my TKO did NOT come from Keisler.

mine has been ok so far. I've had some leaky hydro bearing issues that I was able to fix with copper crush washers on the fittings.

my shifts were HARD at first, but I didn't know if that was due to an incomplete clutch extension due to leaky fittings, or internal to the tranny.

i can say that finally, after 1800 miles the shifting is much easier, but still not what I would call great. if I drive leisurly, it shifts fine. heck, I don't even need the clutch to shift anymore if i'm driving nicely. it just falls into gear perfectly.

but power shifting for some reason, the tranny does NOT like.

hard shift effort and lots of missed gears in the 2-3 upshift.

and the other day, on a 1-2 powershift, I jammed the 1-2 fork full forward and my gearbox was stuck in 2nd gear. I could NOT shift it out no matter how hard I pulled...and I'm a big guy.

I popped off the cover, and with a screw driver, pried the 1-2 fork back into the neutral position.

I guess I can't powershift this transmission afterall, it's not fun when you lock it into 2ndgear and can't go into neutral or reverse.

TKO's are notoriously hard and notchy to shift until you've got it broken in. As you have seen, it has loosened up.
As far as power shifting 2nd to 3rd, the trick is re-learning how to shift a 5 speed. When power shifting a 4 speed from 2nd to 3rd, you have to push the lever up, over and up again. If you use that technique on the TKO you will have the same results everytime that you experienced. The gates on the TKO are so close together that you literally have to re-train yourself. Next time you are driving it, use the palm of your hand and simply slam the handle straight forward out of 2nd and it will automatically find 3rd on it's own. I use this method on my mustang with a TKO and the only time I miss the shift is when my hand is faster than my feet.

As for overshifting it, what color is the shift tower on yours? I understand that it is not our transmission kit but if you are using the red Tremec shift tower, I have an adjustable shift stop setup that will prevent this. Let me know if you are interested.


Richard
Tech Support

GREAT POST, RICH!
All of us should be thankful for customer service people so well healed and caring for the customer.

***Note: the next sections are my personal opinions. If you are not interested, please skip this section and start at Technical Info ***
Moparts has a lot of roughness around the edges - that is common knowledge. But we all like our Mopars, so let's get along and try to be nice to our guys. especially Rich.
I, Shafi Keisler, invented this product line when there was not a hope or prayer for Mopar 4-speed guys to get an overdrive stick worth a damn. In case you don't know, Mopar is generally looked at as the step-child of customers for the main line vendors making repro parts. Low volume, lots of variations, and not a ownerbase willing to spend loads of money on the car to warrant spending time to tool up parts we need. Even Chrysler can't spend much money on making parts for us.

It is common knowledge that Mopar customers are passionate, knowledgeable, and loyal. Bill Miller, co-founder of Carlisle Productions, said at the closing ceremony at Carlisle last weekend, that the Chryslers at Carlisle is the staffers favorite show. What a compliment!

I am passionate about Mopars. But, the pig pilers here - people that focus and feed on negative energy - really bring Moparts down. I met with Tom - the owner of Moparts - at Carlisle and we had a good discussion, for which I am hopeful things will change here - especially for the newer members. I know I wouldn't take my family to a house of garbage, and quite frankly that what posts look and smell like here at Moparts thanks to the pig pilers.

I really would like to spend time at Moparts - I gave it up several years ago, and have my staff field the questions so I can focus on continuously improving our product and not get dragged down in the BS. Normally, customers having problems work with our front line sales and customer service people first. If there is a problem still, it gets escalated to our business manager, Bruce. If he can't work it out - which is very very rare, it goes to me.

If EVER, you feel like Keisler is not listening to you, or you need another person at Keisler to cross-check, please DO NOT HESITATE to contact us. We have a TOLL FREE number now 888-609-0070 and emails and phone calls are returned within the same day, generally. If that is not enough, here is my personal number: 865-566-0314 This rings to my desk. I check my messages several times per day. We have a new sales and customer service assistant, Melissa, who handles overflow calls, takes driveshaft measurements, does invoicing, shipping tracking requests, etc. Another great person. She can be reached at x221.
*** end of personal thoughts & opinions - thanks for listening ***

