turbo vs. non-turbo 5 speed

my tranny has started popping out of fifth gear, so, rather than spend almost $2k to rebuild mine, i'm looking for a used one. i'm just wondering what the difference is between the turbo and non transmissions are. the local mitsubishi dealer couldn't tell me what the difference is, but suggested not putting a turbo tranny in a non-turbo car. can anyone tell me if it would work, or why not?

There's a few differences, but if you can, get the turbo tranny.  It's pretty much an upgrade.  It's stronger and tougher than the na unit.  It has different gear ratios also, just check out the vfaqs and you'll be able to find out the exact ratios.

the guys at the dealership said that the splines on the axels may be different. is there any truth to that? i'm looking at the turbo for a cheaper direct drop in, but if i'm going to have to replace other parts just to make it work, i won't save enough money to make it worth it. HELP!?!?!?!

The splines should be the same, the tranny is the f5m33 for both turbo and NT, i'm pretty sure.  Dealerships are horrible...they may have been thinking of the 1.8l non-turbo.  The 1.8l is a g9 block, the 4g63/4 NT/T are g6 blocks, so the tranny between the two blocks(g6 & g9) are definitely different, but the tranny for each family should work with variations within the family.  But there is some stuff you might not like with the turbo tranny.  It is geared to make use of the power availabe at a higher rpm thanks to the turbo setup.  So you might feel it being sluggish at lower rpms on an NT with less than ~170hp.  But keep the engine in the powerband and you'll be fine.  hope this helps and good luck.

If the trannys are out of the cars and they have the same cast number of f5m33 for T and NT then how do you tell them apart. may be a stupid question.

I'm thinking there is a stamp on the tranny somewhere, perhaps on the bellhousing.  I should have looked when i was changing my clutch but.....

If it's a 2g, then you definitely have a different tranny.  You have the chrysler engine, it's not compatible with the mitsu tranny.

So since I have a 2g 97 eclipse gst then my engine is actually a chrysler engine? Also what is different about a 1g turbo motor and transmission and a 2g? And last do you know of any cars that I would find a compatable transmission in to use in my car or even up grade it. Do you now the correct casting number for the right transmission for my car.

Sorry about the confusion, the turbo engines and tranny's are mitsubishi made, the non-turbo's are chrysler.  I do know for certain that you're gst tranny is a f5m33, however.  You can upgrade your transmission using Evo parts.  The whole Evolution Transmission is stronger than an eclipse transmission.  Stronger forks, hardend gears, stronger bellhousing, everything is better.  You can use the evolution 1-3 trannys to upgrade.  Maybe the gears from a 4-8, i'm not sure.

"You can use the evolution 1-3 trannys to upgrade. Maybe the gears from a 4-8, i'm not sure."
What do you mean by 1-3 and 4-8. Also isn't the evolution transmission an all wheel drive? Or are you talking about a different evo than that was just released, was it last year? If I can use the new say 2002 evolution tranny and it would be a upgrade that will probably be my route to fixing my car. Never have liked putting things back together all stock, what fun would that be. O'yeah thanks for the cast number on my tranny though that helps quite a bit.

I think he means keep ur tranmission housing the same just change out the gears themselves within your transmission.....stronger parts than came stock...thats what I got out of it

Thanks but I am still not sure that is what he ment

Yeah, you guys pretty much got it..  You can rebuild your transmission using Evolution parts.  The evolution is a series of Lancers mitsu created back in the 90's(like it's so old!), and it utilized the 4g63 engine and transmission.  I'm not sure what the years were, but they always released a new version of the car like every 2 years(?).  Each time they released a new version they just called it a different number.  First version was Evo1, second version was Evo2.....and so on.  The Evolution they just released in the US is the 8th incarnation of the car.  Since the Evolution was specifically made for rallying and motorsports in general, Mitsu "upgraded" almost everything in the engine and transmissions.  They made everything stronger, used lighter weight parts, and balanced everything to eliminate casting flaws.  However, Us DSM guys(89-99 eclipse, talon, laser) can only utilize the parts from an evolution 1-3, since the 4th incarnation of the lancer reversed the orientation of the engine and transmission.  That's also what mitsu did with the Y2K eclipse.  If you have a friend with a y2k or later eclipse(3g eclipse), look at his engine and you will see it's on the other side of the engine bay.  Anyways, back to the tranny.  You can use the hardend gears and shiftforks from the Evolution 1-3.  They are much stronger and you may never have to rebuild again!  But yeah....they are definitely an upgrade. 

thanks alot spydergs you have seemed to be a great deal of help to me. I will probably pick your brain agian sometime in the future. But for now the basically I can use the entire tranny from 1-3 evo, correct. The big question is what year, model, and car did this tranny come from? If you have any pics of the style of car or now where some are at that would be helpful as well. I hopefully can upgrade my tranny which would be great. Thanks agian.

how much would those Evo tranny parts cost around??

Hmmm...the evo1-evo3 years....I can't really say.  When it looked it up a while ago(like 4 years ago), All the stuff was like in japanese....I'm positive other people here know.  Maybe some of the Australian members know, since they get the imports down there.  However, a lot of people don't go by the years, just the model and model number( like b14 sunny gti, r32 skyline gts-t, jza70 supra 2.5TT, st205 celica, FD3S).  So just asking the importer if they have any Evo2 transmissions would be good.

Well, finding the EVO Tranny might be tough.  Most importers want to sell the engine/tranny combo or a whole front clip.  But if you find one...i'm gonna go out on a limb and say around $600 for the tranny without shipping.  Now, be aware that the Evolution Transmissions came in AWD only.  You can use the Gears and some other stuff for your FWD, but not the whole tranny.  The tranny number was W5M33, the same as the number on AWD DSM tranny's, so ask before you buys!!!!  Once you get one though, you *could* take it apart and rebuild yours.....but that's only if you really know what you're doing.  If you don't wanna go through all the hassle, There are two places you can go to.  One is TRE(Team Rip Engineering), they have been doing dsm tranny's forever, and have a million optoins to rebuild your tranny.  They don't just use EVO parts, they use JDM GVR4 parts also and other stuff from mitsu's parts bin to give you the best drag tranny or autox box.  The other place is John Shepard.  He's been into racing dsm's for a while now and has built a near perfect dsm race tranny.  He uses EVO and GVR4 parts also, so neither shop is really better than the other.  My personal preference is TRE, but that's because i've known them longer.  Another member on here, Colossus, has a Shep tranny so you might wanna ask him what he thinks about it.  Their prices are very competetive.  I think about $900  for a rebuild from TRE and $850 from Shep.  Turn-around time is like a week i think.  This is probably better than buying an evo tranny and parting it out since you get a warranty and these guys know what they're doing.

they are meaning "keep the housing, just replace everything in it." my dad had to do that with his van awhile back...he actually saved money doing it that way...might i add its time consuming...and easy to mess something up

Ohhhh.....well that can be done.  Kind of....only in an awd dsm.  If you have a  fwd, then you can only use certain parts, nothing differential related.