Today was finally the first day my car was legal for the road. R-title, paperwork, etc... Well I never had an auto f-body, all 3 previous were 6 speeds. I noticed I can down shift at any speed into lower gears. I can be doing like 50 and shift into first. Now all other autos I ever had, no any lt1/ls1s, would do this. They would shift down at a certain point. Its the same upshifting. I can shift when I want from 1st, 2nd, etc...

I planned to put a shift kit in and it seems like it already hasd one. Is this how they are, or does it sound like I have a shift kit already. Its a bone stock 93 formula. I have to say I was impresssed with how powerful it felt with an auto.

 

Unless u have installed a Manual Valve body in your Trans DO NOT DOWNSHIFT IT MANUALLY. This is one of the worst things u can do to wear down your trans and eventually ruin it.

 

 

I've heard that its bad, but the from others its not. I've owned my share of auto cars and I've done it to them and never had any trouble. There wouldn't be gears there to shift into if it was that bad for the car. Also it'd be in dark print in the owners manuals of all new cars because they are covered under new car warranties.

I'm just wondering if this is normal. I do have a manual vb in my 69 rr, and my firebird shifts just like it, except I have to shift totally manually, the firebird, you can put in drive and it shifts itself, my rr put it in 3rd and its in 3rd!

 

The 4L60E is not like the old Turbo-hydramatic 350's and 400's. The old trannies seemed to be able to take a lot of abuse. The 4L60E will wear quicker if you downshift it a lot, eventually ending up with no engine braking.

 

Man, if I shifted into first at 50 I think I would blow just about everything. I don't down shift, but she wouldn't be happier any faster than 40 in first. Now, what will the manual valve body do and where to get it? Would it allow you to up and down shift through the gears without messing up the tranny. It would be a lot easier to do it that way. I feel, when I do it, that the car has more power when I "manually" up shift. If you install the MVB does that void the tranny from electronically shifting? That sounds very intriguing if it could still electronically shift and your able to manually shift it w/out ruining anything!
JOHN

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the 93's come with the 700r4?

If so, manually shifting it should be fine. Just don't downshift when going faster than the gear if you know what I mean. In other words, downshifting into 1st at 50mph isn't good.

 

very true. the 93's came with a 4l6o though. which i think is the same thing as a 700r4. also he might have some 2.73's in that puppy that alow him to even make it to 50 in first gear. i had a friend with an ls1 with 2.73's and he could make it to 54 at redline. i have 3.23's in my car and i can only make it to about 33 or so.

 

Yeah, 4l60, not 700r4. I had a brain-fart, and I knew 700r4 sounded wrong. I had 2.73's but could only hit 49mph at 6,000 rpms in my car. Still downshifting at 5500+ rpms isn't good.

 

im probably asking a stupid question, but why my 95 A4 does not let you downshift into first gear manually, it only has 2, D, OD.
i had an 85 corvette few years back and you could downshift into first ( not that i would ever do that anyways.)

 

Wives tales all of them!!

Down shifting at high RPM and engine breaking will tear up the coast clutch and forward sprag. As will "Goosing" your car hard all the time.

Other then that.....

We have 54K on the 11 second car and 106K on the daily driver I abuse. I shift them both all the time. Heck most the time just because

 

that is because you have 2.73:1 ratio rear end, if you have 3.23s you could shift into first. all you have to do is remove the little plastic piece underneath the console. there are how-tos several places on the internet if you wanna do it. not that difficult

 

if you had the performance rear end you could go all the way down. like was stated b4, theres just a little block inside there you have to pop out

 

before my drivetrain mods... on the stock 2:73's these were my shift mph's


into second at 55mph

into third at 96mph

 

What rpms?