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Turbo Notch Visits Silver Sport Transmissions For A T-56

Just the other day, while browsing the book of faces (more commonly known as Facebook), a post from Silver Sport Transmissions caught my eye. Attached was a photo of a stunningly gold Fox-body notchback, clearly undergoing a transmission swap. When I read a little further, I realized that the “Gold Nugget,” as the Fox is lovingly known, is equipped with a single turbo and a stick-shift, and I wanted to know more.

I reached out to our friends at SST, and they put me in touch with the car’s owner, Josh Sitzmore. Josh’s brother Chris works at SST, so when Josh decided it was time to swap out his Turbo 400 for a Tremec T-56 Magnum, he made a phone call.

Before too long, Josh was loading up the Fox and hauling it from Peoria, Illinois, down to SST headquarters in Rockford, Tennessee.

We called him up and asked him to give us the deets, and he obliged. He told us that he bought the Fox in 2005 as a rolling chassis, before the build began and was completed in 2006. It came from the factory painted black, but it had already been given its stunning gold House of Kolor hue with subtle ghost flames when Josh bought it.

The Fox is powered by a 302 small-block Ford with Trick Flow Twisted Wedge heads and a super mild Trick Flow camshaft. It also has a BBK intake manifold, Pony Down Performance single turbo kit, and was dyno tuned by Mike Post out of Illinois.

Inside, Josh installed a weld-in 10-point cage from Wolfe Race Craft.

When we spoke with him yesterday, Josh told us that SST was in the process of test fitting the new transmission to check if the tunnel would need modification. The car’s existing Strange driveshaft will also be shortened by a local driveshaft shop, and the transmission will be installed with the SPEC Stage 3 clutch that the car had been utilizing previously, after having the flywheel sent back to SPEC to be resurfaced. The notch will also be equipped with SST’s new hydraulic clutch kit.

Josh expects delivery of the Fox during Thanksgiving week, when his brother returns to Tennessee for the holiday and brings it with him. Upon delivery (well, maybe in the spring), the Fox will go back to gear-slamming street duty with some time spent on the track at test and tunes.