Getting ready to replace my AOD. Question is locking or non locking torque converter for a daily driven car. Most of my driving is city or suburban, with very little highway. I have a 4.10 gear, so i'm in overdrive fairly quickly.
I talked with TCI last week and they told me all AOD's are lockup transmissions. So I needed to use a lockup torque converter. I ended up with TCI's Saturday Night Special From summit.
from the factory all aod's are lockup but can be converted to non lockup. For a daily driver, I'd go lockup. Lentech can make their stuff hold up to some serious power even in lock style. Non lockup is definatley more suited for the track.
My car is street driven and I am using a non-lock converter. Here is how I see it. You are already running 4.10's so your gas milage is going to suffer and that is the purpose of the lock-up feature anyway, increased gas milage. What difference is the extra 200-300 rpm going to make that the non-lock will cause? As a bonus, you get torque multiplication in 3rd and less stress on the input shaft when it shifts into 3rd. Im sure you will be running an aux trans cooler so the heat shouldnt be too much of an issue and you can get non-lock converters that will work with the 2pc input shaft so having to pay for the change to a 1pc is not totally necessary. Just my opinion.
While BocSez is correct, it sounds like you are not really looking for an all out racecar. Lockup can work very well and seems more suited to his needs. And I do run a non lockup but my car is 90% race and 10% cruising.