83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

The original, 80K mile tranny in my ’87 Formula 350 is acting up. Under normal driving on the street, it has a nice shifts up and down.

At the track, it still has a nice 1-2 shift, but the 2-3 shift is awful. It doesn’t slip or anything but it takes for ever. At the top of second gear you can feel it stop pulling for probably close to a second while it shifts before it sorta enters 3rd, it’s just very slow, not crisp feeling at all. The car actually noses down during the shift, badly enough that I had another driver in the other lane ask me about it, thinking that for some reason I tapped my brakes and my brake lights didn’t come on.

I installed a Transgo shift kit about 2K miles ago (but also probably about 2 years ago), and I believe it started soon after that. I’m not positive exactly when, I just remember all the shifts were pretty slow but OK/consistent before the shift kit, but I only owned the car for a few hundred miles before installing it. After things settled down after the initial install it felt fine on the street, of course, how many times do you get to do a WOT 2-3 shift in DC metro area traffic (in other words, it could have been doing it and I probably wouldn’t have noticed)?

Originally, I had all sorts of flakiness after the transgo install, the worst of which it wouldn’t shift into 4th at all if it was cold, and worked sporadically when warm. I called transgo and after describing it to them they said that it will go away on it’s own, which it did in a couple of hundred miles.

Any ideas?

RBob

iTrader: (1)

Does the 2-3 shift feel like it is maybe binding? Does the 2-3 shift ever cause a clunk sound? Which 2nd servo did you use (Vette, 553, or maybe a billet one).

Your problem sounds like the common 'still in 2nd while 3rd is being applied'. This is caused by the 2/4 band not releasing quickly enough.

RBob.

83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

Maybe… like I said, it doesn’t feel like it’s slipping, and it’s sever enough that you can see and feel the car nose down while it’s shifting.

Quote:

Does the 2-3 shift ever cause a clunk sound?

not that I’ve noticed

Quote:

Which 2nd servo did you use (Vette, 553, or maybe a billet one).

‘vette, came with the transgo kit

Quote:

Your problem sounds like the common 'still in 2nd while 3rd is being applied'. This is caused by the 2/4 band not releasing quickly enough.

I was under the impression that the transgo was supposed to fix/prevent that

RBob

iTrader: (1)

From what your last post relates, the problem appears to be a bad case of a binding problem. It also sounds like the 2/4 band is _slowly_ releasing. Not even a late quick release but a slow release (a quick release would cause the clunk sound). You are ending up in both 2nd and 3rd gears at the same time. The trans binds up and the vehicle noses over.

This thread goes into a bit of what is going on, others that have the same similar problem, and what I have been doing in an attempt to correct the problem:

https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=184103

I'm not sure of what to tell you, other then to double check the changes. Could have a leaky seal in the servo assembly, or crossleaks in the valve body. Since the servo is the easier of the two to R&R. . . it may be the better place to start.

As mentioned in the above thread, the 2nd servo assembly also doubles as the 3rd accumulator which at the same time releases the 2/4 band on the 2-3 shift.

RBob.

83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

Heh, small world… the thread that you linked to in that one was my original about his thing, from 2 years ago when I first started noticing it (the car was hit, hard while in a parking lot right after that and it’s been sitting without a front end until a couple of weeks ago).

I decided to take it for a ride before I replied and found it enlightening. I don’t know that we’re describing the same problem. I tried to duplicate it cold, and found that I couldn’t go much more then a little more then half throttle in my neighborhood but it did shift well. Later I finally found a place to do it at WOT coming off a highway ramp and found that the 2-3 shift was firm enough to bark the tires.

As far as on the street (and if it doesn’t agree with what I’ve said before, this is what it was doing tonight), all the shifts were really very good, nice, firm and fast… after the initial issues were worked out I really don’t have any complaints about it on the street, it’s working very well.

For whatever reason it only does it at the track (I’ve got close to 40 passes now (out of just over 50 on that car) that I’ve noted the same thing with the 2-3 shift.

So what could possibly be that different about a ¼ mile pass on the track then on the street. The only thing that I could think of is that at the track I’ll do a second gear burnout to heat the tires. I wonder if the fluid ends up hotter? I did try it on the street with higher and lower engine temps then I see at the track, but I’m not sure about the tranny fluid. Any other ideas what could be going on?

RBob

iTrader: (1)

Yes, I've found the same as you whereas the transmission doesn't always respond the same. Can make it difficult to figure out what is going on.

At the track is the 2-3 shift at an RPM of more then 5,800? It may be a different problem. I found this from ProBuilt in the archives here (post 1435):

But then again you do have the TransGo kit already. You may want to add another 1/2 qt of ATF to the trans and see if that helps (I've found where folks will go 1 qt over).

As you can probably tell from my other (2-3 clunk) post I do not have a lot of experience with auto's. Just learning from research and the factory manual.

RBob.

83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

heh, when you look at my original posts about this from about 2 years ago, you’ll see that I finally posted enough different stuff about what my tranny was doing that I finally posted a message apologizing for all the different things that I’ve said it was doing, but that is what it was doing at the time.

Yea, the transgo should fix that, but it’s behind a stock L98, so I’m shifing at 46-4800rpm (still running 13.5@100mph, and yea, the car is mostly stock besides a cold air intake, cat back exhaust and transgo)

huh… really? I might be able to imagine that working… any real reasoning or just that they think that the pan is getting sucked dry?