Tech Info

1. SHIFT RPM ISSUES
Over the years, we have worked to refine the TKO product. In 2004, the TKO500/600 series came out. It is a much better box than the previous model. We rely on Tremec to advise us of the capabilities of the unit. We knew early on that 6500 rpm was about the limit of *reliable* shifting. That doesn't mean you can shift it past 6500, just that the shift quality will fall off past that.
Modification of the synchro can be done to improve this; simply removing every other tooth on the bronze rings has been reported to work well. At this time, we do not do this. Liberty Gear, Promotion can do mods like that. If you want that done, we will need to ship the unit to them for their work, then install our parts and test/seal the entire unit.
I don't know of any Mopar muscle car that has a redline over 6500rpm, so I feel that the TKO is a very well suited unit. As another member pointed out, we move a LOT of product (we are the largest Tremec distributor in the world!), and this is not a widespread problem. Following Rich's advice on the technique for 2/3 shifts will help a lot. Even then, you may have a ghost shift where you move the lever, but there is no 3rd gear. This is a limitation of the single cone sychronizer. Think of the synchro cone like a clutch disk that has to speed match two parts. If the friction surface area is not large enough, or grippy enough, it can't slow things down/speed things up fast enough for you.

Rattling Shifter on E-Body
This problem was caused by a metal-metal joint in the linkage which vibrated during hard acceleration. In 2006, we changed the design to a carbon nylon injection molded isolator cup bushing. After getting the isolator just right, we redesigned the rest of the linkage and shifter, along with some major mods to the oil sealing, shift rail bearings, and a few other items. The result of all of this is an e-body unit that is very taught, smooth and free of irritating vibrations under acceleration. It also incorporates Tremec's sealed red shifter which has biasing springs. This is a far better piece than other units out there, including B&M, Hurst, McLeod, Steeda, Pro5.0 and others. In fact I looked at McLeods/Hurst/B&M/Classic Chevy's shifter at Carlisle. I was amazed at how much excess play it has in the forward/aft axis. This amplifies an already irriating problem with the tremec tko which is shifter handle movement during load and unloading of the driveline (accel/decel). A certain amount of this is allowable and normal, but sometimes new units have excessive handle movement. We call the factory, and they work to get the mfg tolerance as a whole back in range for end play. This is a feature we cannot shim out of the unit.

If you hear someone telling you a Keisler shifter is anything less than excellent, please let me know! If someone is vomiting old news in efforts to get you down on us - tell them to stop wasting your time. There are people doing that here which were previously affiliated with my company. Watch out.

B-Body shifter built prior to 2005
These units utilize Tremecs cast aluminum tower. Frankly speaking, this wasn't a good shifter tower. The designers did not take into account the application, and it was an afterthought accessory. We changed the design radically in 2005, and further refined this product. In my opinion, it is leaps and bounds better than the new revised Tremec shifter, the McLeod/B&M/Hurst shifter, and the Fortes shifter. The stub is manufactured to get the most out of the Tremec 3 rail unit.

In 2007, we developed some parts to further the shift quality of the Tremec TKO. Initial testing shows favorable results. However, due to the underlying problem of the synchros, we have not furthered the product to market. Instead, we emphasize the capabilities and make customers aware of the limitations.

E-body Tunnel Fitment
The transmission can fit and work adequately in some cars, and not in others. We tell every customer now that cutting may have to occur.
Look at the top of our transmission versus the one classic chevy makes, and you will see that we have taken extra care to make the TKO the smallest packaging possible. Still it is bigger than the A833, and the compromise has to be made in order to get the drivability from the 32-36% overdrive without sacrificing to the large step changes as found in the A833 Overdrive or aftermarket versions. Anyway you go, there are compromises. We see our product as being the best bang for the buck with the least amount of compromise.

Hydraulic Actuator
From 1998 - 2003, I used a hydraulic bearing from McLeod. It came in two forms - bolt on and slip on. In all forms, I can honestly say, it is a piece of crap. We lost a lot of money, time and credibility over the McLeod hydraulic. B&M now owns McLeod, but I don't see any changes and would not expect to. That is a stone age circle track product that should not be let out of the track. We finally shelved McLeod altogether, and never looked back.

