whats up everyone, my name is Ron and im new to this board. Been doin alot of research recently because ive developed yet another problem that i cant get past.

So i have an 86 iroc with a '80 350 corvett SB. had the car about a month now. i assume its the stock tranny due to researching, its a 4 speed. ive had all kinds of leaks i fixed, basicly this car was a bad project from a previous owner that im fixing.. sorry anyways, my speedo cable broke at the housing on the tranny a few days ago while i was going down the road. drove it maybe 15 or so min back to the house to realize what happened. After replacing it I drove it to my school and back which is an hour drive one way. As i was getting close to my exit i noticed that when i accelerated around 80mph i heard the rpms climb but didnt accel any. got off the highway and stopped at a redlight. turned green and car went just fine untill 3rd gear. it shifted to it barely but wouldnt accel any, then it shifted to 4th and still wouldnt accel. it maintained about 40mph and any time i tried to give it any gas itd just revv on up. when i got home i saw it had nearly no tranny fluid. so i refilled it properly to the dipstick requirements and it still slipps 3rd and 4th. as i was test driving it 2nd started to slip also...

from reading most of yall said the tranny is shot, but mine still moves in 1st and 2nd. is it to late and i need a new tranny or is it savable? thanks for your input

 

If it's now full of fluid but still malfunctions, .... not much left that you can do from outside the case.

Sounds like it got ruined from neglect. OOoooops.

 

so... what would you recomend for a better trans, with the 80 vet 350 in it. wanting it to be a dragcar in the future, investing in a blower soon once the tranny is fixed it has an edelbrock 600 on it and i have a new 750 waiting to be placed once its ready for it.

 

also does the cams have any # identifire on them or am i just going to have to measure them to know what to up them to? im an avid tuner and mech and know a good deal, specialize in bikes. dont know alot about cam upgrades but people keep saying cams are a good step up. i have straight flowmasters but looking to swap to a better flowing exhaust and headers. still learning about these old school third gens.

 

sorry for the short messages too, im in class right now at UTI and im flippin from school work to this. so how come a lack of trans fluid causes it to slip? ive never known alot about transmissions due to the fact the subaru i had never had issues, and the shops ive worked at the foreman always took the tranny jobs. is it the same concept as oil in the engine, basicly it locked up and couldnt grab the gears? just tryin to learn so this issue doesnt happen again after i rebuild or decide to replace with a manuel trans.

 

Automatic transmissions use clutches, that are applied by fluid pressure, to transmit engine power.

If there's not enough clamping force, the clutches slip, and they burn up QUICKLY.

That's what's happened to yours.

An 80 "Vette" 350 is the same as any other late 70s smogger turd 350; 180 HP or so. Less power than some of the 305s in later years. You'll also find, this NOT being a "Vette" board, that nobody here is the least bit impressed by that word. All you will accomplish by slinging that crap around endlessly in every post, is pissing us off. I'd suggest laying off of it.

Changing the carb isn't likely to make any noticeable difference to anything, unless either the one coming off is defective in some way and the replacement isn't, or vice-versa. The way to make an engine produce more power is to find THE ONE thing that is MOST acting as a restriction to the FLOW through it, and address that restriction in some reasonable way; then once that restriction is solved, some other restriction will be exposed as the new limit to the engine's FLOW, at which point you can address that one; and the process can continue indefinitely. The correct way is NOT to un-bolt and re-bolt the big shiny things that sit right out in the open.

In the case of a 86 Camaro, the ONE thing most likely to be strangling the engine, is the EXHAUST. If the car originally came with the LG4 motor (8th digit of the VIN would be H in that case) then EVERY SINGLE PIECE of the exhaust, from the heads to the street, needs to be upgraded. Nothing else will accomplish any significant improvement while that coffee-stirrer-sized garbage is in the way. (including "cams")

There's nothing wrong with the transmission you have, that can't be fixed. Fix it and see where that leads you. No doubt you can get some guidance of some sort at your school.

 

first of all... that little comment about the "vette 350" crap, ive already said these cars are new to me. up untill very recently i didnt realize most late 350's were the same. it took me forever to figure out what i had because autzone couldnt even figure out what alternator to give me because of the unknown engine. so i browsed on here with some numbers on it and figured it out. i also had issues finding a few other parts due to what this engine came out of. I also didnt know if it made a diff or not as far as trans being over powered, under powered ect causing the death of it.

so thanks for the input on the rest of the info, but as far as "pissing" yall off, and "suggesting" that i lay off or watch what i say or anything like that isnt needed. If i hurt ur feelings for saying vett 2 times then maybe u should get off ur sofa and realize the world doesnt revolve around u, or me or anyone else. i simply asked a question providing any info i thought would help. Im not some punk little kid that just bought a camaro cause it looked cool. 2 time war vet, 2 kids, wife also in military. i said nothing of disrespect to u so i expect the same in return.

u mentioned the carb really has no affect but everyone knows the key to performance is air and fuel. I went the route of fuel first due to the fact the old carb on it was in terrible shape and was cheaper to just replace then rebuild. Again thanks for the imput but i didnt ask any performance questions or advice, just simply asked a trans question and a cam question. So again thanks for your input, as your the only one that replied. That bit about the trans helped a ton as to understanding it.

 

Actually, beating us over the head repeatedly with a bunch of "Vette" is EXTREMELY disrespectful TO US, whether you realized it at the time or not. This forum is composed of people who bought cars that outperformed the grossly inferior Vettes of their day such as 1980 ones, and paid about 1/3 as much for them; IOW people who didn't bite on the overpriced "marketing" "image" that goes with "Vette". We don't like it when people come around here and expect somehow that chanting the "V" word often enough in their posts will somehow elevate themselves, or their parts, above ours.

I expect not to be shown the degree of outright CONTEMPT you showed for everyone on this board, let alone mere "disrespect", as well. Insulting us is not a good way to make friends.

Now...

No, replacing the carb isn't going to magically change the amount of air and fuel the engine can process. Quite simply, it isn't the bottleneck.

Think of your engine as being a whole bunch of things that air and fuel must flow through, one after the other; air cleaner, carb, intake, head ports, valves (which of course are controlled by the cam), exhaust manifolds, Y-pipe, cat, cat-back. No one part in the chain can possibly flow any more than whichever one that flows the least. It would be like having a string of pieces of hose, and you're trying to fill up a bucket as fast as possible; if you have 25' of ¾" hose, then 50' of ½" hose, then 100' more of ¾" hose, then 10' of ¼" hose, then 25' of ½" at the end, how much difference to the rate of filling up the bucket, would increasing that first 25' piece of ¾" to 1" make? How about to 1½"? to 2"? That's what changing the carb is like: since it's not The Restriction, the overall flow won't improve. In the case of those pieces of hose up there, THE ONLY ONE that will make a material difference to filling that bucket, is the piece of ¼"; ANY OTHER of the pieces won't change how much the whole thing flows, as long as The Restriction is there.

As I told you, since you already know that you don't have the engine that came in the car, the first thing you need to do is to figure out what engine DID come in it; as that will give you a clue as to the supporting elements the car probably has in it, such as the exhaust and gears. Once you know that, you can develop an approach to improvement that is more likely to succeed, than just un-bolting and re-bolting the big shiny things that sit up on top out in the open. Doing that will only make the car faster by way of weight reduction, with all weight removal centered at the driver's wallet.