Yeah, that's what I thought. I didn't do it all the time, but I would do it fairly regularly, (at least once each time I was driving the car), just for the fun factor!
Joined: Wed Oct 14 2009, 07:20PM
Location: Florida
Posts: 151
Ok. Now i'M WORRIED too. (This is for a 68 Newport) My car has never seemed to shift down properly when I floor it or near floor it. I've owed it for a year now. I've had to do it manually when I pass for instance. If I am going along at 60 or so and want to really pass fast, flooring will only open up the four barrel but not drop it into second. One other thing. When you are speeding up from a stop it has always seemed to shift to early into 2nd, 3rd for my liking. It doesn't wind up very much. It is perfectly fine for regular driving but not performance-unless you do it manually. The guy that sold it to me is an old car dealer to I know he knows something about them and this was one of his "personal car" he had for 6 years- but I am still worried after reading the above stuff. He stated that if you drive it for "performance" you need to do it manually. He said the one thing that he was going to do to it later was put a later model "valve body" in the transmission (from a 1970's car) so it shifted down when you were slowing down etc. I was always under the impression that it had some manual? valve body in the transmission and this is why it was doing this. I saw Kraut's pic so I am going to go and see if this is hooked up in the garage. If it is there...How are these things adjusted properly? I do have the big phone book size shop manual for the car but it doesn't have the original intake/carb on it. Will this have info on it? I am actually taking my car to the mechanic for a new carb/intake change this week so it will be a good time to get some info on this. Also, if you are shifting manually, what is the best way to do it for your transmission. let off the throttle before you do it? keep the same even throttle and then shift? easiest on the transmission? Or are you serious Kraut when you say floored because of the pressure etc. I always babied it when I did-ugh. For passing etc. Here is the pic of what mine looks like now. Hopefully it is good enough to see if it looks connected etc.
Joined: Wed Oct 14 2009, 07:20PM
Location: Florida
Posts: 151
It was a 2bbl car converted to a 4 barrel. Is this set-up ok in my pic? Should I get the adapter or change something? Thanks....I just want to make sure my transmission isn't going to get fried.
Joined: Thu Mar 19 2009, 06:52PM
Location: MA
Posts: 73
When I Changed my car to a 4 barrel, I managed to get the 2bbl linkage to work by unwinding it to the last few threads on the rod. The part Edelbrock makes for this is basically just an extention for the rod. Can You get a few more pics of the linkage on yours? I wanna see how the springs are hooked up, etc. <span class='smallblacktext'>[ Edited Tue Jul 13 2010, 01:12PM ]</span>
Joined: Wed Oct 14 2009, 07:20PM
Location: Florida
Posts: 151
Ok here are a few more pics. Hopefully they are of the area people need to see to give me advice on this. If not let me know and I'll get more. The car will very soon have this throttle bracket http://chucker54.stores.yahoo.net/thbrwiki3ve.html and this transmission rod ext. http://www.summitracing.com/parts/EDL-8003/ as soon as my last gasket shows up. I mainly want to make sure I ahve all of the correct parts for switching over to the new performer rpm and avs 800 carb that I bought. Now this kickdown issue has me wondering if I need anything else...Hopefully the parts I have can be adjusted properly to shift down with my upcoming carb/intake switch or do I need to get this kickdown kit from bouchillon? Here is what the car looks like right now.
Joined: Thu May 01 2008, 11:15AM
Location: Chicago,IL
Posts: 2868
The adjustment at the carb is set as aggressively as you can have it, so that's not the problem. The rod that goes from the intake bell crank to the trans bell crank should adjust as well. I'm guessing that you have no preload at all on the kickdown lever at the tranny right now if it's shifting really early. See if you can't adjust the linkage down lower to put a little preload on the kickdown lever. You would then loosen up the adjustment at the carb a little to make sure that WOT fully opens the carb and fully pushes the kickdown lever back. I would guess that the way yours is set up is not hurting the tranny any, as you're getting some psi increase, just not all that you want. The tell tale sign of no kickdown or badly out of adjustment is that the engine revs up between shifts when the tranny is slipping.
Later model valve bodies have the partial throttle kickdown function which is very very nice to have. I think all VB's will downshift on decel if you have the kickdown set aggressively enough. <span class='smallblacktext'>[ Edited Tue Jul 13 2010, 02:13PM ]</span>
Easy way: 1) pull vertical rod off bell crank 2) put the 3/16" drill bit through all three holes (one in the bracket, two in the bell crank - see pic 2) 3) pulling the vertical rod all the way UP (see pic 2) turn the end counter clockwise (ccw) to lengthen it - you will have to turn it almost all the way to the end-make it a bit longer than it needs to be to line up with the ball on the bell crank. 4) remove drill bit, reattach vertical rod.
Now for the fun part: Your horizontal rod is most likely too short (especially with the tall performer RPM bracket-pic 1) -buy the appropriate Edelbrock spacer. To do the below procedure remove the red spring you see in the pics (or whatever spring yours has)
1) Have friend/wife/child sit behind wheel and make vrrroooom sounds as they hold gas pedal to the metal - adjust throttle cable so carb is wide open. 2) With above still holding throttle wide open, push the kickdown bell crank at the vertical rod all the way down as far as it will go - it should almost hit the valve cover. (pic 3) 3) While holding bell crank all the way down with throttle still wide open (pic 3) adjust length of HORIZONTAL rod so there is no space (pic 4) in the slot, but no pre load either (pic 5) Once it is set, don't ever mess with it again - unless you have to remove or change the carb.
You can now fine tune your shift points by adjusting the length of the VERTICAL rod, but I would never shorten it to less than what you set it at in the above procedure. If you want your trans to up shift at higher speeds, you can do so by adding a bit of line pressure- lengthen the VERTICAL rod two or three turns - you'll know if you go too far though, because it won't want to up-shift at all. I set mine up following the procedure above, then went three full turns longer- with light throttle it now shifts crisply from first to second at 25-30 mph, and from second to third at 48 mph. Full throttle: first to second is at 55 mph, second to third is around 95 mph (5,000 rpm) - I don't want to know how fast at 6,000 rpm!