I Hope this is the right board. Ok so I was wondering what exactly is a shift kit? My trany is a TH-700R4 I think with a rebuilt 350. the trany is also rebuilt. What would be the best shift kit to get for an auto? Also how do you install one?

 

Ok so I was told that I don’t need a shift kit if I have over drive and that my money can be better spent on hp like a cam, headers and a intake.

 

i LOVE my shift kit! (stage 2)

just buy it, its a fairly easy install AND its cheap.

i love that 2nd gear chearping the tires!

its better for your tranny too! btw

 

A Shift Kit is made by TransGo, and it includes a number of odds and ends and instructions to modify your transmission's valvebody to correct a number of design flaws and increase longetivity, but doesn't do much for changing the shift feel. TransGo also makes a Reprogramming Kit which allows you to change the firmness of the shifts so you can get the hard shifts that are so popular with the young folks these days.

Some people use shift kit as a generic term to mean any kind of valvebody modification kit, such as the B&M "Shift Improver" kit, which increases shift firmness at the expense of transmission life.

 

In my experience every transmission can benefit from a shift kit. Like Apeiron said you are correcting design flaws, which is a 700R4 are numerous. Having experience with both the B&M & Transgo kits I must say that the TransGo kit is vastly superior to the B&M kit, which I think is why they call it a "reprogramming kit", because that's really what it does. It changes the nature of the transmission, which for a performance enthusiast is the way you want to go. Shifts become firmer and crisper. This also reduces overlap of the clutches, which if it's done right will improve longevity also. If it's done wrong however it can reduce longevity, which is why I'm not a fan of the B&M kit because it blocks the accumulator pistons solid.

Saying that you don't need a shift kit because you have overdrive is like saying that you don't need boots because you've got a hat. The two are totally unrelated. I don't think I'd take any more advice from the person that told you that.

 

thats not good cuz i just told him that he could help me with my 2nd over hual on my engien. whould he have said that because your trany has better gear ratio with overdrive? how much would a Transgo kits run me. is it eassy to intsall. will i need to buy the Reprogramming Kit 2. and the dum *** that i bought the car from riped my comuter sistem out will i need that for the Reprogramming Kit?

this is what i plan to get for the rebiuled

cam and lifter kit -----249-cl12-206-2---$169

headers--------387-1110-2---$114.99

Intake-------925-8004---8004---$131

some of the # above may be rong, but its hard to read some of my friends wrighting. im just cheking cuz you said not to trust his advice

 

The reason he said it is probably because he doesn't know what he's talking about. Fortunately putting that stuff on isn't really a "rebuild". The computer doesn't have anything to do with the transmission. except for the TCC, but there are ways around that.

 

I'm not sure what the TransGo kit sells for by itself. I got mine from Pro-Built along with a road race rebuild kit, a converter, and a couple of other odds and ends. I think its in the $100 range. The B&M kit is only like $40,but you get what you pay for.

Is it hard to install? Not terribly. Follow the instructions carefully and take your time. Keep everything clean too. Use brake clean and compressed air to dry. Don't use rags or paper towles.

The gear ratios in a 700R4 are actually not very good from performance standpoint. There is a huge drop in RPM between 1st & 2nd gear. Not ideal for acceleration.

The important thing to consider with engine modifications is that they all work together. Make sure the power band of the cam and intake are designed to work together. Stay with 1-5/8" headers. If you're trying to make power over 5,500 RPM you need to upgrade the valvesprings and do some head porting. What kind of carb are you running?

The computer system in a carbureted car doesn't do much. The lockup of the Torque converter can be handled with a stand alone kit from Painless Wiring or others, and I think there is also an instructional thread on this forum that tells you how to do this very cheaply with commonly available parts.

 

Well I reay am not into the engines that much yet. I decided to start with bodywork first. So when it comes to carbs I have no clue. Is there an easy way that I can find out what cinda carb I have?

Hey Apeiron who dosent no who there talking about TKOPerformance or my friend?
Not that it matters much.

 

Is there an easy way to tell what carb's on the car now? Well, that's kind of tough if you don't know what certain kinds of carbs look like. If it's stock then it should be a Rochester Quadrajet if its the good carb motor. It could also have been easily replaced with an Edelbrock or Holley somewhere along the line. Pull the air cleaner off and post a pic. That'd be a good ay to start.

 

yea i took pixs of the carb today. took them with my cell phone just gotta figer out now how to get them on to the computer. ive got the cord but the computer wont load the images. so i gotta talk to one of my cumputer nerd frinds and have them help me get them on to the computer. then i've gotta figer out how to post them. if u could tell me how to post pics i would post one of my car been wonting to do that for a long time just cant figer it out.

is there any reasen you need to no what carb im running?

well ill try some things maybe i can figer somtheing out.

 

Uploading pictures? Man you're asking the wrong guy! Hopefully someone else here knows that answer to that...

I want to know what carb you've got to see that your engine combination is matched. Running too small a carb is usually not a problem on a street car, but plenty of people overcarb a street engine. Most 350s and even 383s work best with a 650 cfm carb, yet a lot of people subscribing to the "bigger is better" theory run 750s on these engines. The result is lower idle quality, worse mixture consistency throughout the RPM range, and burning more fuel than a smaller carb. You end up with an engine that runs worse and gets worse gas milage than one with a smaller carb.

Most street engines are lucky if they are 80% volumetrically efficient. That means that the engine is only capable of ingesting 80% or the maximum theoretical value of volume required to fill the cylinder completely at BDC. Here's an example:

Take a 350 Chevrolet, where each cylinder is 43.75 cubic inches. Theoretically you would want to put 43.75 cubic inches of air and fuel into that cylinder for optimum power. However, in reality that cylinder is only 80% efficient, meaning that it can only burn about 80% of that volume, which is only 35 cubic inches, efficively making the engine respons like it is only 280 cubic inches in total volume! If you try to size the carb based on the theoretical value you end up with a mixture that is pig rich, because you can't get enough air into the cylinder to get the proper air/fuel ratio for the amount of fuel you are putting into the engine. To compensate you will have to jet down the carb considerably to lean the mixture out. The problem is that jetting down a carb this much doesn't work so well. The venturi in the carb are sized to go along with a range of jet sizes, but you'll now be past the smallest size for this range, meaning that the carb isn't producing an optimum venturi effect, which means that air/fuel introduction into the engine will be at lower than optimum velocity. This leads to the fuel falling out of suspension and puddling in the intake. Contributing to poor gas milage, because so much fuel is being wasted.

Then take into consideration that the transition circuits and metering passages in a bigger carb are designed to flow more fuel and you start to see why carb size is so important. Everything else in the fuel curve will be off, even if you're able to get the car to run right at wide open throttle and idle respectibly. It isn't easy to change the other areas of the curve either, at least not with most stock style carbs.

Sorry for the treatise on carb sizing, but hopefully that helps to illustrate how complicated somethig so seemingly simple can become when you really start to understand the mechanics of why things are done a certain way. This is why matched components are so important.