Manually shifting an auto

S

sage2k

Member
May 23, 2005
645
0
16
Baton Rouge, LA
#1
I know the auto's in the 94-95 suck...anyways it shifts at 5200 on its own but it still has good power so i manually shifted a couple times up to 5600ish maybe more and it felt pretty good

now i know revving in neutral and shifting to drive is bad for the tranny

but is manually shifting from 1 > 2 > D
bad for the transmission?
 
#3
well right now im working on making it a good daily driver
bout to drop 660$ on air conditioner installed, just bought a 950$ top installed (vert), etc
will be at least a year or 2 before i can afford shift kit =\
but thats prolly next performance thing i do for htis car
 
#6
WhiteStallionGT said:
It's not good for the tranny.
Click to expand...


Explain this statement a little better... its holding the gear longer than letting the ECU control the shift points... it shouldnt cause any more wear and tear on the transmission that allowing the computer to control the shifts...
 
#7
LukeDaddy said:
Explain this statement a little better... its holding the gear longer than letting the ECU control the shift points... it shouldnt cause any more wear and tear on the transmission that allowing the computer to control the shifts...
Click to expand...
i dont remember exactlky why but it has something to do with the fact that when you have your car in drive and you shift from first to second, it somehow is in a different mode than when you do this manually from 1-2, its not as simple as just taking a shifter and putting it from one gear to the other in a standard... it is much more complex and the auto has to deal with valves letting line pressure change routes, etc... i wish i remembered exactly. all i know is that i had the same question... was told exactly why its not good, and still do it anyway. if something breaks it just gives me a good excuse to do the manual swap... but without a new manual valve body its no good.. as for the 4r70w trannys, its ok, and i hear the aod's take it better too...they're built differently
 
#8
I think that stuff about manually shifting an auto being bad is a myth. It's not gonna do anything to abnormally wear or stress the tranny. Driving like an idiot all the time will. Overheating the tranny will. But I can't imagine how moving the shifter from 1 to 2 will do anything bad.

Of course the whole exercise seems kinda pointless to me. If you leave it in 1, the car will still shift out to 2 before redline right? So why not just put it in 1 and leave it there for acceleration? Or more to the point, if you wanna control your transmission, get a stick. Otherwise, just recognize what you got, a slush box. They can be fun to, and (obviously) can be modded to go really fast.

That's my 2 cents. But I'd be happy to hear a technical reason why playing with the shifter is not a good idea.
 
#9
Not sure if it is what someone is thinking of, but doing a 1-D-1 shuffle is hard since the OD band is used in that shuffle.
 
#10
droptopford 5 0 said:
i dont remember exactlky why but it has something to do with the fact that when you have your car in drive and you shift from first to second, it somehow is in a different mode than when you do this manually from 1-2, its not as simple as just taking a shifter and putting it from one gear to the other in a standard... it is much more complex and the auto has to deal with valves letting line pressure change routes, etc... i wish i remembered exactly. all i know is that i had the same question... was told exactly why its not good, and still do it anyway. if something breaks it just gives me a good excuse to do the manual swap... but without a new manual valve body its no good.. as for the 4r70w trannys, its ok, and i hear the aod's take it better too...they're built differently
Click to expand...

That is understood, but it IS as simple as letting the computer shift the gears... the internals of the transmission dont know whether or not the ECU is controlling the shift points, its all in your head.

The line pressures, and bleeds, and loads on the clutches dont change.. they are based on engine RPM, vehicle speed, and load on the motor.. they arent based on if the shifter is in your hand, or the ecu....


Luke
 
#14
bjl95mustang said:
It's not good on the older aode trannys. The valve bodys have been updated sence 94-95 and the newer valve bodys 96+ can handle it.

You can upgrade some of your tranny parts and do a shift kit/j-mod for $50. www.tccoa.com tech then tranny.
Click to expand...
http://www.tccoa.com/articles/transmission/page1.shtml if you take the time to read this, you will see why it's not good, this guy knows his stuff and i didnt just make up what i said earlier...i just dont understand all of this aas much as i should to paraphrase it in my earlier explanation... let me remind you that with a shift kit/ manual valve body it's fine, just the stock form that sucks for manually shifting the auto
 
#15
droptopford 5 0 said:
http://www.tccoa.com/articles/transmission/page1.shtml if you take the time to read this, you will see why it's not good, this guy knows his stuff and i didnt just make up what i said earlier...i just dont understand all of this aas much as i should to paraphrase it in my earlier explanation... let me remind you that with a shift kit/ manual valve body it's fine, just the stock form that sucks for manually shifting the auto
Click to expand...
page isn't working and thats too bad cuz i'm real curious about this. i personally see no excessive wear taking place, although i do not know the aode trans specifically. there are alot of vehicles now that have a manual shifting automatic available--see porshe tiptronic. on the other side i really don't see the benefits of this practice either, some track testing on this would be great, so you auto guy(s) get off your duff and hit the strip.
 
#16
SMT's and all the other clutchless trannies (of the several different types) are very different compared to a stock AODE, IMHO.

Jerry's articles (et al) are TOP NOTCH. It is worth waiting till the page will load to read it (it took me several gulps to try and even digest some of the info - I am slow and we all know that. :D ).
 
#17
bimmertech said:
page isn't working and thats too bad cuz i'm real curious about this. i personally see no excessive wear taking place, although i do not know the aode trans specifically. there are alot of vehicles now that have a manual shifting automatic available--see porshe tiptronic. on the other side i really don't see the benefits of this practice either, some track testing on this would be great, so you auto guy(s) get off your duff and hit the strip.
Click to expand...

I think you need flash or some other browser add on to view the pages.

It's really just the 94-95 valve bodys that need to be modded. From what i remember the insides of the valve body need to be worked a lil bit and some of the springs and plungers need to be replaced. I have a 99+ valve body in mine and i'm going to use it in my aode/4r70w thats going behind my 418. I'm using racing clutches ect.
 
#18
tiptronic uses a torque converter while maintaining a planetary gearset, bmw steptronic uses torque converter and a planetary gearset. ferrari f1 and bmw smg use a clutch and conventional manual trans gearsets. having been very deep into a steptronic trans and a 4l60e i see very few differences other than a few more solenoids in the valve body, both made by gm powertrain division. either way i look at it this way, does a tranny with a manual valve body have increased wear and decreased life span?
 
#19
From the tccoa site

Well, the answer it depends. An any 1996 and newer 4r70w, you can do all the manual 1-2 and 2-1 shifts you want and not hurt anything. If it were older than 1996, I'd shy away from manual 1-2's unless you've modified the main control. I would stay away from excessive manual 4-2's on all tranny's older than 1998. in 1998 the manual valve changed to allow the direct clutch to exhaust faster, resulting in less wear.

This came from a ford engineer who did the 4r70w.
 
#20
my stangs a 5 spd, but i have a auto camaro with around 400 horse and i only manually shift a trans with 100+ thousand on it, and not a problem, but its not a computer controled od trans, its a turbo 350, but my point is i drive it hard and havnt had a problem, also my buddy had a SC that he manually shifted all the time without a problem, with around 150000 on it,
just my 2 cents
 
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