Bentley Engine with flywheel for manual transmission
Discussion
As far as I know, the V8 was never available with a manual gearbox. However there were some cars built with a V8 and manual, I have seen a factory Cloud II (or was it an S2?) with manual gears, it was labelled as a prototype and a unique one off.
You could ask Phantom Motor Cars of Crondall, they have two Turbo R race cars, and they use modified and strengthened auto box's which they imported from the USA with a manual sequential Hurst shifter. The sort of thing you see on older period American muscle cars.
As for mating a manual gearbox from something else to the V8, I suppose it depends if you have access to the tooling to make up an adaptor. I would imagine that as the V8 uses an fairly standard GM auto box, then a manual GM gearbox from say a Corvette might be the right sort of bell housing size.
You could ask Phantom Motor Cars of Crondall, they have two Turbo R race cars, and they use modified and strengthened auto box's which they imported from the USA with a manual sequential Hurst shifter. The sort of thing you see on older period American muscle cars.
As for mating a manual gearbox from something else to the V8, I suppose it depends if you have access to the tooling to make up an adaptor. I would imagine that as the V8 uses an fairly standard GM auto box, then a manual GM gearbox from say a Corvette might be the right sort of bell housing size.
this is possible relatively easily.
on the gearbox front, you need a box such as the Borg-Warner T5 or its later decendents, which have a round spigot on the front face for location.
on the engine side, you need the engine, the adaptor plate and the front-most casting from the gearbox, which will also have a round spigot location.
make a small concentric adaptor to fit one to the other.
make a flywheel and pick the clutch to match the gearbox.
the biggest sticking points are likely to be the speedo signal generation and what to do with the torque reaction at the rear of the gearbox - these cars are unique in not having a rear transmission mounting.
I could be more specific if I knew what age the car / engine is and what type of gearbox you're wanting.
on the gearbox front, you need a box such as the Borg-Warner T5 or its later decendents, which have a round spigot on the front face for location.
on the engine side, you need the engine, the adaptor plate and the front-most casting from the gearbox, which will also have a round spigot location.
make a small concentric adaptor to fit one to the other.
make a flywheel and pick the clutch to match the gearbox.
the biggest sticking points are likely to be the speedo signal generation and what to do with the torque reaction at the rear of the gearbox - these cars are unique in not having a rear transmission mounting.
I could be more specific if I knew what age the car / engine is and what type of gearbox you're wanting.
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