LT1-LT4 Modifications 1993-97 Gen II Small Block V8

FTI torque converter

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Old 09-09-2007, 07:53 AM
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Just got a (non sponsor name removed) converter for my 86 camaro hands down works better then any converter i have had. (much better then TCI)
it is 4000 stall all billit. a 1.7 st ratio so it isnt as loose as you would expect it actually drives like a 3000 stall. the best part about it is that i can lock it up in second gear at the track to get my MPH up. my goal is to get my street driven camaro into the 10s this winter i have been 11.6@119 so far with a 2600 stall converter. up until last week i havent had a trans work longer then a year. PROTRANs out of deland, fl built the newest trans and it shifts harder then any trans i had i think that this one will last for years to come. if your needing a converter for your ls1 or lt1 car Force Tech has a 4l60e in a 4th gen camaro running 9.19 with a 1.19 60 ft.

Last edited by GEARHED; 09-16-2007 at 03:47 PM.
Old 09-09-2007, 09:52 AM
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Wow sounds like a big advertisement plug...
Old 09-09-2007, 10:03 AM
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Dude, I just gave ThoR294 like $40. and he gave me a high five. it was the best high five I have ever gotten. He is totally giving it out to anyone who gives him $40!
Old 09-09-2007, 01:11 PM
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Slamming shift with a 4000 stall in a 4L60E means you WILL break hard parts.
A 1.7 STR is just sad, unless it was built for a car with an absolutely crappy chassis an this was the bandaid.

For a street strip car Edge, Yank and Vigilante are where it is at.
If locking the converter makes the car quicker in the 1/4 that is proof positive it is not built right, I am not talking MPH I am talking quicker as in lower ET.
Old 09-09-2007, 08:45 PM
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think about it you are taking away all the slip thats why a 5 and 6 speed car has more mph in the 1/4 than an auto. if i take away slip its gonna be faster. i made it a 1.7 st ratio so that it wont be rediculous for the street. the car is still driven almost everyday and it still has ice cold ac. trust me the stall is there when i need it. i cant hook up on my e.t. street mickeys. which brings me to the question what can i do to make it hook better? lookin into gettin a BMR torque arm will it help?
Old 09-09-2007, 09:09 PM
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dont no what i was thinking the st ratio is 1.84 on that not 1.7
Old 09-09-2007, 10:28 PM
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Dude you have 8 posts on here, and it seems like you're a troll the way you make a post about a TC is like an advertisment. a STR of 1.84 would make it awefully loose, which would mean it would be quite a bear to drive on the streets.
Old 09-10-2007, 06:03 AM
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a 1.8 st is not to loose it drives like a baby converter i dont turn 3000 all the time it was built so it woulnt be rediculous for street driving buy could still have 4000 stall. my buddy has a 4000 stall with an st ratio over 2 and he turns 2500-3000 all the time.
Old 09-10-2007, 01:34 PM
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its does appear that i am just advertising for these people. but if you had gone through what i have as far as getting a trans and converter to last, you woudnt mind putting their name up and trying to give them some sales. i havnt had a trans that would shift at WOD in 2 years. i brought it to them and told him what i was planning on doing and my specs on my car he built the converter for my car. the trans i had been screwing with because i didnt want to take it to anyone else. i pulled the trans and he went through it and put in a new pump, front drum and all new clutchs for nothing. woudnt even let me pay him for parts. they are the only people i have seen that actually care about the customer and will go out of their way to make you happy. and this is no BS.
Old 09-10-2007, 05:42 PM
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Originally Posted by XX11SECZXX
think about it you are taking away all the slip thats why a 5 and 6 speed car has more mph in the 1/4 than an auto. if i take away slip its gonna be faster. i made it a 1.7 st ratio so that it wont be rediculous for the street. the car is still driven almost everyday and it still has ice cold ac. trust me the stall is there when i need it. i cant hook up on my e.t. street mickeys. which brings me to the question what can i do to make it hook better? lookin into gettin a BMR torque arm will it help?

The STR in my car is well over 1.7, 3400 stall and with an 825-850 in gear idle it will idle at 8mph, does that sound loose too you? It pulls on the brakes harder than my wife's bone stock 03 Impala.

Yes manual tranny cars MPH higher BUT an automatic will usually ET better. A good torque converter works best when it is allowed to work, if locking it makes the car quicker in the quarter it is too inefficient. All torque converters are going to have some level of inefficiency but a good one makes up for it in ET by making the most of the engine's output and keeping the engine in the powerband even as the tranny shifts.

Frankly, you listened too a salesman and he fed you bad info to get you to buy his stuff.

I went fishing for info on STR on more converters and came upon this article published admittedly by the company that makes Vigilante. Pay special attention to the last paragraph.
http://www.converter.com/torqueratio.htm

