Autoweek Marries A 2009 Chevrolet Trailblazer Engine To A Manual Transmission

Engineers have a special gift, something we certainly couldn’t match. They can envision some of the craziest ideas, and then make them come to life. We can think of some crazy ideas, but don’t expect us to make them magically appear.

So what about a 2009 Chevrolet Trailblazer 4200 inline-six engine, swapped into a 1941 Plymouth Special Deluxe paired to a C4 Corvette ZR-1 six-speed manual transmission? Yep, done. Like we said, they have quite a gift.

Autoweek tells the story of a certain 1941 Plymouth in need of a donor engine, but our storyteller didn’t want to stop there. He wanted to row his own gears. That’s when the C4 ZR-1 six-speed came into play. The Aisin five-speed manual from the Pontiac Solstice is said to bolt up to this engine, but as Autoweek points out, it wouldn’t have lasted once the Plymouth underwent forced induction.

So when a C4 Corvette ZR-1 transmission popped up on Craigslist, it was scooped up immediately for the build. The project has become a bit of a hodgepodge of other vehicle parts, including ring/gear combination from a first-generation Chevrolet Colorado.

We’ve provided a few steps from the build process for you. They are as follows from Autoweek:

• Decide to hack up a used Lakewood bell, add flanges and ears, hope to minimize the warping.
• Do so, maximize the warping.
• Spend a bunch of time on the milling machine, spend a bunch of time measuring on the engine, resist urge to throw it away.
• Drill out the indexes, machine new ones, weld in place in situ.
• Make an adapter ring for the ZF index (it’s unique).
• Slop some red paint on it.

And those are just a few of the steps. If you couldn’t tell, it gets pretty amusing. You can follow the entire build process here to see the final results, which turn out to be pretty incredible.