New Shift Kit for 404, 413 and 670's released

[turbovanman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MooseMotorsport I mainly bought it for the governor sticking issue and will most likely not do any of the other mods. Although I do need to finish modding my VB I only removed the one steel ball and installed the rod and didn't do anything else to it.

Heres another trick, well, the Superior shift kit already has the nylon balls but replace all of them, any tranny shop should have tons lying around as the Neon's use them now instead of steel, reduces the wear on the vb spacer plate.

[MooseMotorsport]

So, the nylon balls are better than the steel? I thought the steel balls were better. Heh, thanks.

If the tranny shop near me doesn't have them is there somewhere I can purchase them?

[turbovanman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MooseMotorsport So, the nylon balls are better than the steel? I thought the steel balls were better. Heh, thanks. If the tranny shop near me doesn't have them is there somewhere I can purchase them?

They will have them. You can't buy them seperately, I tried and Dodge wants you to buy the whole valvebody, ouch!

[MooseMotorsport]

Cool thanks again. I'll ask the guy who built my tranny the first time.

[Turbo Joe]

when is the trans brake kit gonna be availible?

[Torqueflite]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Turbo Joe when is the trans brake kit gonna be availible?

Hopefully by springtime (around mid March). Right now, it's pending on my machinist on making a batch of parts for me.

Chad Kilback

[turbovanman]

^^^Have you figured out and taken photos of your valve body mods that don't effect upshifts with increased line pressure?

[Turbo Joe]

cool, shot me a price when you release it. man valvebody with transbrake is what i want bad for the 413 that's gonna be built.

[Torqueflite]

Quote:

Originally Posted by turbovanman ^^^Have you figured out and taken photos of your valve body mods that don't effect upshifts with increased line pressure?

Unfortunately, I haven't had time to experiment with spring pressures to figure it out. I'm not sure if I'll get time in the near future either, since I'm busy with the rvmb and tranny brake stuff. Maybe if someone wants to experiment for me, and pull their valve body in and out a few times and play, I can describe how to do the mod. From there, it's all about playing with the right spring.

Chad Kilback

[MooseMotorsport]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Torqueflite Unfortunately, I haven't had time to experiment with spring pressures to figure it out. I'm not sure if I'll get time in the near future either, since I'm busy with the rvmb and tranny brake stuff. Maybe if someone wants to experiment for me, and pull their valve body in and out a few times and play, I can describe how to do the mod. From there, it's all about playing with the right spring. Chad Kilback

I'm game, I'm in the middle of a build now so I've got the spare VBs and stuff to tinker with. Just lemme know what I've gotta do.

[Turbo Joe]

any new updates yet? how does the time window look? thanks..

[turbovanman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Torqueflite Unfortunately, I haven't had time to experiment with spring pressures to figure it out. I'm not sure if I'll get time in the near future either, since I'm busy with the rvmb and tranny brake stuff. Maybe if someone wants to experiment for me, and pull their valve body in and out a few times and play, I can describe how to do the mod. From there, it's all about playing with the right spring. Chad Kilback

Crap, I didn't see this but yeah, I can mess around for you. PM me the details if you don't mind or we can chat on MSN if you have it.

[Torqueflite]

Quote:

Originally Posted by turbovanman ^^^Have you figured out and taken photos of your valve body mods that don't effect upshifts with increased line pressure?

It's been awhile since I've been on this forum, been busy (work, moved, etc). Anyway, so here's some info for these mods. I'll try to explain the theory of how the valves work during a WOT shift first, then what to modify.

So here's what we know when playing with WOT shift points. The governor valve creates governor pressure (it turns line pressure into a new pressure we call governor pressure). Governor pressure can just be thought of as a hydraulic "speed sensor". A "rule of thumb" is for every mile your speeding, that's how much governor pressure you'll have (eg. if you doing 50 mph, you'll have approx 50 psi of governor pressure).

The other pressure we worry about to make things shift is "throttle pressure". This pressure is created by the throttle valve (it turns line pressure into a new pressure we call throttle pressure). The throttle valve decides how much pressure to create by how much we jam our foot on the gas. The more we lay on it, the more throttle pressure we get. For those of you who have played with the valve bodies and/or have the flow charts probably know that when we push on the gas, a lever moves the kickdown valve, which squishes a spring against the throttle valve. The more we floor it, the more the spring squishes, and this causes the throttle valve to make more pressure.

So now we have these two pressures (throttle and governor) acting against each other to tell the tranny when to shift. These two pressures don't give a crap what line pressure is. They'll still cause the tranny to shift at the correct time. So we can crank the line pressure up all we want, and the tranny will still shift like it was before *except* at WOT. So why can we change our WOT shift points by changing line pressure, when these other pressures (governor and throttle) are supposed to not give a crap what line pressure is?

