My buddy has a 355 in his 93 Trans Am with about 450 horse and he plans on adding a supercharger later on to put him at 550-600 horse. I am building his tranny for him because he has burned up a few high dollar aftermarket ones. He currently has the Transgo stage 2 shift kit, Corvette servo, and Vigilante 3000 stall in it. Besides the heavy duty input sprag, what would you suggest to keep him up and runnning? I told him to have his converter cut open and cleaned out as it has been behind 2 different trannies. He has been through 7 different trannies with this car before I came along and I think he is fighting an adjustment problem because he keeps burning up the overrun clutches. Any advice would be greatly appreciated by the both of us. Thanks in advance!!

 

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You say he is going through overrun clutches? I would check out the overrun inner race very carefully, it has to be in perfect shape. It should have a mirror finish, and be perfectly flat, with wear only at the spots where the sprag retainer rides. The outer race should be in decent shape with no pitting, you should see machine marks on it, if not roughen it up by using 240 grit and sand in direction of rotation only. Use the latest from Borg Warner for the sprag. When in the drum look at the piston closely for cracks. In the front pump use Trans-Go (no-yo-yo) steel rings for better pump pressure & life. In the 3-4 clutch area, use the Borg Warner Hi-Energy clutches (8) along with Kolene steels, set clearence at .040 - .055. Use stock BW clutches everywhere else. On the 2-4 band, use the BW Hi-E there too. Use the "low drag" turbulator steels in the low/reverse & reverse/input areas. Use my latest Trans-Go Performance Shift kit w/"Accumulator Plus". This has the boost valves & Corvette servo & the accumulation needed to eliminate part-throttle 1-2 bang shifts, while keeping the WOT shifts firm. I have everything that is needed to do this right! Let me know?

 

I appreciate the advice! I will need to price him everything we need and he can decide when to do it. We definatley want to do this one right, I can't let a buddy down. Thanks again for the info.