I've got a 94Z28, 4l60e tranny and about 136,000km on the engine. The tranny was rebuilt around 100,000km.

Overall the car is great. But if I'm cruisin on the highway around 120km/h or so and hit it to WOT, the tranny downshifts to 2nd (I believe it's second gear, I have 2.73 gear ratio), hits redline and pauses for a few seconds before finally finding 3rd gear. Sometimes I have to let of the gas for it to shift into 3rd.
Any ideas why this is happening? What would cause the tranny to lock up in 2nd like that when it hits redline??

 

anyone???

 

sounds like a bad rebuild. it would need to be done over to fix that.

 

Redline?? Is your car stock because if so it would hit the rev-limiter before it redlines. Do you have stock tires and wheels, cuz maybe your shift pts. are off. And what else does it do, it just sits for a second at top of 2nd and then shifts??

Benji

 

If the other shifts are ok, but on the 2-3 shift the gear winds out and hits the limiter before third gear engages then that 2-3 clutches are getting weak. Mine was doing this with mobil 1 and when I switched to Valvoline Maxxlife it went away. It only did it every once in a while. Then when I put a shift kit in it, well, it'll snap your neck, no hitting the limiter What kind of fluid do you run?

 

Sorry guys I forgot to mention that I had my PCM reprogrammed by PCM4less, but as I recall, this problem was happening under the stock programming as well.
Basically when I gun it while on the highway, it'll drop down to 2nd, accelerate till around 130 or 140 where it reaches the end of 2nd, then it'll just bounce of the limiter for a few seconds, at which point I will ease of the gas to allow the tranny to shift. It's a real pain in the ***.

In response to FastZ,
I usually have used just regular oil that the dealership puts in, but I recently switched over to Mobil1 high mileage. Do you think I should try the Maxxlife? How is it different?

 

Mine was acting funny before too. Would hit the limiter before it shifted, and it turned out to be a cracked piston in the tranny. It was loosing pressure and it wasnt able to shift. But it drove fine unless it was at WOT. Good luck.

Benji

 

The mobil 1 ATF is slicker and thinner and the tranny is more prone to slip with it than a heavier fluid like maxxlife.

 

Moving to the Drivetrain forum...

 

My friends car had the same problem when he had low oil level in the tranny. (he didnt check the oil level the right way) so when we added oil to the right level the problem was solved.

 

Not sure how they control the throttle/valving on the "E" models but it isn't right, if it continues it will definitely shorten the trans's life.