As you step more on the gas, the kickdown valve keeps squishing the spring against the throttle valve. At about 3/4 to 7/8 throttle and up to WOT, the kickdown valve actually touches the throttle valve. This essentially causes the spring to "disappear". You can see this if you have a valve body in half and are playing with the kickdown lever and pushing on the kickdown valve. You'll see the spring being squished, then the kickdown valve will touch the throttle valve. What this does is causes throttle valve so it can't do it's job of turning line pressure into throttle pressure. So instead it just says "I can't do my job anymore, so I'll just make my pressure that I'm supposed to create be the same psi as line pressure".

So all of a sudden it's now governor pressure and "line pressure" deciding when to shift the tranny. But this is only at WOT (actually a bit before WOT, depending on how you have your kickdown cable adjusted). So now say, for example, to make numbers easy we'll say whatever line pressure is set at that number in mph is when our 2-3 shift will happen. So lets say our line pressure is set at 80 psi. That means when we hit 80 mph, the tranny will upshift to third gear. Since governor pressure is the same as whatever speed we're doing, as soon as we hit 80 psi governor pressure, that tells the tranny the car is doing 80 mph, so it shifts to third. So we decide we need more line pressure and crank it to 100 psi. Now the car upshifts at 100 mph.

So the above explanation is why the tranny shifts normal with increased line pressure, but we can fool around with WOT shift points when we increase or decrase line pressure. And it's all because of the throttle valve not being able to do it's job of creating "throttle pressure" WOT. It must just let it's pressure it was trying to create be regular old line pressure.

Chad Kilback

[Torqueflite]

So now our goal is to make the throttle valve still do it's job of creating it's new pressure (throttle pressure) even at WOT. To do this you have to take both the throttle and kickdown valves and grind some material off the ends (the end where the spring is) so they don't touch when the car is floored. Probably about an eighth of an inch off each valve will do it. Take just enough material off each valve so when you're playing with the lever, make sure the valves don't touch.

So now that the valves don't touch, the spring is now back in the picture. It will now squish a certain amount when the kickdown lever is moved to the WOT position. The "squishing" will of course be a certain spring force and the force this throttle spring creates will now be directly responsible for the WOT shift points (instead of line pressure). So change the spring rate of this spring, and the WOT shift points will change. More importantly, the WOT shift points will now not give a crap on how much line pressure there is (well, unless you go too low, because the throttle valve can't create a new pressure greater than line pressure, and neither can the governor valve or any other valve). A side effect to this though will be it will now effect regular shift points when you don't have it floored.

So you have to play with the rate of this spring. I have the spring rate and the area of the end of the throttle vavle written down, but it's buried in boxes right now. I believe the spring rate of the throttle valve when squished is about 8 lbs, but I can't remember the area of the valve. If you have a kitchen weigh scale, you can squish the spring and figure out what it's force is, then using the area of the end of the valve, you can figure out how much psi of pressure the throttle valve will create at WOT. I think someone should start with the stock throttle spring and see where it will shift. It may shift too high. I believe that a lighter spring will be needed, or cut the stock one shorter. This will of course cause the regular shifts to shift sooner. That green throttle spring out of the Superior shift kit may be a good place to start also for those few that have that shift kit (Simon ) I believe the magic number is to create a WOT throttle pressure of around 80 psi (since this is about max line pressure our trannies are when stock and unmolested).

Since I'm sharing this info, I just ask that anyone that tries this to give feedback on findings and what they doing, whether things work or not. Hope someone finds the right spring force that works. Hopefully I may get time to play myself, but I have too many other things on the go at the moment to experiment. If anyone has questions or needs clarification on something, I'll do my best to answer. I can't do pics right now, but maybe someone else that understands what I'm saying can post pics of the proper valves and spring to modify, etc.

Chad Kilback (reverse pattern manual valve body with trans-brake coming
soon)
Calgary, Alberta SDAC
88 Daytona Shelby "Zedd"
12.43 @ 111 quickest time
12.6 @ 113.00 fastest time
87 New Yorker "Norker Zedd" 2.5L TII 14.6 @ 93

[turbovanman]

Thanks Chad. Now my .02 cents. I have just finished rebuilding by trans and using a stiffer line pressure spring from a Gill Younger kit-727. Shifts are solid. I am running holed governor weights, TBI blue spring and Sonnax light spring, 1-2 shifts high, 2-3 is perfect and WOT is 6800 rpm. Ouch. I will play around with it in the next couple of weeks/months. I will also try the Sonnax spring and modded kickdown valve for comparison.