What kind of times are you pulling and what have you done to the tranny's to make them handle the power? Our car club is putting one behind a mild 383 which should make ~450 hp in a gutted Buick Regal, which will be running on 26" slicks. Looking to hit low 12's on the motor, then possibly spray deep into the 11's (150 shot).

 

You might want to ask that question on a Buick site. They use the 200-4R more than any third gen does. Anyone with a true race car won't be using a tranny with an OD.

The 200-4R has roughly the same first 3 gears as a TH350 except it also has an OD so any performance results with a TH350 will be close to that of the 200-4R

 

I agree a Buick site should give you more info on racing a 200-4R, and it gets expensive building one to last. My old TTA was a consistant 12.0 car(best 11.99 @ 112.95 w/1.63 60ft)on 26" ET Streets and all the trans had was a shift kit.

HTH,
Steve

 

stephen, what makes a true race car a "true" race car? cause i believe my car to be a true race car and i'm running a built th700r4.

i know that built 200-4r's can handle SERIOUS hp levels. i know some people running high 8's with them. unfortunately, i'm not a tranny guy, so i don't know what they have done to them in order to get them to work well.

 

They do get expensive when they break. I was running mid-hi 11's in the TTA when I snapped an input shaft. Then bought a multi disc Vigilante and billet pieces...$3000 later I had my trans back.

 

OD is a small weak gear not designed to hold a lot of HP. If a car is set up properly, it will never use OD in the 1/4 mile so why have all the extra parts/weight etc of the OD in a tranny that will never be used?

The 700R4 is a great street tranny with it's low first gear to compensate for highway gears in the diff and an OD to bring the engine rpms down even more when cruising down the highway. As a dragstrip tranny, it's not that great. As I just mentioned, if set up properly, it will never use the OD and the 700R4's 1-2 gear spread is too far apart for a good dragstrip gear ratio.

There are some people who insist on having a sub 11 second car and still drive it down the highway where they're going to really need an OD just to get good gas mileage. You can build whatever you want but if you want the best of both worlds, expect to pay a lot of money. Why not step up to the massive 4L80E for a strong drag race tranny with an OD for the highway? Most people can't afford the $3000+ for the tranny and computer to run it.

I've got a fraction of the money people invest in a strong 700R4 invested into my Powerglide but it's never going to be street driven either.

 

mine oughta run 11.9's or so and i will still be driving mine everday, so, the OD is necessary. and you can find good deals on them too. i only paid about $600 or so and i know it's been built to the hilt.

i was going through the traps in drive with a 4.10 gear and 28" tires at about 5300rpms with the 305. the 350 ought to make power to 6000+ with the cam and heads i'm using, so i should still be just fine. if there is an issue, i'll go to a 3.73 gear.