Looks fine to me… plenty of good info there.

Really, when it comes down to it, at this point this is somewhat crazy. Driving it on the street It’s PERFECT… there is nothing that I really have a reason to complain about, but then when I get it to the track, shift it the same way at the same point and suddenly it does something different. The only thing that I can think of that would be different is the second gear burn outs…

83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

Hum… another thought if I can’t fix it… I’ve got an ’83 TA that I’m going to part out soon that’s got a tranny that shifts perfectly (all stock). I know that they had inferior parts (smaller spline input…), but would the valve body from that one bolt into my ’87 700r4?

thirdgen88

The valve bodies will not interchange... Your '87 and up 700r4 has an auxillary valve body as well as numerous changes throughout the trans compared to your '83 unit... You could swap out the entire unit, but you would be better off fixing your current unit (which has most of the proper updates)...

Pro Built Automatics

The 1982 - 1987 early type "1" valve bodies are interchangable. The late type "2" 1988 - 1993 are interchangable. The 1987 was a "bastard" year, it used an early type "1" valve body with the forward accumulator. I do not like to build the 1987 for Street/Strip use (HD use is fine), any other year for a performance build is fine, just not the 1987.

83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

Hum… I could be wrong (it’s been 2 years since I’ve had either open) but I don’t think that either the ’83 or the ’87 has an auxiliary VB… My truck does though ('92 K1500). The reason that I was wondering is that I know that the ’87 was built with better parts but I also know that my ‘83’s valve body doesn’t do anything objectionable.

Either way, I’d rather get things working with the ‘87’s setup, since it does now have the part throttle 4-3 downshift disabled and various other small upgrades.

I conducted a little experiment leaving the gym tonight and found that if I did a second gear burnout, my 2-3 shift goes to hell for a couple of minutes afterwards, otherwise it’s perfect… does this give anyone any ideas what problem I’m searching for?

83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

Hey Pro Built. I was hoping that you or Leo would turn up here eventually. Looks like you posted while I was adding to the thread.

So are you saying to ditch the ’87 tranny all together or can I convert it to use the early or later setup? Like I already said, I’ve got a good, working ’83 tranny that I’m willing to cannibalize to make this work.

The reason that I’m messing with this now is that I’m hoping that after this fall one of these 700r4’s will be behind a new setup that will make roughly 2x the hp and torque that the current engine does and in a perfect world I don’t want to start over with a 3rd tranny. If I was going to go to the expense I’d probably just convert over to a 350 or 400 since eventually this setup will be in the 750+ hp range (with similar torque), unless someone could convince me that I could get a reliable 700r4 with that kind of power going through it (that would be preferred). OTOH, in the mean time I don’t mind if I could tweak a few things and get this to work acceptably till I have the power to blow it up.

Pro Built Automatics

The 1982 - 1986 early type "1" valve bodies use a single letter on the valve body plate to identify them and have no forward accumulator, and are interchangable. The 1987 was a "bastard" year, it used an early type "1" valve body with the forward accumulator, and had a two letter code on the valve body plate to identify them that "always" started with an "A". The late type "2" 1988 - 1993 are interchangable, always have a forward accumulator, and will have a two letter code on the valve body plate to identify them that will start with a "B" 1988, "C" 1989, "D" 1990, and so on. The late 1993 has a 5 pin plug (instead of the usual 4), and will have 3 switches on the valve body. This valve body must remain with the vehicle.

CamaroMike

I have a TCI Street Fighter Transmission that is new and will not shift into 3rd at WOT. As soon as I let my foot off of the accelerator it shifts. Anyone heard of this before. I am wondering if my factory 84 throttle bracket and Air Gap Intake are causing a TV cable problem. I have ordered a new bracket from TCI but I have low hopes of a fix. I am just tempted to slack the TV cable till it shifts at WOT. Any opinions?

83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

Ok, so I can't swap parts... is there anything that I can do to make this one shift correctly?

Pro Built Automatics

Which kit did you install? As for the TCI not making a 2-3 WOT shift, it is the apply volume of oil that needs to be increased to the 3-4 clutch pack. The Trans-Go Performance Shift kit with accumulation (along with the Corvette servo & large boost valves if you do not already have them) can fix this. TCI, like most transmission companys make the 1-2 shift very firm and the 2-3 soft or nonexistent at WOT.

83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

I installed the Transgo 700 Performance Shift Kit, which came with Vette servo and larger boost bushing.

The thing is shifting perfectly on the street, but at the track it noses down on the 2-3 shift….

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

Dana, is there something about an '86 transmission that would keep the Trans-Go kit from fixing the problem? I got all those parts from you, and the 2-3 WOT shift simply does not happen for me until I let way off the throttle. The kit installation did not make a lick of difference in this regard for me (same before & after).

chikn305

iTrader: (2)

I to have the 2-3 wot shift problem. I first installed the trans go sk kit, and it didn't fix the 2-3 but it made the 1-2 work nice. i also installed the billet servo. So i decided to upgrade to the performance kit because it changes the 2-3 shift valve. Well now the tranny doesn't shift at all.

SSC

From reading what Danna said or at least I think he is saying, the feed hole isnt flowing correctly, wrong size or not deburred or not even opend up enough.

I'd still like to know why my 82/83 I forget caprice trans I was using worked great never hung in 2nd gear but after the transgo the auto downshifts were delayed.