The car will be my daily driver, but I still want to have some fun with it on the street. I know others have some pretty sweet automatic tranny setups that can spin the tires with the use of a nice ratchet shifter.
I have a custom 4R70W in my Fox Body, with a full manual valve body and 3000RPM stall converter. Stock shifter. I can drive it as gentle as stock without effort, yet I can smoke the tires through third if I wanted to.
It's similar to the Strip Terminator by Lentech or whatever company is is that makes it. I could've had a full automatic valve body on it too, but didn't want it. Just FWIW.
I have a custom 4R70W in my Fox Body, with a full manual valve body and 3000RPM stall converter. Stock shifter. I can drive it as gentle as stock without effort, yet I can smoke the tires through third if I wanted to.
It's similar to the Strip Terminator by Lentech or whatever company is is that makes it. I could've had a full automatic valve body on it too, but didn't want it. Just FWIW.
this thread must be a godsend. i am in desperate need of a fix for my tranny problem.
please tell me more about your manual valve body.
- are the shifts extremely hard?
- how much did it cost?
- where did you get it?
- can you just put it in drive and go?
- can you select any gear manually?
I have a custom 4R70W in my Fox Body, with a full manual valve body and 3000RPM stall converter. Stock shifter. I can drive it as gentle as stock without effort, yet I can smoke the tires through third if I wanted to.
It's similar to the Strip Terminator by Lentech or whatever company is is that makes it. I could've had a full automatic valve body on it too, but didn't want it. Just FWIW.
Watch the above video... it'll show you what a stall does. I was able to get the car down to a 14.20 with no additional mods other than the converter. That's almost a full second off the 1/4 mile times.
My recommendation is a 3,000+ stall, shift kit, and a tranny cooler..... as with any car, gears are very helpful.
this thread must be a godsend. i am in desperate need of a fix for my tranny problem.
please tell me more about your manual valve body.
- are the shifts extremely hard?
- how much did it cost?
- where did you get it?
- can you just put it in drive and go?
- can you select any gear manually?
If you shift low, they are not hard. If you shift high, they'll chirp certain gears and snap you back in the seat. Depending how the valve body is built, this may or may be the case for whatever you buy.
$3000 for the full build, plus whatever the cooler cost and I also had to buy an MLPS, proper valve body shift arm lever (well, we made one ourselves because we couldn't find the right one from Ford), and we also had to make our own harness to connect the Fox Body electronics to the new electronics on the 4R. With an SN95 as the vehicle, you won't need to spend on the extras and it should be a plug and play situation. I was retrofitting it, and it was not plug and play.
With a full manual valve body, you don't put it in drive and go. You shift every gear as if you were driving a manual (just no foot clutch). The shift pattern now becomes PRN321. You shift where you want and the computer DOES NOT do anything for you in regards to shifting. Overdrive is switch-controlled, which I have on my console. It also locks up the converter at the same time.
You can, however, get manual control valve bodies that have the option to also "put it in D and just go", I just chose not to bother.
Mine was built by Broader Performance in Texas. www.broaderperformance.com He came recommended from some trans. builders over on Corral, so I talked extensively with him about my plans, goals, requested build parts, etc. and he gave it to me. Then we figured out our own problems later on during the install, but like I said that's only because I was putting a newer transmission in the older car that had no provisions for some of the wiring. we had to make my car smarter.
Like gcomfx said, you can go 'simple' with gears, stall converter, trans cooler and shift kit and be all set. it'll wake the car up somethin' fierce. I just like to take my car the extra step if you aren't familiar with me
wow. i did a web search for manual valve bodies and the guy i ended up talking with the most was the guy at, yep .. you guessed it, broader performance. really nice guy, and now he has a reference.
i thought he said there was nothing that needed to be hooked up for electronics though. tell me more about that please
he said you can hook it up to manifold vacuum and use that to soften the shifts at part throttle
now i just need a different shifter, because this b&m one i have is annoying the way you have to pull it and let it go to move it one position. to go to first from park i'd have to pull it 5 times
Like I said, my car is a Fox Body. That's a 87-93 (I just come into the 94-95 forum for fun). I had an AOD, 94 and up Mustangs have an AODE. Because of that, I didn't have the proper electronics that your car already has. What I did was take the transmission harness FROM a 94+ car and mated it to my stock harness. That way it connected to my car on the stock side, and connected to the transmission on the other side.
Ya follow?
I also have a modulation valve that he sent me to run off a vacuum source. I guess that's used as you said to make the shifts not literally neck-snapping. But still, if I want to, I can shift it harder than hell. This just makes it safe.