zoomstrange

G'day
Can anyone tell us whether the T700 can safely be tuned to drop into 4th gear at 60kph so the car rumbles along at 1250 rpm rather than squealing it's head off at 1850 like my transmission bloke has set it up? I did have it set to drop in at 60 which was pure gold, but then the chrome cable adjuster slipped and grief followed. Now he's being Mr Cautious, but I find I'm running up to 75kph around town just to get it to drop into gear, so the old license is gunna go up in smoke before the clutch plates for sure.

Why can't we trick it into doing what we want? He's tricked it to bang hard into gear. (why do people think that's good?)

pumba

no offence, but why would you want to? if your cruising around at 1250rpm, you will use more fuel and put more stress on the motor then you will at 1850rpm.

__________________
'55 OVP'... VP SS... 152rwkw unopened 304ci


LS1 VP... Coming Soon



http://qldssc.omgforum.net/index.htm

76lxhatch

The electronic version has a special 'economy' mode button which does this but it does seem to be trickery and like pumba says, the car will struggle.

zoomstrange

Thanks, fellas. Well, I wouldn't have known the difference but I set it up to do that after Trans man showed me how to fine tune the quick adjustment he made - and it was great. Now he's set it up for 1850, the car sounds like it's in the wrong gear -its really annoying and it doesn't sound comfortable. If it was a manual, you'd just change up or your passengers would take the piss out of you. Interesting you say the car would struggle, but no, it seemed much happier at 1250 - and the cam was ground to suit this car, which was always going to be a cruiser, so it's torquey. Diff is a 3:36, perhaps that helps. It will be interesting to compare fuel consumption - thanks for that - I'll let you know. At 1850 I got 256ks out of 71 ltrs around town. Not quite in the missus' Prius territory...

PRO-GMH

It must be a pig of an engine if youre only getting that amount of kms per tank. I reckon I would just about get that out of my 470hp chev with 5000 stall, cruising at 3000rpm!

Oh the reason harder shifts are better is because there is less slipping in the auto. No it doesnt feel as smooth but your box will last longer.

zoomstrange

Thanks! Yep, the economy is in for sorting once we get all the gas system together. The tired original 308 gave me 11 or 12 MPG around town and 15 on the road on gas & 23 MPG on petrol before. It's encouraging that you reckon I should be getting quite a bit better than the stockie setup once she's all ironed out. So far it looks like the 1850 @ 60ks is the thirstier route.
Cruising at 3000 rpm sounds as relaxing as having someone in the back revving a chainsaw. I walked away from an extremely tough ute because of the highstall otherwise I'd have bought it. Yours sounds about the same - you probably don't sneak it down the back lane on the way to work at 6am, then!

rlj308

any picks of your car zoom? sounds interesting .

pumba

why? im getting around 300-350kms to 75Ltr in my VP SS, standrad internals, built auto, big throttle body, big injectors, full exhaust and kalmaker dyno tune.... now i just fitted a 3000rpm convertor, so it should be interestin gto see what kms it gets :S

__________________
'55 OVP'... VP SS... 152rwkw unopened 304ci


LS1 VP... Coming Soon



http://qldssc.omgforum.net/index.htm

PRO-GMH

Dont get scared off from a high stall convertor. My 5000 stall takes off easier (less revs, so more grab) than my old 3000 dominator. The 3 speed and 3.9 combo are the ones responsible for highway revving not the convertor.

zoomstrange

Ok, thanks. I'm off to take it to a different Guru tomorrow, so we will see what he comes up with. Initially, he agrees that what I'm asking of the thing is going to be hard on the plates. The stall in my car is between 2200 and 2500.
Finally found how to attach a pic - here she is minus signwriting. Now there's a full WB Caprice interior to match the front & the rear seats fold down as in a normal wagon.

Attached Images

Sled shed.jpg (99.6 KB, 22 views)

WBTUNNA

Mine T700 wants to drop in 4th at about 50-60, 4.11s might have something to do with it though :P

__________________
Some say I have a bad attitude... Those people are stupid

zoomstrange

So the answer to the question is Yes, using a Governor Recalibration Kit, you can . . . Adjust Your Shift Points! This is taken from an ad for B&M kits...

This kit allows you to adjust the MPH shift points of your transmission after it is installed. It is very useful if you have a vehicle that is lightweight, has a low rear end gear ratio or is a conversion. Installs in a few minutes via access through the governor case on the side of the transmission. Fits GM TH-700R4, TH-400, and TH-350.

We put one of these kits in last week and although it needs fine tuning, there are enough spring and weight combinations to get it right. They recommend starting with a single spring change to kick off with (there are 5 springs and 5 weights in the kit, which you can also use to tune the trans to shift later as well as earlier) the thing to remember is that all gears will shift earlier or later so you have to treat them as a group. We went for the earliest combo just to see what would happen and she changes at ~20ks, 40 into 3rd (too early) and 4th appears through the ether somewhere just after that: the shift has become very hard to detect. So in looking to lose 12-15kph from the top shift point, we found it's possible to lose 35 - it would have to be the same for late shifting, so you really can tune any of these trannies to do it your way. In the end we expect to find the kit's instructions are probably spot on for what we want to do. The kit was about $80 and now I've seen it done, I could install it myself at home.
On the economy side, on a decent country run with the electric economy gizmo (torque converter lockup?) on we cruised at around 2100 rpm for 120kph to get a best of 19.5 MPG with a few sightings of the 150/160 mark. Around town, I'll post up what happens for the interested.