Hey guys,

My cars has developed an issue that when I'm acclerating from 35-55ish and the torque converter is locked, the car lugs pretty bad causing a pretty good shake through the car. The car is an 84 T/A, CCqjet with a 355 motor installed. 3.73 gears.

If I shift down to 3rd to get the converter to unlock, it revs up and runs fine. It only seems to happen in "Drive" after the coverter locks up.

Could this just be because the RPM's are too low or could this be an issue that maybe the start of the torque converter going bad?

 

If it just started doing this and there have been no changes to anything - even driving habits - check your tune. The low RPMs and locked converter are putting too much load on the motor. If it used to handle this load fine look to the motor.

Check your dwell at low cruise see if anything looks funky, a vacuum leak will have greater affect under small throttle openings.

Make sure your ignition components are up to par. A miss or weak ignition will be more apparent under load when cylinder pressures are higher.

 

It could very well be the tune. I just moved to England from Utah, 4800ft above sea level to sea level. The computer may not be entirely happy about it. My tools haven't caught up with me yet so I'll have to see about tracking down a dwell meter.

The ignition is new, all less than a year old. Cap, plugs, wires, rotor, but I'll go over it anyway.

 

Seems that I found a sparkplug wire had come off part way. It is running better now but the plug wire is all white, cracked and distorted around the plug end. Seems it may have heated up and pulled away from the plug. At least that's teh best I can figure.

It's the #5 cylinder plug, the one surrounded by headers. I've tried putting those heat protectors over the end but because the MSD plugs have a larger end on them due to the way they are made, I can't fit it over the end. Any suggestions on how to protect the end?

 

I had the same problem, my torque converter locked up at 42 mph and had that nastly lugging noise until I got to 50 mph. This was awhile ago, I think I adjust it so the torque converter would lock up at a higher speed. Sounds like your having the same problem as I did.