Surprises me how small a T50 is. The appearance of it is normally dominated by the easily removable bell housing and shifter section, and without it looks very small and easy. I’m totally ready to rip this thing open and at least brainstorm some ghetto/hack close ratios for it. I’ve been browsing/asking in Japanese recently… mostly about the 12354 patterns often used by privateers in AE86 N2 cup… and I’m a little hazy on translations and explanations, but it seems like a simple re-arranging of cogs can net some ratios that are pretty close to the TRD Close 5 if one is willing to accept that gears four and five will be in opposite positions.
No one actually wants to open up to a gaijin, and lots of guys have moved to J160, so what might have been out there at one point is likely fading fast, but it seems changing the input shaft ratio and first gear around can net something like what you see on the bottom here. Note that what is pictured is actually a 2-3-1-5-4 pattern, which is a mess, but easy to convert into 1-2-3-5-4 simply by shuffling gears on the main shaft. TRD Close 5 is on top and puts 3-4-5 a lot tighter together, but the ghetto gear swap offers almost identical overall spread with a more even spacing.
But it’s mostly fantasy as far as I’m concerned… until I crack things open myself and verify. Exciting nevertheless.