I've been wanting to change over to a manual trans for years but have held off because there weren't a lot of choices in the 600+ ft/lb torque-carrying capacity range.
When I found out about the TKO600 I figured it was time to give it a shot. I've been doing some open track (road racing) events and the manual transmission is an obvious advantage there.
The swap has turned out to be quite a bit more involved than I thought it would be. The world of manual transmissions has given me a new appreciation of the simplicity of my automatic.
My (ongoing) plan is to upgrade the rearend to an aftermarket Ford 9" sometime in the beginning of next year and try to make it to the Pontiac Heaven drag event. I'll be doing road race type events for the rest of the year and the 10-bolt should hold up fine.
At the dragstrip (assuming I can shift cleanly/fast enough) this transmission might actually make me a little faster. The weight difference is negligable (unfortunately), but the gearing advantage in 1st should make a difference (the car really wanted more gear with the automatic). I'll probably also step up to a 3.73 or 3.90-ish gear when I swap the rearend which will help even more.