At the moment, my L98 has a ZZ4 cam, and SLP headers. SLP runners and a manifold are goin' on soon. I'm still running the stock 2.73/10 bolt and the stock 700 tranny.

As the powerband moves up in the RPM range, and as I pour money into going fast, it's become painfully obvious that I'll need a higher torque converter, and deeper gears. My question is which is more important, and which should be first?

My tranny has about 160,000 miles, so the plan is to buy a completely new tranny, rather than just a rebuild and a TC. Plus, at the moment it still works, so maybe I could get a few bucks out of it.

The rear axle also works fine, but gears are a no-brainer, and might as well replace the whole axle with hi-perf unit.

...anyhow, which should be first? Anyone have a suggestion?

 

im my honest opinion. Not from expiriance but just what i would do first. I think that 2.73 is a shot in your cars leg...axle.....A jump to 3.7x or 4.1x will yeild larger results then a torque converter will. 1 or 2 tenths with e converter. You could probably pick up 3-5 tenths with a much more aggresive gear.

How far do you want to go? How much gear? whats your goals? My car went LOADS fast just by switching the tranny and installing a shift kit + b & m shifter.

most of you probably think how could a shifter make me faster. But my car use to shift in every gear perfectly, but would always shift out of second too early. Even while flooring in it. With the new shifter and tranny mods. I manually shift. And when i move from 1st to second, the shift in istontainious (sp?) and churps the tires. Then i hold 2nd as long as i want.

So i would do just that, Tranny, gears, converter. firebreathing 866 cu in twin turbo setup.

 

Why not go for the 1st 1000 ci big-block made!!!

hmmm.....big.....block

 

actually i was watching tv the other day, forget the show, horsepower tv or something like that. They showed an aftermarket block, 685 cu in in stock form, and can easily accomidate over 1000cu in. Here is the fun part. Its a small block. well same mounts and almost identical size (about an inch taller). You can bolt it right into ur f-body with NO mods (minus a beefy drivetrain). plus its all aluminum and something like 600hp 800tq stock.


wish i can remember the name of the block/manifacture. I remember it was something familar, but i didnt know that company made blocks (might be different company with a simliar name ) its like eagle or hawk or dunno, maybe even merlin but it looked sweet.

 

I think the best of both worlds for me (gear wise) is going to be a 3.73.

....but don't underestimate the TC. With the new set-up, I can clearly feel the lack of low end torque. If I could bypass that RPM range (i.e. TC), jeez that'd be cool!!!!

...I almost wonder if 3.73 would be too deep to run with a good 2800 stall. ...and still be streetable first, and a racecar second.

....almost