Is it bad for our automatic trannies to manually shift them? I haven't tried it yet but I used to do it on all my other cars and it didn't seem to hurt anything.

 

mine shifted fine when i got my car the a manulay ahifted it.... lasted 6 months

 

From what i read don't manually shift it unless the transmission is specifically built for it.

 

Well, not really, as long as your not down shifting. but it's kinda pointless. you're track times will be worse. Even if you did it perfect. it wouldn't really be much different from sticking it in drive and going WOT. that is unless you raised the rev limiter.

 

Like said, as long as you're upshifting only you should be fine. However, I recently heard that you shouldn't even do that. Apparantly, when you manually shift the car, the transmission doesn't have time to build up line pressure and can damage things (think I read it in an article in GMHTP).

 

i used to upshift, never downshift. Then one day, the car acted as if it was only in neutral. I was 16 so and i didnt know anything about transmissions, i have no idea what happened to it except that it had to be replaced. this happened while i was driving, so i had to push it into a parking lot (i was stuck at an intersection, people were watching, horning, a couple of buddies saw me and helped, it totally sucked.

Getting the tranny repalced cost $2g. My dad paid for it, and he was unhappy.

 

Ok...There's a thread about this question about once a month. The fact is, someone is spreading false information. It will NOT hurt a 700/4L60E to upshift it manually!
This "theory" is based on 14 years of building (and racing) automatic transmissions. There was some "theory" about a 4L60E dropping pressure when shifted manually. I've never seen a 700/4L60E have any problems from shifting manually, so I investigated this "theory" to much extent. I've put pressure guages on several 4L60E's since this "theory" first came out. There isn't ever a pressure loss on ANY shift! Maybe the person/persons who came up with this "theory" is doing something wrong on their rebuilds??? MOST transmission have higher line pressure in manual ranges.

As for the "theory" brought forth earlier in this thread. Anybody that doesn't believe a car will run quicker when manually shifting can come to the track with me and we'll make a bet on it.

BTW, my personal 700 has been in the 12's for the past 3 years, and it gets manually upshifted and downshifted around 75% of the time.....

Frank

 

It's late, I'm bored at work and I have no useful information for this thread other than. It's not a theory, it's an hypothesis. A theory, was once a hypothesis, studied many different ways over a course of years and then is accepted by the majority of the scientific community. Then it becomes a proven, accepted theory. Sorry, just had to be a smart ***.

 

this hypothesis needs to be tested with a randomized, multicentre, double blind placebo controlled trial. A placebo transmission would be one that allows the driver to shift manually, but is actually shifting automatically and ignoring his shifts.

 

I think I read that article, too. Or one similar to it. It was from one of the top transmission builders in the country, so I'll take their word for it. There's not really much point in manually shifting anyway, unless something's not working right.

 

Manually shifting 1-2 will do nothing but hit the rev limiter. 200 rpms between the shiftpoints and rev limiter is hard to anticitpate in 1st gear with the stock tachs. 2-3 manually does help a little though, especially in a 2.73 car where the bottom of 3rd will kill you in a close race unless you string out 2nd. I pulled on a 5spd Neon with exhaust by running 3rd gear out till close to the rev limiter in my Jeep.

Jason

 

I downshift sometimes when im going fairly slow in the city to slow down before a light... never had any problems with doing it. I could understand if you downshift at hwy speeds though, probably a baaad idea.

With 3.23 gears I dont really see any reason for shifting up manually.... it chirps 1-2 and sometimes 2-3. But then again i've never really driving in a Z with 2.73 gears... so maybe it helps there

 

I usually leave mine in OD (hope that isn't bad) when i'm cruisin around, but when i need to get on it i usually just floor it and shifts for me.. unless im light-racing, then down into 1 it goes, and i do the rest.

Never had any problems so far.

 

Even on a stock car? I can't remember what the rev limiter onon a camaro is but it can't be too much above 5845. Not to mention thats when the power band begins to drop anyway. On a modified car with a shifted power band. that may be correct,

 

My rev limiter is set at 6600 RPM's, through my 7AL-2 box. Before I put the 7A in it, I had NO rev limiter because my Hypertech chip did away with it...As does my current PCMFORLESS chip.

Frank