Swifter Shifting

D&D Performance’s Upgrades to Sweeten the Shift on Any Tremec TKO-600

- Jeff Smith

It’s a warm summer evening and all the car guys are out on the town. Through the night air carries the sound of a sweet-running small-block crisply hitting that wide-open-throttle 1-2 shift. You anticipate that unseen gear-jammer hitting that critical 2-3 shift when the engine suddenly zings through its missed shift. There is a collective groan and the wiser ones just shake their head. And it’s almost guaranteed the perpetrator will remain anonymous—unless his friends rat him out!

Oftentimes, the guy pulling the handle is not always to blame. Sometimes it’s the equipment—or the way it was installed—that’s the real culprit. The TREMEC TKO-500 and -600 row-your-own gearboxes have been a big favorite in the retrofit scene for many years. These five-speed manuals have a lot going for them. Besides being affordable, they’re also relatively lightweight with a compact size that makes it easy to squeeze them under just about any muscle car floorpan.