Street Torque Converter Preference

on a street strip car. i like a converter that is fairly tight, but still launches decent. i dont really worry about the most efficient launch. just that i could hop in my car and make 100-200 mile trips if i wanted. and a mushy converter would make me worry about trans temps. i would rather not have another gauge i have to worry about while cruising.
a couple of street strip cars i do work on. one has a 5500 stall sbc combo and the other is a 5000 stall combo and the converters work good on the track. but if were going to cruise them around town we can only go about 10-15 miles before i start to worry about the trans. one is a pg and the other is a turbo 400

 

I'm not too familiar with the sp transmissions, but isn't their stall related to throttle position, as opposed to your set up that is brake controlled? If so, the only way I see to circumvent that is to have a manual override switch for those times you want to juice it at lower rpm. At 3200 high stall, that will put you where you want to be. I'm actually surprised you went with that low of a high stall speed. 4k would really make that thing turn on, according to your build.

I don't run a sp, I have a JW/TSP STG2 3400 fixed, but I'm not concerned about mileage or idle quality. This converter is loose enough to soak up the rough idle qualities of the 296/308h cam I have, but tight enough that when I hit it, I am right there. No, I don't feel the 1-2 shift unless I am hard on it, and even then it is slight.

Hope this helps.:beer

 

Larry our engines aren't that far apart. You ask a good question because I just switched to one of Jim W 9.5 " converters. After installation and starting the first thing I noticed was my car idled a little different. Not as lopey. I would suspect that the shedding of 10 lbs of rotating wt has something to do with it. My old sp converter seem a bit heavier. After I did all the servicing and hopped in the drivers seat I put the car in reverse. I noticed the car didn't seem to just idle out of my garage. I had to give it a little gas. Rpms went up a little more to get it moving. Same with driving around the neighborhood. I'm still getting used to it. It's completely different than my old sp. However yesterday with some good weather I got it out on the highway. I nailed the throttle at 45 mph and the car got squirrely. I couldn't see the rpm drop for the shifts. It just stayed there at 5500 rpm. The car seems not a little faster but substantially faster. Right after you hit it you have to get out of it. I know I can always put my old sp set up back in if I want. But I'm interested in see how this does on the street, and how much I gained at the strip. I'll share my experiences with this or answer any questions you might have. John Biggs.

 

Hey John hows the wet northwest these days? You say you didn't notice an rpm change between shifts, was that because of wheel spin? If not it seems like there might be a problem with the trans or converter. Hopefully it's neither. Have fun with your new toy.:TU:

Bob H.

 

JWs 9.5 at about 2800 will make you happy. Just riding around you would never really know it wasn't stock. In the parking lot it is somewhat obvious though. But, once you start going down the road you really can't tell unless there is a big load like a steep hill..

Nail it from a stop and it flashes to about 3100 if you can keep it hooked..

 

Hi Bob, the PNW has been dry for a couple of weeks. My converter is a stage 2 9.5 unit and is supposed to stall at 3500 - 3800 rpm. Yeah there was a bit of wheelspin when I took it out. LOL. The torque conv keeps the rpms up in the poweband or sweetspot. There's not such a drop in rpm when going to the next gear. The car certainly doesn't drive like a stock converter but it's not objectionable. Driving around town and in the neighborhood, no problem. It's a street car mostly with an occasional trip to the track. John.

 

I could never go back to a fixed stall converter after getting used to a lockup converter.... I have a 5000 stall in one of my trucks with a 2004r and it launches like crazy and cruises at 1800 rpm on the highway with the lockup engaged.

 

last month i put one on JW's 3500 stall converters in my Skylark.
not mushy at all, feels real good at ALL rpm's.

a few years ago i put a 3000 stall from a different company.
i put it in drove around the block once and removed the converter,
it was very mushy.

JW has a lifetime warranty on his converters.
I'm a fan!

Cheers!

 

My Stage1 is 462 cu in and has a JW 3200 converter. It's street manners are just perfect.

GrandNasty has an Art Carr 9" 3800 stall non lock up converter, that was the best modification I ever made to that car.....woke that bad boy right up !!!
Cruise at 2200 rpm at 60 mph and it is very street friendly.....love it !

