Beagle1, and others...727 mods

[oldestof11]

What should I do to upgrade a 727 tranny other than a shift kit to handle lots of abuse from pulling while still being drivable? I do NOT want a ratcheting shifter but want to be able to select 2nd by putting the gear selector in number 2. Now will there be a shift kit where you can select 1, move up to 2, up again to 3, and there still be a drive?

Also, who to go to for a nice TC? I heard Goerends (sp?) make a nice one and so does Suncoast but I need something under $1000+shipping. Know anybody?

Thanks!

Jon

[Begle1]

There's a whole lot of stuff that can be done to upgrade a transmission, most of which is well over my head.

300 to 400 HP and a transmission can use things like aftermarket bands, aftermarket clutches and steels (and more of them than they put in stock), band struts and high-ratio servo levers.

For higher performance (500 HP+) you are looking at steel planataries, aftermarket or billet drums, billet shafts and even more clutches.

Here's a really unorganized webpage that sells a lot of individual transmission performance pieces.

Valve bodies can be modified by yourself with a shift kit, or they can be bought complete.

The only way to change the shift pattern on the transmission is to get a reverse manual, which goes P-R-N-1-2-3; anything else and you are going have the standard P-R-N-3-2-1.

A ratchet shifter is just a shifter that mounts on the floor and is built so you push forward to go up a gear, down to go down a gear. It doesn't require any modification of the transmission itself.

There are a lot of aftermarket gate shifters that don't ratchet but make it very hard to miss shifts.

There's a handful of places that sell convertors; Goerend's, DTT, Suncoast are probably the most popular. ATS's popularity has been slipping, and they have the most expensive unit by far. Hughes and TCI both make entry-level units. And there are a ton of smaller companies out there that make what are probably just-as-good products but don't have the market share.

$1000 shipped can get you anybody's non-lock-up torque convertor, which is what you need; they run in the $600-800 range, about $600 cheaper than lock-up ones.

[JQmile]

I was reading the instructions on transgo's kit today, and they said both 1st and second will hold those gears no matter what until you shift out. Don't know if that's what you are looking for......Goerend made me a sweet converter for $600 w/o shipping, and he stands by his stuff.

[Begle1]

So a Trans-go shift kit lets you do 2nd-gear starts?

I thought that was manual-valve-body-only territory.
They do make manual valve bodies that shift automatically, though...