A 833 vs Toploader vs Muncie (rockcrusher)

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nemesis

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I was reading in another thread how the muncie wasnt
all that strong, but i thought id start a debate with all the big three
manual 4 speeds...

I live in australia,an unfortunetly coming by a well made A 833 is
hard an parts are even harder, but theres plenty of toploaders around.
Im pretty sure a bullnose toploader was the strongest of its kind,
dont know too much about the A 833,but would prefer to have a mopar
4 speed in my car than a ford one.
An as for the muncie,which was stronger,was it the m22?
Anyhow, just want to know which is the strongest an why!?

:-D
 
Moderators,feel free to move this to the 4spd section!
my bad!
 
hi, the top loader is a very good stout trans. jerico used it as a basis for his race trans. the mopar and top loader are both good trans. the muncie didn't
seem to stand up very well. just food for thought.
 
I'm guessing I may have been involved in the thread you read. I started out with Pontiacs in the late '70s, and moved into Mopars because of chronic 4-speed transmission problems. I make no excuses about being a big A833 fan, and in my opinion the 18-spline hemi 4-speed is the strongest of the three. The Toploader would be a reasonbly close second, and the Muncie would be the last. I used to street race quite a bit, and the Muncie had alot of inherent problems. I won't type it all out again, but we used to do alot of mods to the muncie to get it to hold together as best it can. Most of these mods came from Chevys involvemnt in Superstock and Prostock I'm sure, and I believe we got alot of the info we used from Superstock magazine. Probably the biggest problem I encountered was the huge amount of torque that was on tap with the Pontiac motors I messed with. The Ram Air III 400, the 400 H.O., and the 421 H.O./421 SD and lastly the "pet" motor that the Poncho street racers used to like to build. The 428 bottom end with Ram Air IV heads. Ram Air IV heads were extremely hard to find, but that was a great build, and the torque from one of those motors could get a big GTO up and down the road in no time as long as you went through the car and lightened it up a bit. Easily equal to the LS6 Chevelles. Add sticky tires, and the Muncie was the weak link.
M-22's were the strongest, but were hard to find. They had coarse pitch gears, and were capable 4-speeds, but they too were prone to problems. I had two, and my close friend still has the M-22 I raced in my '69 Judge. Once I got my hands on a red stripe Chrysler Slickshift gearset, I was sold on Mopar, and I haven't looked back.
 
Yea, there were flex problems with the case. They reworked the case twice that I know of, and the latest, the "supercase" is supposed to have taken care of that. I don't know if that is true since that happened after I moved into Mopars.
 
Yep, im pretty sure it was you outsider talking about the muncies etc!
An the guy with the corvette i think in hes avatar....

I apreciate the advice outsider :)

So out of all the manuals youve dealt with,the a833 has given
you the least amount of troubles?
Ever dealt with toploaders?
 
nemesis said:
Yep, im pretty sure it was you outsider talking about the muncies etc!
An the guy with the corvette i think in hes avatar....

I apreciate the advice outsider :)

So out of all the manuals youve dealt with,the a833 has given
you the least amount of troubles?
Ever dealt with toploaders?
Click to expand...

I thought that might have been the thread. Anyway, yes I think the A833 was a real gem. As far as Toploaders go, I grew up in Ford and Chevy country, and there were alot of nice cars around that had Toploaders. I've helped with a couple of rebuuilds on 4-speeds, and I've rebuilt several of the Ford Toploader 3-speeds that came in GTOs from the factory. All the units I've seen were built right. nice strong gears, solid cases with the bearings well supported. They will break of course, but they'll take alot more punishment in stock form than a Muncie in my opinion. One thing I failed to mention in that previous post was the PATHETIC Muncie and FoMoCo shifters that came on the things. The FoMoCo shifter was equally as bad as the Inland Mopar unit, and nearly incapable of speed shifting. The Muncie shifter in Chevelles was absolute garbage. I had a close friend who owned a '70 SS 396/402. He dropped a healthy 427 into it and it ran pretty strong. I drove the car, and I couldn't even change gears driving down the street let alone full speed shifts. There was no clear gate for the gear, and you had to drop the shifter into 2nd to be confident that straight up was 1st. Terrible.
 
Toploaders are good transmissions and fetch a pretty penny here in the US depending on what they are. Like the 833, they came in an OD version which like the 833 OD is weaker. I'd have to sat that a Toploader and an 833 are pretty even strength wise. If it will live behind a 426 Hemi, 428 CJ, 429 SCJ, and 440 Six Pack, its a good trans. Look at what they used in Nascar through the 60's and 70's.
 
Had a 55 chevy, 396, 425 hp. with good tires, it would destroy the cluster gear, every time.
 
Hey outsider, when you wrote
"Once I got my hands on a red stripe Chrysler Slickshift gearset, I was sold on Mopar, and I haven't looked back "

Im kinda lazy atm so i havent tried finding it myself.
You talking about about a aftermarket gearset you
can fit in a A833?
 
nemesis said:
Hey outsider, when you wrote
"Once I got my hands on a red stripe Chrysler Slickshift gearset, I was sold on Mopar, and I haven't looked back "

Im kinda lazy atm so i havent tried finding it myself.
You talking about about a aftermarket gearset you
can fit in a A833?
Click to expand...

No, it is a drag race only, very close ratio, Xtra heavy duty, 18-spline slickshift gearset that was available from Chrysler for their race programs from '69 or '70-ish on. Mostly used in the old Prostock cars. I found a gearset, and bought a car to put the gears in.
 
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