Hello everyone. I just purchased a 2000 Camaro SS with an auto and have been doing some reading on here and other boards for the past couple of weeks trying to educate myself on these cars. My car is mostly stock but has the following mods: SLP loudmouth cat back, MTI air lid, Yank 3400 converter, Moser 12 bolt w/3.42 gears, also the rev limiter has been set at 6100 or 6200 via LS1 edit. I went to the track with it yesterday (1/8th mile only) and ran the following: 60': 1.860 330': 5.394 660': 8.309 MPH: 83.586. This was in 85 degree heat with nasty humidity. Respectable but could have been better because the tranny wouldn't shift. It hit the rev limiter briefly before shifting from 1st to 2nd and rode the rev limiter the last 100' of the pass because it wouldn't shift into Drive. Now for the questions. 1. Will a Trans Go shift kit eliminate this delayed shifting thereby keeping the car out of the rev limiter? 2. Is locking the converter up at say, 75 or 80 mph even a possiblility via LS1 edit or is this a really bad idea anyhow? I've seen dyno numbers where these cars lost 40 horsepower to the wheels with an unlocked converter vs locked converter. Another 40 horsepower sure would come in handy at the top end of the track. Locking up the converter halfway through 2nd seems like a good idea to me if it won't kill the tranny. Thanks in advance to anyone that has some insight here.

 

well, sounds like u need to raise ur rev limiter, or lower ur shift points... do u mean locking the converter while under WOT? with a converter, the idea is to have it keep the rpms up in the power band, (shift extension), instead of dropping back low, like with the stock converter... and on a dyno, locking the converter gives u a higher HP reading, not lower...

 

I would love to lower my shift points but the transmission will not shift. I'm getting a shift kit to hopefully remedy this. My idea about locking the converter at WOT during a run stems from the old Kenne Bell switch pitch converters from the Muscle Car era. They had variable pitch vanes if you're not familiar with them. You would launch the car with a high stall and then switch to the lower stall once underway. Doing this would net you a gain of a coule of tenths in a 1/4 mile and also add a few mph to your trap speed. I just don't know if locking the converter up while at the top of 2nd during an 1/8th mile run or Drive during a 1/4 mile run would destroy the converter/lockup mechanism. I know you would run quicker and faster by doing this but at what cost? I'm going to call a couple of places today that specialize in building these 4L60E transmissions and see what their thoughts are on doing this.

 

You can jam the TCC with the PCM tables but
you'd want to be sure you have a unit that can
take it, or consider the converter a wear item
like tires. You're probably looking at a specialty
item, multi-disc clutch, etc. I experimented
with this on my poor abused TCI SF and it cried
like a little baby girl.

As far as the upshift, you need to "lead" the shift
event a little, reduce your adaptation time settings,
maybe up the shift pressure a bit. Shift kit will make
things cycle faster, but if you let it be lazy it (the
PCM shift adaptation scheme) will do its best to
slack off.

I had one of those old ST400 transmissions sitting
around here for the longest time. Heaviest damn
converter you ever lifted. And while you could
switch the stall, I don't think they had the best
STR or efficiency. Neat idea, but more appropriate
to a torque plant than a high-stepper like the LS1.
And a lockup clutch + high stall kicks old-school
*** any day.

 

OK, here's what I found out when I talked to Finish Line Performance today. Locking up the converter via a toggle switch isn't a new idea at all. They perform this mod for people on a somewhat regular basis. They hate Yank converters though. As I've got one of those they obviously tried to sell me a Precision Industries converter if I was going to lock it up via a toggle switch as I planned. They honestly seemed to think it was a good idea to do this and I should see a bit of increased performance doing this depending on where I lock up the converter. I'll obviously have to play with the lockup point a bit to determine the best place to do it. They also said the shift kit would eliminate my shifting woes. I purchased a Trans Go (HT2?) shift kit from them and they told me that the kit could be set to make the tranny shift as soon as I moved the shift lever. They suggested going to a Corvette servo so I will probably do that as well when the kit is installed. I'll go back to the track once this is done to see what, if any, performance gains can be had by doing this. I'll post back once everything's done. Thanks for the input.

 

The Corvette accumulator they are referring to is the 3-4 accumulator that comes with the kit. The kit version is plastic; the replacement is aluminum and cost about $4 from the GM dealership.

The Transgo kit makes the shifting occur immediately but the PCM needs to be reprogrammed to turn OFF torque management.

If you want more info, go to CorvetteForum.com (the horror!! ) and do archive searches for either "Transgo" or a guy named "Vstella" (his name is Vince Stella). Vince is CF's "Mr. Transgo." He's forgotten more about Transgo shift kits than Transgo's tech support has ever learned.

Hope this helps.

 

OK, just an update for those that may be experiencing the same problem as I have. The shift kit didn't do anything for me as far as keeping the car off the rev limiter. It does shift quicker now once I let me foot off the accelerator some but that's the only way the car will shift. No shifting under WOT.
Anyhow, I called Jeff Creech at CAM and he's heading down to the Outer Banks where I live next weekend and is bringing some tuning equipment to go into the computer to adjust my shift points/rev limiter. He seems to think the problems is in the computer as the gentleman I purchased the car from had been moving the shift points and rev limiter around a little in search of more performance. The manual lockup switch is going in next week so I'll have a report on that mod at a later date.