With the exception of the 3-4 Evolution schools I've taken, I've only raced my car at an autocross. Since my car is down, I have been given the opportunity to co-drive a 400rwhp C5 with an automatic tranny. The car has received FTD at the first three events of the season. The guy who typically got FTD last year has been without his Z06, and when he drove this car he had difficulty getting used to the automatic tranny. I think he's got 315 V710's on all corners, and something like -2.5 camber. Recent changes made at the suggestion of Danny Popp.

This event will sorta be a mini-road race. When we run the course as an increasing radius sweeper, stock Z06's reached about 115mph on the back stretch. We'll be going the opposite way this event, however.

So, anything in particular I should know if I take him up on his offer? Let the car shift itself? How do I prevent it from shifting in the middle of a corner? What else?

Since it's not your car, you are going to have to get permission to manually downshift to CYA. A few years ago, I autocrossed and open tracked an 88 IROC with the 700R4 and I destroyed the transmission doing manual downshifts. Make sure this guy is OK with this.

During cornering, the only way to avoid a downshift is to get a feel for how hard you can get on it without having the tranny shft. In my old IROC, I had the 2.77 rear end so since the gearing was tall, the downshift wasn't a big deal since I was acceleration limited (more grip than power) in most cases.

I played around alot with the IROC's tranny and settled on starting in 2nd and doing 2-3 and 3-2 manually as necessary. Sometimes the start would dictate starting in 1st (short straight then tight turn) but my "default" starting point was startin in 2nd.

I hope this helps.

I think Mike usually launches in first Jim. If you launch with the shifter in second the Vette actually will launch in second instead of first.

When mine was an automatic I would launch in first and shift to second as soon as it was convenient and just leave it there. I doubt there will be anything tight enough at Gainesville to cause it to shift back to first on its own. If they have any kind of a straight like they have in the past you'll likely need to shift third and then manually downshift second when you're on the brakes for the next turn.

I'm curious to see how you and Chuck do in that beast.

After doing a few street schools at Thunderhill in the '97 TA, an A4 with a mild shift kit, my instructor said I was slower shifting manually. After instructing for years I have found that no-one I have come across has their student shift manually. Do an experiment to check this out. Just put the sucker in "D" and leave it there until you feel you are as fast as you can be then try it manually. I think your lap timer will tell you leaving it in third is best. You will need to modulate the throttle carefully to avoid shifts at the "wrong time."

Another thing to be aware of is "automatic drift" when the torque converter disengages... try to keep a little throttle on in these situations if possible to keep it from doing that. You will not always be able to avoid it though.

Good luck, and have fun!

I had a few problems

On the first run, I moved the shifter into second gear at the start line. It bogs off the line and I keep it there the entire run. I thought this would limit the tranny to not go into a higher gear than 2nd, but still downshift to first gear. Wrong. Noted. I see Jeff posted that earlier. I should've paid attention

On the second run, started in first gear, and shortly thereafter it felt like the throttle pedal had been cut. I glanced at the dash and noticed something about active handling on the display. Turned it off. Noted.

On the third run, I turned off the active handling while staging. Same problem as second run. Since the staging line was moving slow, I sometimes turned off the motor. I forgot to disable active handling right before my timed run. Damn it.

On the fourth run, I hit a slalom cone, but I would've been about a second faster otherwise.

I couldn't get used to nudging the shifter into second, then waiting what seemed like an eternity for the PCM to decide to shift on some random whim. I didn't want it to have a high shift pressure, but just wanted it to shift when I desired it to do so.

The owner had FTD, and I was 3 seconds behind him. So long story short, I was missing the 6-speed today.

oh, perfect timing for this topic, i was just wondering myself...
i do my HPDE events in 3, which is fine, except for one thing: coming down from mid-speed straights (in 2nd) to a slower corner. what happens is the moment you get on the brakes, car thinks 'oh we're going to cruise now' and shifts to 3rd, then i have to get on it BEFORE the apex to get it to shift to 2nd again, to exit the corner on some proper power. so not only i have to get on the gas before the apex, but i also do 2 unnecessary shifts, which just beat up on the trans. faster straights (3rd gear) are similar, but with one less shift. I would _really_ like to avoid it.

so i go out and read about it as much as i could find, but if you type in f-body and auto trans, all you find is how to make it shift harder for quarter mile runs :/ so i put before you these few questions:

1. how safe is it to downshift from 3->2 under braking? (as that's my main annoyance)
2. i read that shiftkits allow you to 'hold in gear up to any rpms' how is that different from just shifting yourself ?
3. i read that shiftkits can actually extend the life of an auto trans under racing conditions. is it true? why?
4. what's the best technique for going through a corner in an auto, if you were just slowing down and trans want to go in the 'civilian' mode of not keeping it in gear, but upshifting as much as possible?
5. i have HPTuners, which is a fantastic toy as far as playing with transmissions goes, and i've been thinking of creating a special program just for track duty, with totally bastardized trans settintg, that wouldn't upshift until you run out of revs. i'm kinda unsure how to set it up so it doesn't upshift under braking though. any ideas?

this is the table i've been using for normal driving, i'm about to redo it all completely as i'm putting in shorter gears right now.

The perfect auto downshift comes with experience.

You have to downshift pretty close to or at the end of braking. And you downshift to match RPM not to slow the car.


Lately, out of frustration for the lack of the 93 manual tranny, I've been downshifting alot. Nearly everycourse I was on last year, I downshifted to 1st gear. Including both Pro Solo's I did.

1. Disconnect Neg. battery Cable
2. Unbolt auto tranny.
3. Throw it away
4. Install manual tranny
5. Install is reverse of removal
6. Connect battery


Isn't that how it goes?

ugh...trust me, if i could get the stick in there on the cheap i would've done it a long time ago. the usual cost associated with it started at about $3500 and went up with the options (viper internals, nice flywheel, nice clutch...) so unless someone is willing to help the brother out with the labour...

This has to do with slippage. A non-shift kitted tranny will take longer to get into gear, the factory does this so the old farts won't spill their coffee! All this slipping generates heat and consequential wear. I have my Trans-Go kit in the '97 TA at the number one setting as to not upset the car in turns at speed. If the car is a drag racer then a harsher setting is more appropriate.

My 83 came with a 200C which is not a strong tranny. It lasted 100K miles. I drove it hard on the street and usually made manual downshifts from second to third late under braking. The shifts were so slow that I could blip the throttle to match the revs after having selected the gear. I would also drop it into first under acceleration on way out of tight corners.

The car now has a TH350 with Transgo Kit on the second setting. There's two places on the Mosport GP track where I downshift into second; again, late under braking so that the tranny doesn't have to slow the car too much. So far it's holding up OK and, for what it's worth, the shop that built the 350 said that downshifting it should not be a problem.

The TH350 is not the best solution but a T56 swap was not feasable because the car needed too many other things done to it more or less all at once.

Yep I think that is the standard procedure.

And so far things look pretty encouraging.

Meaning the rally cars in ESP are hauling ass (hopefully right out of ESP)