boese1978

Getting ready to order a new trans from Monster and I want to compare what they are telling me to what I hear here. With a manual / auto VB- say I am at a stop light and put the shifter into 1st gear and take off, does it shift to 2nd automatically? If so, what is the point of having anything "labled" manual VB? Does this vary from company to company? If what I want is to put it in 1st and keep it there until I shift, is that what would be called a manual valve body? Do shift kits "use up" the transmission faster? I will be adding a additional cooler to the set up.

coppercutlass

With a manual valve body you will have to manually shift it and down shift it . With semi manual vb. It will hold first untill you shift it same for second but when you put it in drive it will drive like normal. and shift when needed. My current Trans is like this but i drive it manual for the most part.

boese1978

Here is what I am being told, thoughts?
It will automatically go in to 2nd or you can manually shift it to 2nd before it auto shifts itself.

coppercutlass

Does not sound very manual to me. My th400 will hold first till whenever I want it to. In drive it will shift from 1st to 2nd. This sound like the typical shift kit most companies offer. Manually You can hold the gear till you need and in drive it has the regular functions of an auto trans. A full manual trans will not have the drive feature it will have 1 2 3 and you have to shift it .

Nasty455

Copper....Leave your car in 1st gear and punch the throttle...the trans will upshift electronically into second gear and chirp the tires...only available in the Turbo 400.
Don't wimp out...hold the throttle down...you won't hurt anything.

coppercutlass

Trust me I beat this thing like like a rented mule . The only electronics I knew in the th400 was the down shift switch . My trans was detined for a more strip oriented car. So the provisions for the electronics where epoxied. A nice cruise consists of me beating the tar out of it

J-(Chicago)

I just demilled my bracket car and can give you a good price on my th350. PM me if you like.

boese1978

Any answers to my questions fellow Olds people???

J-(Chicago)

I don't really like an off the shelf race shift kit for a daily driver car.
I'm not a fan of how they bang around, anymore.
Yeah, chirping 2nd every time you goose it is fun and all....until you break something.

Broke a stock converter, and an 8.2 rear end, (at different intervals) using one of those shift kits with a buick350/th350 combo in a 62 special. Car was light as a feather, so it shouldn't have been too stressed out.

Used to bark second gear so hard, the car would drop about 3 inches in the back. Thought it was fun. Then, after a few hard months, it all came back out of there.

compedgemarine

a manual valve body is just that "manual". you will have to shift up and down. if you forget to down shift at a light you will take off in third gear. that said there are later model autos that will shift to 2nd no matter what you do. it is in the governor setup. they started doing that in or around 1974. if you have an earlier setup you can hold it in first till crank hits the ground if you want.