My converter is up in the neighborhood of what they say is the max on a street setup. Might be a piece of how an NA 350 in a truely street car the size of a Caprice can hang a tire on launch if the track is working, this is with just 3.73s and the car keeps the nose high. I mention the gears and keeping the weight up because I have seen cars with less power and more gear hop the nose and unload the rear when it comes back down.
Old 09-10-2007, 09:32 PM
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im not sure what you are saying. you mean that the converter sucks and it is only fast when it is locked then why there a page on thirdgen.org that tells you how to lock the converter in third gear to pick up your mph and time anywhere from 1-3 tenths. when i get out to the track i will post the new times. you noticed that a stick car has more mph and an auto has a better et. then why would leaving with an auto and locking the converter to make it mph like a stick car be a bad thing. you must not be understanding what im saying. check out thirdgen.org
Old 09-10-2007, 10:11 PM
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Originally Posted by XX11SECZXX
im not sure what you are saying. you mean that the converter sucks and it is only fast when it is locked then why there a page on thirdgen.org that tells you how to lock the converter in third gear to pick up your mph and time anywhere from 1-3 tenths. when i get out to the track i will post the new times. you noticed that a stick car has more mph and an auto has a better et. then why would leaving with an auto and locking the converter to make it mph like a stick car be a bad thing. you must not be understanding what im saying. check out thirdgen.org

most likely they are talking about locking a stock converter at WOT. Generally most people don't lock the converter until usually 80mph or more, or around the top of 3rd gear. The converter only really needs to be locked if it's not a very efficient unit, and is loosing efficiency up top.
Old 09-11-2007, 02:38 PM
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ok with that being said an honest answer how many of you have actually locked the converter at the track to know what it does? my guess would be next to none. most of you dont even have lock up. if it doesnt help why do we have lock up transmissions?
Old 09-11-2007, 03:07 PM
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Originally Posted by XX11SECZXX
ok with that being said an honest answer how many of you have actually locked the converter at the track to know what it does? my guess would be next to none. most of you dont even have lock up. if it doesnt help why do we have lock up transmissions?
I believe a high majority of people here run lockup convertors. You do not want to lock them early though, since it defeats the purpose. If your converter performs better at the track locked, then it must not be very efficient at all. Of course, it will dyno higher locked then unlocked - but who cares??? The E/T is much more important then the rwhp(at least to those of us who are not keyboard racers). You want the convertor to slip in the beginning - that is how it spikes the rpms up into your power band. If locking the stall early gives you better times, it is either waaay too much stall for your build, or a very inefficient convertor. I'm leaning towards the latter .
Old 09-11-2007, 05:00 PM
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Originally Posted by XX11SECZXX
ok with that being said an honest answer how many of you have actually locked the converter at the track to know what it does? my guess would be next to none. most of you dont even have lock up. if it doesnt help why do we have lock up transmissions?
to drop rpms on the highway to allow for better fuel economy. If locking the converter does next to nothing at the track, then that is a good thing. it means it's very efficient..
Old 09-11-2007, 06:37 PM
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if locking the converter drops rpms on your car it means its taking the slip out of your converter. i dont care what converter you have it has slip. taking the slip out makes the car faster. im not gonna argue with people who dont no what they are talking about.
Old 09-11-2007, 06:48 PM
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Originally Posted by XX11SECZXX
if locking the converter drops rpms on your car it means its taking the slip out of your converter. i dont care what converter you have it has slip. taking the slip out makes the car faster. im not gonna argue with people who dont no what they are talking about.
Well obviously no converter can be 100% efficient. The clutch locks both halves of the converter together eliminating slippage and improving efficiency at HIGHER SPEEDs when the transmission side is spinning faster than the engine side. IF you're having to lock your converter at the strip at wot at such low speeds (aka 2nd gear) to noticeably improve your ET and MPH you're converter is very loose and inefficient. What size is your converter BTW?
Old 09-11-2007, 07:15 PM
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Originally Posted by XX11SECZXX
if locking the converter drops rpms on your car it means its taking the slip out of your converter. i dont care what converter you have it has slip. taking the slip out makes the car faster. im not gonna argue with people who dont no what they are talking about.

Yes all converters will slip, the thing is is that slip being output as more torque or is is just being wasted as heat?

If locking the converter has little effect on ET then the slip must be outputting torque, if locking it has a substantial impact on MPH/ET then the converter was producing heat with that slippage.

The HP put into the converter will always all come back out in one form or another, going to be either torque or heat, if it comes out as torque it helps the car go quicker, if it comes out as heat it is waste. An efficient converter generates little heat because it is outputting torque, you specifically bought a converter with limited torque multiplication capability. How exactly is that input power coming back out of your converter if it is not as torque.



Maybe a little further step back to basics will help here a torque converter takes HP input and puts out reduced rpms but higher torque, yes some energy is always lost too heat production.

Do you understand the definitions of torque and horsepower?

Did you read the link I posted?

Torque converters sell for good money considering how few parts are inside them, this is because the R&D is not cheap. A lot of smaller shops without the money for R&D have tried to get in on the money to be made in ths feild, problem is without the R&D they can not provide the quality of product the larger companies can. They think they understand it all but theory is useless without tests and what happens is the customers are the test and it fails but the customers who use these little shops are often too inexperianced to know that it is not working right and tell others how great it is .

A lot of guys out there thought they had good cheap converters till they tried a truely good converter only then did they realize what junk they had before.

I breifly had a 2600 Level 10 converter I was fine with how it drove till a tranny failure took it out and I went too a 2800 Edge. The Edge drove better and ran cooler only once I had that too compare too did I realize what junk the Level 10 was. Then in the meantime Edge made some advances and the current 3400 Edge drives as well as the old 2800 one did. Like I said the STR is quite high too.
Old 09-12-2007, 03:27 PM
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ok has anyone on here ever locked the converter with their yank or fuddle converter or any converter at all at the track. until then dont say what or what its not gonna do.
Old 09-12-2007, 06:06 PM
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I've locked my edge at the track. a whopping .05 gain in mph was all, and when repeating the run was about the same.


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