My friend went and had his car dyno tuned yesterday, and he has hooker LT's, off road Y, 4" mufflex with the spintec muffler, and a vig 3200... he only got 311 hp on the dyno... he made 330 with the factory SLP exhaust and cats and stock 00 manifolds before the stall... the dyno guy said that he couldnt get the coverter to lock up on the dyno. Have any of you Vig guys had this problem?? thanks.

 

Converters don't lock up at WOT unless you have a manual lock up switch, or some other programming means to do it manually. It really amazes me the number of dumb asses in this world who are operating dynos.

 

unless he's a dyno queen, you shouldn't worry about the locked up dyno #'s. Most folks don't race their cars locked up unless they got some badass tranny or a death wish out for their trans.

 

If you have lets say a 3200 Vig and it stalls to really 3800rpm, wouldn't it be moving right into peak torque of the rpm range to make max torque? I was under the impression the lockup was designed to pull rpm down for better fuel efficiency. Is that true the way i understand it?

 

the verter is way more efficient locked up yes. However to get the torque multiplication and stall to 3800 on your verter you can't do that locked up.

stall accomplishes two things: stored energy from the flash is released & slips you into peak torque (3) shift extensions you to keep you up on next gear shifts in the power band. Torque gets you going from the dig, the peak whp is still needed to go fast.

Ideally you would want to throw the verter to lockup once you hit the last gear for the 1/4 mile, but if you happen to be shifting locked up, you best have a badass tranny and TC that can handle that.

Thats why i dont want to shift locked up, i can't afford a new tc/tranny built to handle that . You lose say 15hp unlocked, but gain trememdous torque on the launch, after you launch ideally you'd want to lockup to gain the upper RPM power back, but as i said its probably not healthy for the tc/tranny in stock applications for long term.

thats how i understand it. I'm trying to make my 70K trans last as long as possible so i'll take a little loss in speed/power on top end for longevity.

You can program efilive or manual lockup switch to do the nasty deed if you are brave.

Ask a tuner if this is in your best interest (of the trans/tc).

Some TC makes make special TC's for locked up shifts etc, they probably will tell you what it does the tranny clutches as well.