Hello everyone, yesterday I got lucky and bought a Yank SC3000 at a very good price. I had to make a decision quickly, so I didn't have much time to weigh the pros and cons. I only have time to think about it thoroughly afterwards. Sometime in the years approximately 2008-2012, a plethora of threads dealing with the issue of torque converters arose here on the forum. I managed to read a lot of them, but I didn't get any significant impression. Reactions to the installation of higher stall TC are mostly either of the type - "Wow, day and night difference, it's a blast, best mod ever" or rather of the opposite type - "lazy feeling, no torque in lowend, I'm going back to stock".

I'm confused about this and not sure if I should spend the money to install that Yank TC or resell it at no loss because of the good price. SC3000 is mainly for supercharged application, but from what I have read from others' experiences, it works well in N.A. as well. Even 3000 stall is not an extremely high value.

As for my C6, it's a 2008 LS3 A6 and so far I only have all the known bolt-ons and a mild cam will be added in the near weeks. I will also change headers from 1 7/8 to LG 1 3/4 to get better lowend, new UD pulley, thinner Cometic head gaskets to gain compression and few other details. So the car will be modified more at the same time, and it would be convenient to include the TC in it. Just so I don't forget i already have also a 3.42 diff. from Z06 installed. I never go to the drag strip, so I don't really care about the times. I'm more interested in the subjective impressions of driving. In terms of acceleration the famous seat of the pants feeling is king for me. Will swapping from stock TC to the mentioned TC improve it or rather make it worse? Please help me to decide. Then other questions arise. What about TC efficiency? I read in a thread here that the bigger the STR number is, the lower the efficiency is at higher rpms. I'd hate to lose the power I'm carefully picking up horse by horse :-)

 

The stock converter on these cars is in the 1,700 stall range. Installing a higher stall converter will certainly decrease your 1/4 mile time (as long as traction is not a problem).

As long as you don't install too loose of a converter, you will be very happy how the car performs. I installed a 2,800 stall Circle-D converter in my GS and am very happy with the increase in performance and overall drivability.

You won't loose any performance at all in the high rpm range and will gain lots of performance and throttle response down low.

And since the converter still retains the lock-up feature, you will not loose any gas mileage on the highway.

 

That converter will likely take 1/2 second or more off your 1/4 mile ET. I know you said you don't drag race BUT that's an improvement you will enjoy from stoplight to stoplight.
I like that you're taking down the diameter of your headers, I think most people run oversized headers for their application.

 

For a street car I see this as being easier to spin the tires if that's what you want. For a drag car it can plant and go while getting to a higher rpm point for best hp. My experience has been I need to pedal the car because traction is an issue and I don't drag race to often. When I do it's test and tune and not good track prep.

 

I had a SS3600 in my old 01 SS Camaro. First had the 3.23 gear then went to 3.73. Then went to a 4K stall. Mostly a street car. VERY FUN!
I'm in the market for a LS3 vette...I will not mess around. It's getting a 4k stall. It will be 99.9% street car.
Lesson for me from my first stall is dont be scared. Stall that SOB!
If I were you I'd sell that SC and go AT LEAST SS3200

 

I am also in the market for a converter and will be installing one over the winter. The previous owner of my car had a bunch of work done and he said the next on the list was converter. I filled out the form on Circle D's website and got a super fast response. They recommended a 3400 Pro Series 258mm Converter. I dont ever plan on going to the drag strip (ok... maybe once someday just to try it) but when sitting at a red light my car likes to get the surge going on LOL

 

Something else to consider ...

Unless you plan on locking the converter during WOT (serious drag racer), you certainly don't need to spend the extra money on a multi-clutch converter.

Just like your stock converter, a single clutch high stall converter will work perfectly for you. As you know, the converter comes out of lockup when the throttle is pressed (it will do the same with an aftermarket high stall converter unless you make changes to the car's ECM via HP Tuners.

For a street car, a multi-clutch converter is a waste of $$$

 

I've either personally owned or installed and tuned (on customer's cars) the following converters, all but the first one from Yank:

- reworked stock to approximately a 3000 stall
- SS2800
- SS3200
- SS3600
- SS4000
- SC3400

In my opinion you will be kicking yourself and ultimately disappointed if you install that converter as it'll be synonymous with installing a very small cam in that it becomes a whole lot of installation effort for very marginal gains.

One of the common complaints about going with too loose of a converter is that the car ends up feeling sloppy and you need to give the car a ton of gas just to get it rolling. With Yank however that isn't true as theirs have excellent street manners but still respond when you stomp on it. I currently have an SS4000 with stock 2.56 gears and even though it's no longer street driven, I have had the same setup in my other car and it still behaved nicely. Yes, it was a little loose because of the 2.56 gears but it wasn't "oh crap, I hate this setup".

When my race car was still a street car, I had a 3.42 Z06 differential with the SS4000 and it was super fun to drive. The advantage of higher numbered gears is that it takes up the moderate amount of looseness to make it hard to even really feel like there's a converter in the car at all (but once again, until you stomp on it).

My recommendation to you would be that if you really want the best combination of improved performance while retaining good street manners a Yank SS3600 would be your best bet.

Hope this helped.

 

Thank you all for your opinions guys. It helped me. It probably won't be an ideal solution and a slightly higher stall would be more suitable, as well as a larger cam. I realize that now. But once I have it, I'll have it all installed in the car. subfloor@centurytrans - your opinions have already helped me before when I was getting a 3.42 diff. Thanks

 

You really cant go wrong with a Yank SS3600. With that converter I was able to get a 11.9 stock internal bolt on only 01 SS Camaro. I then added 103rwhp with heads cam intake 3.73 gear which netted 10.9 with a 1.5 60'. That was mainly my street car. All with the SS3600. Your LS3 vette will burry what my car did with the same mods.