I just got my 95 TA back from having a 3k stall convertor installed. I got the convertor from Mike Kurtz, had it installed at a local shop...
Now its ridiculous to drive, takes about 3k rpms to accellerate normally up to 30 mph...once there it takes 2k rpms to cruise at 35mph with it unlocked....

From a dead stop, it takes about 2200rpms to make the car start to move at a grandma take off.....brake torqueing it will spin the rear tires at about 2300rpms but still really has no power to move the car forward...

Is this normal for a f-bod car with this? I asked on here and several other builders and most recommended an even higher stall and said I'd barely notice a difference from stock....wtf??
My GN has a 3k stall and you can only tell a difference when trying to back up over something slowly.

The tranny builder replaced the clutches and servo and did a basic rebuild with HD parts.....

Does this sound like stall or some other problem inside??
Has less power WOT too than with the stock convertor it feels.

I'm very disappointed in how this drives now.

 

I drove mine on the street with a 3500, now a 4000 and I never really had any problems. It takes a little getting used to but everyone has their own likes.

Sounds like your stall was just not made to perform for your application. What size is it? Whats the STR on it? Was it built for a stock motor or somthing that would pump 900hp thru it?

 

It is a 9" convertor. I explained my stepup and mods to Mike and its current hp/tq , and told him this was not a track car that it would be used for 99% street daily driving and that all my goals were with the bigger convertor were to smooth out the idle and get the vacuum up a little when at a stop for the brakes....that part of it difinitely worked
Not sure what STR is?

I want to make sure that this is a convetor issue and not something else before I send the convertor back since the internals were gone thru..like a pump or something not getting enough fluid in the convertor to make it work.

 

I've driven a 3800 stall in a cammed ls1 car(with a craptastic tune, btw) and I've never driven a car with a stall before, didn't feel weird driving around normal till I floored it

 

My Edge 3400 felt the same way your describing your converter. At first I though it felt slower and didn't like the way it felt, mainly because I had to rev the engine so much to get it going. I went to the track expecting to be disappointed. To my surprise the car picked up 2 MPH and dropped 7 tenths off in the quarter mile resulting in my best times to date. Some people can tolerate the poor manners of high performance parts better than others, it took me some getting used to.

The funny thing is my buddy ordered the same size stall for his 89 formula 350 with about 420 HP. His stall felt completly different than mine, it felt tighter on the street but at WOT his RPMs would drop off to about 4K on the shifts where mine would drop no lower than 5200 RPM.

 

I thought a 3k stall was a 3k stall..the 3k stall in my GN drives nothing like this one and for regular driving, the little 3.8 produces way less hp at normal driving than my TA...but the GN drives normal and even barks the tires a little at normal accelleration at way less than 3k rpms...the only time I noticed the stall was like when trying to take off going over a speed hump or something from a dead start...yet when torque braking, I can wind it up to 2800 or so rpms and 15# of boost no problem....this TA is not right for a daily driver, it will easily get only 8-9mpg on gas like this, 3k rpms just to start moving to keep up with granma in the next lane is crazy.

 

Nope ,I drove my Yank SS4000 for 3 years and loved it.Very streetible no issues at all until I broke it

 

All converters are definitely not created equal...My Vig 3600 drives like a stocker until you nail it, then all hell breaks loose...Less efficient converters will act like yours...I've had mine since 1996 and its great for a DD...

--Alan

 

Thanks for the info all. I'll call up Mike Monday morning and see how he can correct it for me.

 

Don't forget that what gears you have play a big part in how the stall feels like when coming off a stop light. Replacing my 3.23's with 3.73's made a huge difference. One of my next mods will be to bump my Vig. 2800 to a 3600.

 

Some have had sililar problems only to find out the trans was low on fluid. I have a 3200 Vigilante in mine and it drives different than a stock converter,

 

Yeah, I've had that prob before right from the tranny builder so that was the first thing I checked. I was expecting it to be a little different, like I said, the 3k in my GN is barely noticable...but this ine is a whole different story, there's is nothing beneficial to the way it drives, I've never heard a car turning so many rpms just to start rolling or going 30 mph down the street, its almost like I'm in 1st gear all the time till the convertor locks.

 

Like I said, gears will help that. When your cruising and let off the gas and then goose it a little what does the converter flash to? How high can you brake torque it to?

 

you really need more gear in the rear.
3.73's will help a ton.

 

MY 3200 I changed the shift tables at part throttle,low speed so it shifted into
2nd quicker. That made a big difference. BTW I run 4.10's and it's not as bad as you'd think. It runs higher rpms but you'd expect it to. I think you have problems.