Is there any way to determine if a shift kit was installed in an automatic transmission? My newly purchased 1994 convertible seems to shift harder than the 1994 coupe automatic that I owned about 10 years ago. I had a tuner remove the Hypertech Program but it still seems to shift harder that what I remembered a completely stock automatic shifting.

What all is in a shift kit? Is it just different sized ***** in the tranny fluid runners?

TIA,

Mark

 

Not very easy to tell without at least dropping the trans pan and valve body and even then it may not be clear unless you have a stock unit to compare it with. Contents of the kit depends on the manufacturer, but typically it is more than a few check *****. See this link to a Trans-go kit for your 4lL60E and watch the video to see what is involved concerning installation.

http://transgoonline.com/products.ph...dcountview=Yes

 

The "easiest" (meaning most obvious changes) way to tell if a shift kit has been installed is to look at the size of the various holes in the separator plate for the valve body. Obviously you need to remove the valve body to do this and have a stock separator plate to compare with.

It would help to have shift kit instructions that show which holes are drilled out. In my case I was given TransGo shift kit instructions as part of a complete rebuild kit. The instructions I got had problems (it looked like some page(s) were missing and I got extra pages that didn't apply to my kit) and I found that you apparently can't download any of the instructions from the TransGo web site. I saw in another thread that the person called TransGo and they FAXed the instructions to him.

The usual modifications include different springs and drilling holes in the separator plate. The idea is to increase the pressure so the shifts are firmer, which also helps prevent burning clutches. They frequently correct known problems as a bonus feature, like the fix for the infamous throttle valve sticking.

 

Since all shifting parameters of a 4l60e are controlled by the computer, you could have a tuner lower the line pressure of the shifts. I have a stand alone computer for my 4l60e and using a laptop can alter shift points and line pressures of each shift. It's better to have a tranny that shifts hard because it can be toned down than to have a soft, slipping transmission and try to make that shift harder.