 

Hi Larry!
I also have Jims 9.5" converter in my -70 Gs, my 494 has Ta 510 cam(255/265-110 Lsa) in it and in dyno it made 624hp/5900 and 612ft lbs/4700. The converter is the TSP Stage2-version and should stall around 4000, car weighs just about 4000 lbs with me in it and has 3.73 gears. I did have an old Kenne-Bell converter #KB149(Ha!!) for a short period of time, before my transmission let go. After installing the new converter I noticed immediately, a big surprise to me, that it has very tight feeling to it from take off. You would never believe it has a 4000 stall converter in it, it idles 700-800 rpm in Drive, despite the relatively big cam, and in normal driving situations it acts like a stocker, no slipping and no mushy feeling, none. Only when I mash the pedal it allows the engine rev closer to its torque peak and only then it becomes a bit scary-even with Mt tires back it is all over the place, while still picking up speed really fast. I guess the biggest difference between my old Vp converter and the new converter is, that it feels a lot more powerful now and revs much faster, the converter is so much lighter vs the old one. I could drive this thing every where if it wasnt so damn noisy,but definately no 16 mpg with this one:Brow:. All in all Im very happy with this new converter and Im hoping for low 11s and 120+mph in the future. Well, a 10.99 would be even nicer!

A big thanks to JW!

 

Antti, one of the things I'm concerned about with my converter is heat. I don't have a temp gauge but was thinking about one. Anyone had issues with excessive heat at part throttle ? Thx, John.

 

I've been running the same ST300 variable pitch converter since 1988. With the help of a buddy who rebuilt converters for Jim's Transmission Service in Flint MI, we cut it open, TIG'd the fins and modified the stator piston for a little more travel. Replaced the thrust washer with a Torrington bearing.

As you can see from the info in my signature, the car is not exactly under-cammed. I ran the TA 308S before the current TA 294-04F, so I retained the original '67 function that gives me high stall whenever the throttle is closed. Around town my hand is always on the column shifter because of the manual valve body and a microswitch for the converter is there under my thumb.

With the old ported 430 iron heads and the 308S cam I hit 113 mph at Milan on radial tires in the late '90's and gave my drum brakes a run for their money. I knew then that 4575 lbs was going to be more than a handful with that engine and stock brakes at the track. Now with Gessler's TA Aluminum heads, it's stronger than ever.

I don't give a rat's butt anymore about consistency, elapsed times, mph in the 1/4, etc. I just like driving it and having fun with it. There are a few cars that can get me from the dig on a green light at the street corner, but not many, and if you want to see 40 to 100, it can happen in a heartbeat.

Devon

 

Here are two video's of BigRed running the quarter mile - the first one is a 12.56 pass with the 3.08 gears and the loose 11" converter .. est. stall of 2400. The second video is a 11.99 pass with 3.31 gears and TriShield's 9.5" stage1 converter. While I eventually ran a 12.19 with the 3.08's/11" combo, it was in great air and conditions were optimal. Most runs were in the 12.20-12.30 range once the combo was sorted out.

LISTEN CLOSELY to the RPMs right after launch - in the first video, the RPMs just kind of hang there and dont rev up until about 2-3 seconds out while in the second vid the snap up higher instantly off launch and just keep climbing steadily (sorry about the pause in the second video - I had never yanked the wheel up like that before and was pretty stoked when I edied it and made that vid)



[video=youtube;MjJuKSFkaQ0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjJuKSFkaQ0[/video]

 

Devon,
What kinda times were you turning at 113mph?

 

I have one of Jims 9.5" stage 1 converter in my car also ... stalls around 2500 - 2700 , when driving around town it preforms very much like a stocker. to sum it up " no runs no drips no errors " 9.5 " converter is everything it was said to be ! Larry I would bet you will
have nothing but good to say about this upgrade ...

 

Hey guys, thanks for all the feedback, I really appreciate it!

It should be noted that there could be some confusion here, due to how I have always signed my posts "JW"...

There is a JW Racing transmissions in FLA that also does converters.

Most of the guys on here I recognize as converter customers of mine, and several have described it as a "JW converter".

Not sure about moon, don't remember selling him a converter.. he may be talking about the FLA joint.

I think if we call them TSP STG 1 (or 2,3) 9.5" converters, there would be no confusion, but whatever you call it, again, I appreciate the feedback.

JW

 

Low 13's. I should have tried launching in 2nd gear, 1st was useless, still is. I'm not trying sticky tires because something would probably break.

Devon

 

Hi Larry, I run a Coan Max perf 258mm converter and all I can say is it is awsome. Drives like a stock converter around town. Never any heat issues. Feels nice and tight just buzz'n around town. I don't have alot of time at the track with it but it seems to stall pretty much at 4000, which it was spec'd for. Coan asked for my dyno sheets to build it and I'm extremely happy with this converter. I've had a few different ones over the years, and this one is by far the best performing one I've had.
I don't think you can go wrong with a good quality converter like Jim @ TSP sells, and I probably would have purchased one from him as well but I don't think Jim was offering converters back in '06 when I bought mine.