I have a 98 vette that is pretty much stock, my gear ratio is 2.73 . It pulls really hard on top end but out of the whole it's a pooch. was wandering which torque converter on the market is the best one to run. Also how much are they and were is the best place to pick one up at. thanks.

 

The TC will depend on what you want to do with the car. For peppy street performance, a Vigilante 2600 or 2800 or yank 3000 or 3200 should be OK. For racing applications, go with the 3600+ stalls. Call the Yank or Precision Industries (who make Vigilante) tech support guys. Both will be very helpful in helping you determine which stall speed best fits your needs.

TCs run around $700 or so. Lots of the forum vendors sell TCs.

BTW, since your going to have to drop your exhaust, rear sway bars, rear diff, and tranny to install the TC, consider upgrading your gears to at least a 3.42. An upgraded TC deserves an upgraded rear diff gear ratio!!

 

Just remember that the higher the stall, the more it takes away from street drivability. A lot of people say that it does not make that much of a difference but it does. The vehicle will always have to go to a higher rpm to shift when driving around real slow, and going up hills has a tendency to run higher rpms and heat up the transmission also, causing a code for over slippage when going up long mountain passes. You have to reprogram the computer to ignore the higher amount of slip when going up the mountains, but for christ sake get a tranny cooler. For city and flat ground driving, yes, it is barely noticable in everyday driving, but be aware that it affects it in other ways. I got the 2800 Vigilante in mine, and love it, good mix of track and street. I am more of a street driver, so if I was to do it again, I would have gotten the 2400 to 2600rpm unit. I have swapped from 2.73 to 3.15 gears, and have put some Z06 rubber on my car, and it is a delicate proceedure to get it to hook right, so I say even a 3.15 gear swap is worth it. I really felt a great gain just with the 3.15's, without the greater difficulty of traction from the 3.42's. I lot of guys I have run into with the automatics with 3.42's have told me that if they could do it over they would have left the 3.15's alone. But like the other guy said, it depends on what you want. My loss of a little streetability for a real nice gain in performance was worth it, but I am by no means all about the race. 3600stall with 3.42's or 3.73's would be awesome for the track!

I am going to do a heads and cam package on my vette, and my tranny was built to handle the power of that, but with the shift kit, and the tolerances of the transmission, the car has developed a real harsh one to two shift under normal driving. To get a real strong strong tranny to handle nitrous or boost, they usually will design it to eliminate the computer control on the one to two shift, to avoid blowing the servos. The computer monitors too many things and will try to tell the tranny to slip too much, or turn up the line preasure too much which can blow the tranny or burn the clutches. So on some heavy builds be aware that the 1 to 2 shift will be harsh no matter how much you tune the computer. Most builds can compensate for the shift of the tranny for real nice for putting around, and real hard at wide open throttle, but it depends on how much you build your car. If you start getting up to the 500 hp mark, then a solid tranny build will be necessary. I burnt out my clutches with a stock motor from just running it hard.

I hope some of this blabbering on helps you make up your mind.

 

I would do a gear swap also" to 3.42's and get a Yank 3000 ss3600 stall and it will feel much tighter under normal driving.