james1990

hey guys, seasoned forum member here gone MIA for a year due to tranny problems acting up in my A6 on my LS3 STS TT.

It is time to upgrade the tranny/rear end as well as the torque convertor, but my shop tells me he needs to know the cam specs to the "Vette Doctors blower cam" that is installed on the car.

does anyone know this info? Lift? duration? Should my shop even need to know this info to upgrade the tranny? they are having a problem getting my Pro Torque 3600 stall convertor to work well with the car. Pro Torque has told me that it is the correct sized stall for the application but it does not seem to know which gear to be in.

Im not sure who else to turn to on advice for this car, but upgrading the tranny has become a huge headache making the car sit there unusable

thesubfloor

Wow, it really never ceases to amaze me the kind of crap that shops will try to put past an unknowing suspect...er... I mean customer.

Seriously though, other than needing to be tuned slightly differently there's no reason the cam specs should have any bearing on any other component in the car especially the transmission, torque converter or differential.

I've gone through all kinds of variations on cam (mild to insane), engines (LS2, LS3 and LS7) and differentials (2.56, 3.15 and 3.42) and never once have I had to stop and go "Hmm, I wonder if this cam has the right specs to work with everything else in the car?". In fact, my cam is so big that the guy who sold it to me didn't even want to at first because he didn't think I'd be able to get it tuned properly but I eventually did.

That converter however is definitely too loose for your setup because with forced induction, you really should never go with anything more than a 2800 stall, maybe a 3200 depending on your gear ratio.

If you're having problems with the transmission knowing what gear it should be in then you're tune is either messed up (best case) or you've hurt some of the internals and it'll likely need to be rebuilt (worst case).

Other than the confused gear problem you mentioned, what other issues are you having specific to the transmission?

You'll also need to find out what size injectors you're running because if they're larger than 63.5lbs but the shop didn't account for that with respect to transmission line pressures, that opens up a whole other can of worms and depending on how long/hard you've been driving the car that way it's probably already too late and the damage has already been done.

Sorry if this sounds kind of doom and gloom but I'm just trying to be realistic based on the information you provided. If you'd like to talk to me directly, feel free to e-mail me using the address below.

Christopher
syclone98@hotmail.com

james1990

Christopher,
I cant thank you enough for the time you put into helping me, its guys like you that make forums like these awesome.

I understand what you are saying. So now that i know i am running the wrong stall, i assume i would have to switch it out for a lower one, and contact a shop that sells an upgraded A6 or the older auto 5 speed tranny. know anyone?

The rear end and gears are stock still. I have the Z51 LS3 so what ever gear ratio it comes with is what i am running. I would like to just know how to go about this upgrade and what I should expect with it. I still cannot even get a quote from my shop until i supply all this information about what was already done to the car. I am not 100% sure if the STS kit came with different injectors i will have to check.

Its just said thinking about how much money was put into this car and in the end it made it undrivable for over a year. I would love nothing more than to get her on the road and you are helping me do that so again, thanks.

thesubfloor

No problem at all.

More than likely you have 2.73 gears but if you want to be sure, there's almost always a Getrag sticker (the manufacturer of the differential) on the bottom with the gear ratio stamped on it.

While it's quite possible you may not actually have anything wrong with your transmission and/or differential, it probably is a good idea to upgrade them with that kind of power. I do tech and installation support for Yank torque converters and the thing I almost always tell people is if you're making big power it's not a question of if but when you're transmission will eventually let go. I used to be able to run my stock trans pretty hard until I went beyond 550rwhp and then started breaking them pretty quickly. In your case you might be able to have them last longer though if you don't track the car.

As you'd probably expect I'm partial towards Yank converters but since you already own one from Pro Torque what may be a cheaper alternative is to send it back and have it tightened up to a lower stall, probably somewhere between 2800 and 3200.

If you're looking for a good differential upgrade I'd recommend going with a C6 Z06 differential with 3.42 gears as I've been running one for over two years in my car and despite over 650 low 10 second passes at the track it's still holding up great.

As for the transmission, I'm affiliated with a company called Century Transmission in Richmond TX. I'm currently running one of their built transmissions which has been in the car since September of last year and as of this past Monday I've made 252 passes with it at the track and put just over 12,000 street miles on it. I know that with the kind of abuse I put it through it's going to let go eventually but for now it continues to shift flawlessly every time.

If you don't have access to your tune file, let me know and I can hook you up with a fellow tuner who lives out your way on Long Island and he can pull it from the car and e-mail it to me. That'll give me a better idea of what's been done to the car so far and how to proceed from this point forward.

Christopher

5.0 mustang man

They probably want cam specs in regaurd to the converter they are going to use. I assume they are going to custom order the converter and most if not all converter companies want the cam specs. I have dealt with many custom made converters and they ALWAYS want cam specs or atleast a clost ball park.

Ed@TheVetteDoctors

Give us a call on Monday, we can help in your selection Mention this thread in the forum.

Ed M