Hello there.
Yup, I have an A833-overdrive unit. I'd love to get a 5-speed but I just can't justify spending $5k for one extra gear. The 833OD isn't my favorite but it works alright. Maybe one day I'll cut up the car and get a 5-speed but not any time soon.
I used a few different factory clutch forks along with the 10.5" aluminum bell housing. I also experimented with different pivots. The long and short of it is that in order to use a CRC external pull-type slave cylinder I had to use the shortest fork in order to clear the exhaust pipe. Even then I didn't like how close the slave cylinder was to the exhaust because boiling the hydraulic fluid is a bad idea. Header wrap solved that problem. But with the short fork and stock clutch pedal location the amount of force necessary to push the clutch was really heavy, and all of the components had to be dead nuts perfectly aligned. Especially the clutch pedal to master cylinder.
I finally ditched all that and used the internal floating slave setup from American Powertrain. The "Hydramax" throwout bearing. That works much better. The upside is that it just works, the downside is that you have to pull the gearbox to install or replace it. Also, you have to stack shim washers to get the correct clearance (1/8") between the clutch splines and bearing. I could not get exactly the right combo with shims, so I turned down a simple spacer on the lathe. Depending on the clutch you use this may or may not be a problem for your application.
One thing is that while it does work correctly, there is no adjustment. Lucky for me I have barely the right adjustment from the top to bottom of the clutch pedal, but I wish I had a bit more on the bottom. If I had done a better job choosing where to mount the clutch master cylinder and pedal rod this wouldn't have been a problem. If you mount the pedal rod and master cylinder too high on the firewall you'll loose overall throwout, but if you mount it too low you'll lose mechanical advantage. There's not a lot of room for error. But in the end it does work correctly and it let me finally stop screwing around with clutch forks and external slaves.
I use a Centerforce clutch, but someone mentioned recently that there is another new diaphragm clutch that is easier to depress. Someone also mentioned that somebody makes a 9.75" or 10" diaphragm clutch that fits into the 9.5" bell housing. It turns out that the 9.5" bell housing has more than expected clearance. I wish I could remember who sold it but it escapes me now. That doesn't matter unless you have a 273 and don't want to get the larger bell housing. I wouldn't use the Borg and Beck style just because it's harder to push.
I'm not using the 340 Hi-Po manifolds. I tried twice but they flat out do not fit a car with power steering. Neither to do the '98-'02 Dakota manifolds. I have a much smaller power steering gear than stock from Borgeson and there still isn't room for the manifolds. The driver side dump is just in the wrong place. I tried to fit them this way and that but no dice. Your choices are really either only the 273 manifolds or Dougs/TTI headers if you have power steering. For a while I thought about making new patterns to cast larger bore and better aligned 273 manifolds, but I'm not set up to do cast iron - especially not that size. I'd like to find someone who is capable of that. The 340 manifolds are '68-'71 Hi-Po units, casting numbers 2863553 and/or 2863549.
Hopefully this is helpful information.
Cheers.
