I agree with you Stephen. The Doug Nash Transmission IS NOT the same as the Richmond Transmission. Lots of mis-information out there on the Doug Nash Transmission.
The "Doug Nash Transmission" originally was not even a "Doug Nash" creation.
The transmission was designed by three Ford Engineers (Bob McNall being one of them).
I worked with Bob for a few years and he said that they designed the trans to go behind Buddy Ingersoll's Turbo Pinto.
http://pintopage.fordpinto.com/buddy.htm
One Quote:
"A full 28 inches of Goodyear rubber is planted by torque funneled through a 20-pound Hays flywheel to a Doug Nash 5-speed. Torque multiplication in the trans is further amplified in the nine-inch Ford rearend by a 6.50:1 Schiefer gearset. These driveline pieces form a VIRTUALLY UNBREAKABLE driveline. Ring gear life with the light car is good, leaving plenty of time to concentrate on components that require more attention."
(THE PINTO COULD RUN 132 MPH IN THE QUARTER WITH 124 CUBIC INCHES OF DISPLACEMENT.)
So Bob McNall said the original transmission was well designed and a lot stronger vs a Ford Top Loader or a Muncie trans offered at the time. But they could not make any money on their new design. So they sold it to a Ford Skilled Trades Plumber who was running a aluminum bodied Ford Bronco at the time on the strip: DOUG NASH.
So Doug Nash eventually left Ford, moved down south, and started the Doug Nash Transmission company. One of his transmissions was installed in the Gale Banks Big Block Chevy Twin Turbo Trans Ams (1450 lbs ft of torque) and set some records at Bonneville with Don Stringfellow driving the car.
Don Stringfellow (a Bonneville veteran, set a production based land speed record in 88 with a Trans Am at 268 mph.) Read more:
http://forums.hotrod.com/70/1391265/...#ixzz306GPZ3N6
So at one time Doug Nash was living high on the hog with racers and his company created several transmissions including the street 5 speed trans. I personally own (one of two) of his "Equal Energy Split" 5 speed transmissions. He built two of them and one went into the first Lightning Truck "mule vehicle" that was built with a 514 cid Ford experimental EFI engine. (Funny it had a lot more torque than 450 lbs/ft of torque).
The Doug Nash Engineering Company was sold to the DNE employees and they ran it into the ground (bankrupt) much like the owners of Holley Carburetor did a couple of times over the years. The DNE "Corvette Transmission" was the one that killed DNE.
The GM management people basically screwed up a good design.
But back to your question about the modifications to the Ford TKO trans to make it work with a GM bellhousing. You have a good plan and with the right trans person should be able to swap the parts to make the deal work if the basic input shaft gearing and dimensions are the same as the GM parts. I would assume that they will be really close, but you never know when you are dealing with a Ford deal. Ford Guys like to make "Improvements" and sometimes the parts do not fit previous applications.
At one time we built THREE 4.6L engines (in the same model year vehicles) and the parts were not the same between the engines.
So 1) Richmond Transmissions are not DNE Transmissions.
2) You would need to do an investigation of a parts list and inspection of the input shafts to see if they interchange
3) You would have to make the mods and see how the deal worked out. A bunch of extra work to see if the concept is valid but at the end of the day you might save a bunch of money and get a fine transmission for your GM vehicle using a Ford Trans.
Tom Vaught