Our current hydraulic system is a proprietary OEM design, similar to what is used in Viper today. They are made to the most stringent controlled processes, have inner and outer seals, forged aluminum case, single line fill/bleed, self centering concentric bearing. The master cylinder is a high quality Wildwood which attaches to a body specific beautiful aluminum firewall mount. We moved out of the dinosaur age - Very nice pieces indeed.

You will still hear stories from older customers who lived the horror stories of the McLeod hydraulic bearing failure. It leaves a bitter taste in everyone's mouth.

If you hear stories from salespeople using any of the items above as reasons why one should NOT buy a Keisler product, please contact me by phone or email. On behalf of the company, I promise to help all of you that have any residual issues that need resolution, but I offer this with a caveaut:
Work with us by contacting us off list through the following emails: Richard (rjohnson@keislerauto.com), Gene (gcharsha@keislerauto.com), Jeff (jkauffman@keislerauto.com), Melissa (assistant@keislerauto.com), or myself Shafi Keisler (skeisler@keislerauto.com)

Also, we have a monthly newsletter that goes out around the middle of the month. This upcoming issue addresses upgrades for older model Keisler kits, as well as some beneficial tech info, and accessories worth adding to compliment your kit. When selling upgrades, we have a policy not to make more than the cost to cover the product and overhead.
Sign up for this newsletter to learn what's shakin' and check out our website often.

Thanks for listening, and I look forward to having good times on Moparts. Here is a video I posted on YouTube showing the burnout I did last Saturday at Chryslers at Carlisle.
ENJOY !!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beDWQgMdyN8

Shafi

Dude...that was some seriously honest talk.
Thanks for the insight, I learned more from you in 5 mins about the TKOs than I have in the last couple years of bits and pieces.
Thanks!
Casey

Quote....
" E-body Tunnel Fitment
The transmission can fit and work adequately in some cars, and not in others. We tell every customer(now) that cutting may have to occur."


I bought my set up at the 2004 Nats and stated several times to Shafi (who wrote up my order) that I was not willing to cut the trans tunnel. I was assured several times it would fit with out any tunnel mods.

I thank Richard at Keisler for all his help and dedication. He went way beyond the call of duty to help resolve the issues I had. If I was in business he would be the type of employee I would want to hire.

The T/A is now with its original 4 speed. I'm tickled pink at 7000 plus RPM powershifts. While I insist my cars look good, first and foremost is respectable 1/4 times and first class street manners.

The vibrations transfering into the car and the fact that due to not being able to shift this trans, that the T/A was a 14 or at best a high 13 second car was TOTALLY unacceptable!

I will probably put this trans in another car...when I'm over 80 years old and just want to putt around town.

As I said in my previous post...I am here to inform not bash. I have learned alot from this thread, especially all the updates that have been done to these 5 speed kits. Let us now put it to bed.

7000t rpm shifts whos fault is it when u miss a shift & u drop a valve [Edited by Moparts - Keep it clean].a 833 shifts like a school bus

There isn't much more that I can add to Shafi's post but would like to extend my thanks to mercman for the kind words.
As most of everyone here knows, our reputation has been questioned for years now by "the dog pilers" as Shafi put it, . I honestly believe that if anyone who still doubts us, to please go back and look at all of my previous posts, I think you'll see that I have been working very hard to help turn that around by helping out everyone that I can.
Keisler Engineering believes that the customer is the number one priority and I live by that creed. I have given out my personal cell phone number to a number of members here so that they have soemone to talk to after hours and on the weekends. Mercman and I spent several nights and weekends trying to get his transmission kit to perform as he expected it to do, unfortunately, it just wasn't going to be. He has a beautiful car all the way around and I personally feel really bad that the overdrive just didn't perform to his expectations. From time to time, that is going to happen, it's how you, the customer, handles the situation, that reflects here on the boards. Mercman has been very gracious in his posts and updates and for that, I thank you.

As Shafi has said, I am available by e-mail at either rjohnson@keislerauto.com or at customerservice@keislerauto.com. You can call me if you prefer at the toll free number or the main line at 865-609-8187 x201 , or even PM me and I will respond. I try my best to respond the same day but on occasion, I get slammed and am not able to get to the responses until the next day. I guarantee to contact everyone that contacts me within 1 day.
If there is anything I can do to help, please don't hesitate to contact me.


