Ah..... like you said in your earlier reply, lots of different driving styles. I'm glad when I found my Vette I was fortunate enough to find a 6 speed.

 

I never shift my trans. I'm not that good :(

 

I do. It just seems so much faster!! But it might just be in my head. :crazy:

 

I have to shift Manually at the dragstrip, no two ways about it.

If I leave it in Drive as I've tried and I lose traction at the line, the transmission will shift into 2nd gear in a heartbeat even though I am literally at 5-10 mph actual speed, when I peddle it out I am too low of a speed for 2nd to accelerate at the rate I want. I've even had it kick-up to 2nd I peddle it out and it grabs 20 feet out and then kicks back down to 1st gear.... not good for anything.

Holding it in 1st allows me to peddle it out and by the middle of 1st and run it out the same as somebody with a manual transmission would do.

In addition, due to where I have my linkage set, even for driving around town, I am basically forced to shift manually, the reason is line pressure, too low of line pressure is just as hard on the tranny as too much. Thus I bring up rpm to roughly 3000 rpm and shift. I could re-adjust the linkage to compensate for this and allow me to put it in D, however, adjusting the linkage not only effects part throttle shifting in Drive, but also wide open throttle, thus my shifts can be delayed from when I manually shift, which will often put me into the Superram wall at about 6200 rpm... this has almost the same effect of hitting a rev limiter with a SR equiped motor.... power goes south very quickly after that.

My current 700R4 is a 90 core built to bone stock GM standards, and has seen over 20,000 miles and over 500 11 second 1/4 mile passes driving it this way.... so it must be not be too detrimental driving it this way.

I don't recommend this for everybody though, if you have a stock or close to stock corvette, then your working rpm range has not likely changed, thus GM's designed shift rpm area is probably close to optimum, especially for the low rpm L98's.... revving them higher rarely improves et's.

food for thought.

cheers,
Beach Bum

 

Todd

How do you maintain consistency with your method.

You are shifting 1-2 and 2-3 ?

I have tried to manually shift a few times at the track and can never get 2 identical runs back to back.

Vic

 

I manually shift if my hands arent busy...what i do is slightly touch the brake to unlocked the torque converter(i also have a switch to disable the tc clutch, not currently hooked up), and give it some gas to raise the line pressure. The poopieing with the tc locked

Plans are to add a transgo full manaul kit, mainly to prevent auto downshifting and to mimic a stick as close as possible..Unless $3k drops into my lap, then its a 6spd, although tremec offers a tko for the vette now.


[Modified by nsimmons, 12:12 AM 1/10/2002]

 

Hi Vic,

Once hooked up I run it to 5500 rpm and upshift, it will shift at approxmiately 5800-5900 rpm everytime.... even if I miss and shift at 5400 or 5600, it will still shift at 5800-5900...

If I put it in drive and hook, it will shift at roughly 5300-5500... this will slow me down only around 1/2 tenth or so... you'd think more, but it doesn't.

Problem is once again, if it doesn't hook in drive, I'm done, it will be in 2nd gear before you can drop a pin...

As a note, my consistency is very, very good on a sticky track driving it the way I do. The last time I had 6 hook passes in a row, I ran three 11.63's and three 11.64's in a row.

cheers,
Beach