No. Put the shifter in D or OD and let the computer shift for you. There is no ET benefit from shifting yourself (in most cases), you risk bouncing the rev limiter if you wait too long, you risk losing ET if you shift too soon and the transmission is not designed for manual shifting of 1 to 2 to 3 to OD.

But once and awhile at a stop light it is kind of fun

But at the track and in a race I put it in 3 and let the computer do it's job better and faster then most humans can.

 

You won't hit the rev limiter if you shift before the shift point. With the delay on the stock computer, shifting about 200-300 rpms early will land you that perfect shift point. I've never had a problem with hitting the rev limiter except when I just got the car or when I wasn't paying attention. Its all about timing.

 

So pretty much when we are at the track, us A4 guys should put the shifter down to 3 ourselves, or when racing in genaral, and around town we should leave it in OD and let the tranny do its own thing?

 

Does 3 = D? My shifter is PRND21. No 3 in there. I guess drive is 3.

 

You have a Z28 should be PRNODD21

Around town, leave it in D. On the highway, put it in OD, the rpms will drop to save gas.

 

man, just leave it in overdrive all the time. Around town driving wont hurt it. its just when you go into overdrive at WOT that can cause damage. At the track just put it in overdrive, unless you have some seriously modded drive train, such as way higher rearend gears, it will never **** into overdrive anyway. You have to hit approx 135 at WOT to get it into overdrive anyway, so unless you are doing that alot, i wouldn't worry about it.

 

leave it in OD for town driving, if you go to WOT then hit D first

as for the track, i ran 13.8 in OD and 13.6 in D, dont ask me why that happened all i know is im in D at the track from now on

 

Yeah, thats what i meant. So it won't shift into OD anyway on the track right? WOT isnt gonna break nothing if i dont hit 135 (which i definitely wont be anytime soon).

 

For regular 4L60E's the worst is the 3/4 shift at wot. But like others have said, that won't happen until 135 (3.23 gears) or 167 (2.78) gears. But it's also causing extra wear and tear to do a lot of wot downshifting to second gear. So putting down the hammer alot at 50-65 mph is taking a toll on stock trannys. For the most part you should try to do wot runs from a dig or 1st gear roll. Occasional 60 mph punches will be ok But I wouldn't make a habit of it.

 

For regular 4L60E's the worst is the 3/4 shift at wot. But like others have said, that won't happen until 142 (3.23 gears) or 168 (2.78) gears. But it's also causing extra wear and tear to do a lot of wot downshifting to second gear. So putting down the hammer alot at 50-65 mph is taking a toll on stock trannys. For the most part you should try to do wot runs from a dig or 1st gear roll. Occasional 60 mph punches will be ok But I wouldn't make a habit of it.

And no you'll NEVER go into OD at the track unless you are trapping 168+ with 2.73's, 142+ with 3.23's, 123+ with 3.73's or 112+ with 4.10's. Here is a nice calculator you can use to figure out what mph your car switches to each gear in. Just punch in your car, tire size and gear ratio and the calculator does the rest.

http://www.f-body.org/gears/

 

So I'm guessing that if you go to an aftermarket tranny, this problem will go away especially the 3-2 downshift.

 

Wow, I've really been learning alot from the discussion going on here. However, I must apologize for some misinformation on my part.

After driving my car more, I've realized that I was/am actually bumping the rev limiter on the 2-3 shift at WOT. After searching here, I'm thinking that the 3-4 clutch pack is toast. I'm not going to try and lie to myself and think that I need a new VSS or a deeper tranny pan. I've learned my lesson on previous cars when I've thrown money at "fixes" to hopefully make a problem go away...denial will get you nowhere. I did notice, however, that the previous owner was running 215/50/16 pizza cutters. Could that maybe be thowing the speedo off enough to cause the 2-3 shift problem? For now I'll just assume it's the 3-4 clutch pack.

How hard would it be to open up the tranny and replace the clutch pack myself? Anyone know of a step by step tutorial on the internet anywhere? I've tried searching here and on Google but not any other f-body sites (I only belong to this one as of right now). I rebuilt the manual tranny in my defunct Honda Civic using the Helm's manual for guidance. How complicated is the 4L60-E to work on? It looks alot bigger and heavier than the Honda tranny so I may not be able to yank it myself.

Rossler Transmissions is real close to where I live so I'm going to call them on Monday to see how much they would charge to replace the clutch pack. If it's too pricey I'll ask them how much it would be to just swap out the old tranny for a low mileage used one I've located at a nearby junkyard. Then again, who's to say that the used one doesn't have a burnt up clutch pack or other problems? Maybe they can cut me a deal if I buy a convertor from them and have them install that too. Arghhh...what to do, what to do.