5 speed behind a big block Mopar possible to do without "kit"?
 

I have a 383 that I would love to be able to put a 5-speed behind..

I would love a Keisler kit, but way out of my price range right now,
but someone pointed me to a link where I see Quicktime sells bellhousings
to mate a 383 to a variety of different transmissions..

I'm thinking the adapter to the Ford TKO 500-600/TR3550/T5 Mustang
Transmission would give me the best chance at finding a decent transmission
at a reasonable price, but then I wonder what to do about pilot bearing,
throwout bearing, and will my stock fork work with whatever throwout bearing is used, etc..

Has anyone ever tried to do a 5 speed swap without buying a complete kit?

Any help would be great!!

over 3000 RPMs at 60 is killing me when I need to take the highway to get anywhere from my house :(

Lots of guys have done it w/o using a Keisler kit. Really depends on how much of a transmission tunnel and T-bar crossmember you wanna cut up. I have no first hand experience w/ Keisler but they claim to modify the trans to fit better than a stock TKO

Search on Moparts. Quicktime makes a nice bellhousing...I have one for my GenIII hemi