TAguy79,

You have many options for a high HP manual trans car that isn't full drag race, ie, not spending its whole life on big full slicks and with 6K RPM clutch dumps. There is the new T56 Magnum, a dual over drive 6 speed (what I'd personally would choose) that will easily enough mate to your Pontiac and be bomb proof, butter to drive and has a great selection of gears to choose from. You could also pull a T56 from a 2004 and up Viper that will be plenty stout for a bit less scratch then the Magnum. Depending on your true use and true, not fairy tale, HP of the car, a 1998-2002 LS1 camaro/TA T56 could work for you as well and be a very low cost solution. There is also the TKO 500 and TKO600 variants thereof that will work great. All of these are proven transmissions with known strengths and weakness (...hey, there are always tradeoffs). If you'd like help getting a T56 attached to your Poncho V8, I can help. There are also threads here and on performanceyears.com for getting the T56 and TKO's into a 2nd gen bird. Read up. Search for a few hours every day for a week or two and you'll just start to get a glimpse of what's possible and what is best for you, your car and your budget. It's time to do some homework!