Christmas vacation

Dr.Jass

Dr.Jass

Pastor of Muppets
Unlike my last vacation, I have a to-do list beyond just unwinding. This means getting back out to the garage (finally) after a several-month hiatus.
  • 1: Fix the damned furnace, already!
  • 2: Pull seats, wheels, and steering wheel from the '87 Conquest in anticipation of its trip to the crusher. I need the garage space.
  • 3: Practice (re-learn?) porting on a set of smog 360 heads.
  • 4: Port my J heads.
  • 5: Begin assembly of my MegaSquirt EFI controller, to replace the FAST unit lost in The Great Basement Flood of 2010.
  • 6: Maybe--maybe work on the LeBaron's body some more.
We'll see how much of that actually gets done, of course... :D
 
Ahh the list. I make those, usually only end up finishing maybe one, or two things though.:doubt:

Hope you do better then me.
 
doc are the 5spds or motors any good in those cars?getting a whole car over here is well...pointless as much as i love those bodys....but my boss picked up not 1 but 2 gen1 d-50's..same motor as the conquest..but everything ive read says the stock motor is more or less junk with the suck ass carb and that the 5spd trans is the biggest pile of crap ever made...look at it wrong and it grenades....theres 2 popular fixes..drop in a small block and 727..or drop in a conquest efi(turbo prefered) and regardless atleast swap the trans to the conquest unit.....yes these are 4x4 d-50's but ever bit of research ive seen says pull of the tail houseing and swap them and its a direct bolt in....boss man is looking for the mightymax diesel for one..but finding it may be hell and then were still stuck looking for the conquest trans(i think)...the other 2-50 i get to do as i please
 
From what I recall, the D50 2WD trans and the Conquest trans are essentially identical other than gear ratios and shifter location. The bellhousing is integral to the transmission, so they're only useful behind a certain number of Mitsu engines. I don't think the diesel is one of them, but I could be wrong. The big problem with those transmissions is deflection of the input shaft destroying the front bearing, which will trash the trans in short order. When I was researching it a couple of years back, I found no fix for stiffening the front-bearing retainer short of not beating the car in first gear.

Apparently, the hot setup is to use certain-year Mighty Max/D50 blocks, which I believe are 2.4L engines. They bolt to the stock transmission but accept a complete 16V turbo top end from a 1G Talon/Laser/Eclipse with minor mods. I had a line on one of those when I was still thinking about doing up the Conquest... but then the trans becomes a real concern.

There are some 2WD Ranger/B2600 pickups that came with the same 5-speed trans as (I think) the 3G Mazda RX-7 which was a twin turbo, and there's a bell that will bolt them to the Mitsu motor. Apparently, those transmissions are nigh-on indestructible, but I don't know if it can be converted to 4WD. Divorced case, maybe?

There's a TON of good information about mating stout transmissions to Mitsu engines at http://projectzerog.com/ but I do NOT know anything about the diesels as far as bolt pattern. There's also a lot of information about the 2.4L/1G DSM-head swap on the same site.

Going off memory here... I haven't been to projectzerog in a long time. Check it out.
 
hmmm ok....guess i do more digging...was about 6 sites i found about a month ago that said scrap the stock 5spd and goto a starion/conquest trans even if all your doing is yanking off the stock carb and bolting on a webber

you wouldnt by chance have a shot of a conq/star trans would ya?....maybe the gen1 d-50s is a weaker unit?...this is the first gen pretty body...but if the conq/star trans is as weak as you say..maybe i should just swap in a toyota5spd and a 22r
 
Kristin and I are still trying to get details worked out to see you and Stretchzilla over next weekend. :) So add us to your list! :P
 
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