Hi everyone, looking for some suggestions here, again.
I have a modified 1976 Seville that I am tweaking and tuning, we are now working on the tranny shifts.
The car is a BBC with a th400 in it. The tranny is fresh build with a B&M transpak, good clutches and second gear sprag, 3000 stahl converter that flashes to about 3600.
The car weighs about 4500 plus driver & passengers. When I got the car it would shift very early, even at WOT, and wouldn't kickdown at all, manual shifting necessary to achieve blistering performance. Vacuum line is hooked up, but not the kickdown (electric on th400's)
So, for the early shifting I purchased a B&M governor recalibration kit, and pulled the governor Friday night. As it was so far off I started with #4, 5 weights and #3, 4 springs. It has absolutely no traction in first gear so I am discounting the 1 - 2 shift for now, but second to third shifted at about 5300 rpm, and it was kicking down from 3 - 2 at >75% throttle around 40+ mph.
Ok, we are getting somwhere positive! Now it will hold gear and shift later as well as kickdown at lower speeds, just what we wanted. This is a trial-n-error deal so we will have to do more tuning to get it just right, and I think I need to adjust the modulator to raise the part throttle shifts up, but I need to make a decision about the kickdown cable first.
So, on to the kickdown switch for the tranny. If I get it hooked up, it will greatly effect the WOT shifting of the car, but have no effect on the part throttle shifting. Currently the car does not have the kickdown plugged onto the tranny. If I plug it on (assuming it works as it should), the governor will need very different calibration then if I leave it off.
If the switch on the peddle needs to be replaced then I may have a tough time finding one, and I would rather not start modding everything on the car. Keeping as much factory/stock is a plus to me (save the engine, trans, rearend, and suspension of course!).
So the big question I have for the performance tranny gurus that hopefully are in here, should I bother with trying to hook up the kickdown, or do I just leave it off and calibrate with the governor? What is the difference one way or the other?
It seems to be easier at this time to just leave it off and calibrate through the governor and modulator.
Thanks to everyone that helps in here, it is always appreciated!!
Marc
I have a modified 1976 Seville that I am tweaking and tuning, we are now working on the tranny shifts.
The car is a BBC with a th400 in it. The tranny is fresh build with a B&M transpak, good clutches and second gear sprag, 3000 stahl converter that flashes to about 3600.
The car weighs about 4500 plus driver & passengers. When I got the car it would shift very early, even at WOT, and wouldn't kickdown at all, manual shifting necessary to achieve blistering performance. Vacuum line is hooked up, but not the kickdown (electric on th400's)
So, for the early shifting I purchased a B&M governor recalibration kit, and pulled the governor Friday night. As it was so far off I started with #4, 5 weights and #3, 4 springs. It has absolutely no traction in first gear so I am discounting the 1 - 2 shift for now, but second to third shifted at about 5300 rpm, and it was kicking down from 3 - 2 at >75% throttle around 40+ mph.
Ok, we are getting somwhere positive! Now it will hold gear and shift later as well as kickdown at lower speeds, just what we wanted. This is a trial-n-error deal so we will have to do more tuning to get it just right, and I think I need to adjust the modulator to raise the part throttle shifts up, but I need to make a decision about the kickdown cable first.
So, on to the kickdown switch for the tranny. If I get it hooked up, it will greatly effect the WOT shifting of the car, but have no effect on the part throttle shifting. Currently the car does not have the kickdown plugged onto the tranny. If I plug it on (assuming it works as it should), the governor will need very different calibration then if I leave it off.
If the switch on the peddle needs to be replaced then I may have a tough time finding one, and I would rather not start modding everything on the car. Keeping as much factory/stock is a plus to me (save the engine, trans, rearend, and suspension of course!).
So the big question I have for the performance tranny gurus that hopefully are in here, should I bother with trying to hook up the kickdown, or do I just leave it off and calibrate with the governor? What is the difference one way or the other?
It seems to be easier at this time to just leave it off and calibrate through the governor and modulator.
Thanks to everyone that helps in here, it is always appreciated!!
Marc