Being that I just bought an 89 IROC-Z I am new to it's transmission. Before I bought it I was driving my Dad's 86 Grand Am. The selectable gears were 1,2,D. It had overdrive but wasn't selectable. When driving on highway or street and I wanted to manually downshift and floor it to get some acceleration I would put it into 2nd gear.

Now with the Camaro and it's 700R4 transmission, it has different gears. The selectable gears are 1,2,D,OD. I usually put it into OD, to save mileage. But I have yet to downshift it manually. I'm curious of the correct way. To get some acceleration, do I put it into D or 2nd gear? Wouldn't going from OD to 2nd gear be like downshifting two gears? I don't want to mess up my engine or transmission.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, Tom

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yes. Going from OD-2 is shifting 2 gears down. I used to just drive in the street with it in D (or 3rd gear)all the time and save OD for freeway or high speed street. My personal preferences though.

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treat it as 1,2,3,4..when you downshift press the brake pedal slightly to disengage the torque converter clutch, and press the gas slightly to raise the line pressure and you'll get a better shift

 

I got an 89 RS 305 TBI.. Same tranny as you. When I first got it and wanted to know when it was safe to drop gears.. I just simply put it in first, ran it upto like 4500 RPM and saw how fast I was going.. Then 2nd. got up to the same RPM, noted how fast I was going. So that way when your going 50 or so. You know its too fast to go into first, but you should feel some hard torque if you dropped it into 2nd. And ya, like the other fellow I like to save OD for the highway or anything above 60ish Drive it well and have fun!

Tom

 

The right way to downshift an automatic is DON'T. You can manually upshift all you want. Upshifting is fine wether you hold a gear longer then the tranny would on it's own or shift at the same time as it normally would.