Richard
Tech Support

thats why i have a Borg-Warner T-5 transmission behind my 440.
ZERO problems to date. and thats with 400+ft-lbs of torque throughout
the RPM range. all-in-all i spent $1000 to make it work including the
price of the trans.

The Borg Warner T5 is a great transmission as well. They have a .68 5th gear which gives you a great rpm reduction equivalent to a TKO-500. I had a T5 in my '90 mustang before switching to a TKO. It stood up to my 347 stroker motor and a super charger to boot for about 6 months until I blew the crap out of it.
They are only rated at 250ft/lbs but obviously I had way more than that as you do as well.
As long as you take care of it and be careful with the 2-3 upshift when power shifting, it'll last you a good long time.


Richard
Tech Support

I just read this entire thread. It is of great interest to me since I very much like attending far away MoPar shows like Carlisle and the 'Nats. With gas getting more and more expensive I can see some sort of OD in my future.

It would seem from this thread and other info I have read elsewhere that Keilser is a good company with good customer support. As with all things there are pros and cons to each type of OD. I have not decided which is best for me yet but I will consider Keisler. I own a E-body and I'm not sure if I want to cut up the floor.

Perhaps the first thing I have to decide is if I want to drive my car to shows(it's a nice driver not show car) or maybe invest in a truck/trailer to go back and forth. I don't know, I kind of like the challenge and fun of driving an older car to shows. Then again the truck/trailer would seriously cut down on dirt and grime.

Richard, that's a great offer. Thanks a lot. I don't plan on tackling this issue until winter time. I will keep it in mind.

blows dosn't blow.. its all good!

To Keisler:

Its good to see you guys are continually addressing the issues. I applaud the effort for acknowledging that there were/are issues and the continued efforts to progress and push these transimisions to the next level. Obviously some were happy, and some were not, but its the point of finding out what the issues are when deciding whats right, and that's what this forum is about. We are not all about S%it slinging, but issues come up, and that's what I think the point of this post is. Not one trans is right for everyone, but knowing all the limitations and options, is key to making the choice. It sounds like your staffed better now, and have a better grasp of what the particular issues are and maybe your staff does to. Don't quite because you took all of our complaining personally. Make it better, and keep trudging on. People respect honest answers, and if you guys can work thru the issues, customers will be happier just for knowing the inside scoop and how to avoid the major pit falls of doing a conversion.

I am hoping one day you will get tired of fixing the flaws with the factory transmissions in trying to make them work with 100 more hp, and build/design your own that will eliminate half the hassles while keeping costs down. Nobody does a better job in redesigning something than the guy who knows what all the flaws are. If you put that knowledge to use, on a fresh new plate, you could really do something with it and there seems to be a nitch between a full race trans and the show poodle crowd.

There are two types of Mopar people: The stock or nearly stock crowd, and the guys that modify the heck out of their machines and not much in between. The problem is, the stock crowd will change subtle things like engine displacement, and carb, and still have the same old heavy stockish car, but now with 528 cubes of tire frying torque, and that's an issue! Most transissions will need some upgrading. So keep up the improvements, and I am hoping one day you build something between a Lenco and the Tremec to fill the other void. Preferably, somthing that can be shifted clutchless when stepping on it.

So- if you bought one of the early set ups, which by Keisler's admission, were junk- and had mega problems like most- is there any refund/exchange/relief from Keisler?

All I will say is- if I spend 4000 bucks for a tranny-(which I won't EVER)- it better slide in like hot butter and not give a minutes trouble- not- send it to such n such to have the teeth ground off, or try this try that. I'm not gonna spend those bucks to be a test bed or guiena pig so you can shake out your mistakes- n anyone who knows Tremecs at all knows Stangs have been trashing them for years- it's a medium duty unit at best, in any model. If I want OD- I'll go Gear vendors, or have Jamie Passon build me a OD 4 spd.- If I'm gonna have to hack cut cuss and try- I'll build my own set up from something, and do my own research. Nice try Keisler, but sometimes you just gotta admit somethings bad wrong and stop the bleeding. Quit stringing folks along over a pipe dream. Or just retreat n regroup, do some research and get it right before you put it out there. I will say the customer service and attitude seems to have improved drastically, from what I've read here, but I still think it seems a product still in research stages, not ready for public consumption.. I think until your batting at least .850 you should keep it at the shop til you do better.

thanks for the info.