“If you get to a marginal track where you are blowing the tires off the car, you can put a little higher stall speed stator in and get down the track with a little looser converter,” Kelly says. With straight cut gears, the teeth mesh fully, whereas with helical gears, only the tips of the teeth mesh, creating a weak point.Ī very popular trend in drag racing is the bolt-together torque converter, allowing racers to make minor adjustments in stall speed and in effect tune the converter right at the track. From the factory, these transmissions came with helical gears. Aftermarket straight-cut gears are much stronger and an important change when building a racing transmission. Multiple different gear ratios are available for either of these transmissions so you can build one to match the performance goal of your car. They can get away with a stock case with SFI-rated shields on it.” “A guy that’s running 850 or 900 horsepower does not need an aftermarket case. “Not every racer needs the aftermarket case,” Kelly says. “It only makes sense that the industry picks the two best transmissions there are, with the least failures and the ability to handle the horsepower and just interchange the bellhousings for Chrysler and Ford engines.”ĭepending on what you are building, it is not entirely necessary to run one of these new cases. “We firmly believe that the racing industry will only be two transmissions in the next five years it’ll be the Powerglide and the Turbo 400,” Kelly says. For the GM enthusiast, the cases are still one-piece, but for Ford and Chrysler enthusiasts, the cases are two-piece with interchangeable bell housings so you can run either of these transmissions behind the small block or big block of your choice.Īlthough admittedly not set in stone, Kelly feels these two automatics are proving such success that they may be the only two utilized in the near future. “One is for the bell housing in case of a flywheel failure, and one is for the main body of the case in the event of a planetary gear set explosion,” he says. He explained that both of these aftermarket transmission cases carry two different SFI certifications. “It is very exciting, because now these two famous and well-known transmissions can be built and blueprinted all day, every day and we’re not looking for junkyard cores,” Kelly says. Many companies, including Transmission Specialties, produce aftermarket Powerglide and TH400 cases, as well as all of the internal components. The problem, however, is no longer a problem. The problem? The Powerglide hasn’t been produced by GM since the early ‘70s and the Turbo 400 bowed out in the late-‘80s. They are simply proven tough units, perhaps earning their reputations as the result of money only being spent up-front, these are the ones that took the most abuse. The best part is with the transmissions and technology available, there is no need or excuse to short-cut either.įor the all-out drag racer, two of the most historically prevalent automatic transmissions have been the GM Powerglide and the three-speed Turbo 400. There is too much potential for disaster with the horsepower we’re pushing today. When building a transmission, safety is ultimately the number one priority, with dependability and function only the number two concerns by common sense default. For these reasons, you’ve got to put more “green” in the transmission. The bottom line in today’s world, racing and street-driven vehicles are blending together in the same category, with street-driven vehicles yielding more power than ever imagined, becoming formidable foes on the track, and race-only rides require drivetrains that can handle the extreme power being squeezed out of today’s engines like never before. “Guys really like to beef their car up in performance and daily drive it, then drive it to the track on the weekend, more so than you would imagine,” says Ken Kelly, general manager at Transmission Specialties. Over time, the once cool effect of rolling in with a stout tow-rig and matching trailer was overshadowed by the overwhelmingly popular drive to the track. This was also a benefit if you broke something, because you still had a ride home. A lot of guys drove to the track, but if you were serious, it was common and also looked good to employ a truck and trailer combo to get your car to the track. Backing up a few decades in drag racing, especially from a novice standpoint, was a relatively low-horsepower affair compared to the engines built today. The evolution of the sport has taken it beyond the track. It’s hard not to put an immediate focus on drag racing and nobody can dispute the popularity of it, which today has thrown in a new twist to the transmission world.
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