blackened88lx
Active Member
I had an AOD, and a 5-speed in the same car. With the AOD and a 2400 stall it went 14.2 @ 97. With the 5-speed and not a single other change with a week of driving it under my belt went 13.9 @ 99.
A built AOD will be a great tranny. A built auto will shift faster than a person can. The real advantage if your a good driver is the gear ratios. The 2.40 first in the AOD sucks whereas the 3.35 in the T5 gets you out of the hole much much better.
I couldn't see my car going much faster with an AOD unless it was built up real real well, and even then I doubt it would be all that much faster, and would get worse gas mileage!
Yeah, the problem with autos is the gear ratio selection. It becomes less of a problem with big power cars. But you're starting with a ****ty 1st gear, and only using 2 shifts to get to your 1:1, so the ratios must be wider spaced. A 5spd car has a much better 1st gear, and each gear is closer ratio considering they are spread out over 4 gears (you don't use O/D on the track). I've seen a comparison where they took an 11sec fox with a pretty nasty built 4k stall c4, ran it at the track, then swapped to a pro-shifted tremec 3550 without changing anything else, and went 3 tenths and 4mph faster. I'm not saying this will always be the case, but a properly setup and driven 5spd in a mild car will almost always be faster. But, all that being said, it also depends on the setup. A c4 will almost always be faster in a turbo car because of the same reasons. The ratios keep more load for the turbo to spool against, and make the shifts smoother keeping it in the boost. I'd like to see a comparison with a properly shifted stick in a turbo car though, because most people granny shift turbo cars, which is probably why they fall out of boost and are slower.