's a newer version of the original. Per another recent post there is a bellhousing made by Ultra-Bell to attach the 46RH to big block Mopar without an adapter plate although it looks as though it needs some fairly serious metalwork.
One fairly major reason to go for the GM option, however, is that you have fitted a Sniper injection system. As I understand it this will operate an electronically controlled GM 'box so you will have an easier time finding a suitable unit to fit. The Holley terminator will control a Chrysler 46RE but as far as I'm aware the Sniper doesn't yet.
|