all4u

I was thinking about having my trans shop put in a manual valve body in my 89 Formy. Does anyone here have a manual valve body? What shifter should I use? Thanks for input ahead of time.

btcamaro

I had one in my car. It was fun for awhile but I got tired of shifting al the time so I put the regular vb back on. I had mine on with the b&m mega shifter and it worked great.

84 z28

Manual valve body is a PITA for just driving ont he street. Do you plan on racing your car ?

AlkyIROC

The only good manual valve body for street use is one that allows normal automatic shifting when left in D.

As for a shifter, pick a gate or ratchet shifter that you like.

383_z28BABY!

I thought about putting a manual valve body on my camaro but the only advantage of doing so is to be able to hold the gear you want. The advantage to doing that over putting in a manual tranny is 1, less $. 2, less time/work/frustration. and 3, you can manually shift and have all the advantages of the torque converter. Do you have all the gear ranges on your stock shifter/indicator? Because if you do i would say leave it like it is and put the money into beefing up your tranny itself or getting a shiftkit if you don't already. But that's just my opinion.

all4u

There are shift kits that will let me shift when I want and work normal in drive? What brand and part number? Thanks for the help in advance.

383_z28BABY!

Well, your stock tranny in your car should have several different gear selections. This meaning that you can select from maby P, N, [D], D, 2, 1. I am not really familiar with your transmission but this is the case with my 700r4 (just in case you aren't familiar with this transmission it is an automatic 4-speed with overdrive). So if your cars setup is like that then you can put the car in the gear range 1 and it will hold you in 1st gear unless you run it to an idiotic rpm for 1st and then before you blow somthing it might shift due to your govenor or electronic control when your output speed it too great but that is all in the calibration of your tranny. If you decide to put it into the 2nd gear range then it will start out in first but hold in second and not shift into third until like i mentioned earlier your rpms get to an outrageous number (more then they ever should get to) and then it may shift into 3rd. And finally, and i am using my 700r4 here as an example and may not apply to your case depending on how many gears you have and if you have overdrive, you can put it in the gear range marked 'D' and it will start out in 1st, shift to 2nd, and then to 3rd and hoild it there until, yet again the rpms get to too high a number and it may go ahead and make the shift into 4th(overdrive or [D] if you will). The reason for getting the shift kit is to lesen the shift time while shifting up to the range you have selected to hold it in. All this also works in the downshifting aspect too. If you want to downshift you can move the indicator from say 'D' to 2nd and it will make the downshift unless your rpms are too dangerously high and it will cause damage to your engine or transmission. So the only real reason to get the manual valve body would be if you wanted to force your car to take off in 2nd. Hope this was helpful.

all4u

I was on the thinking that if I had a manual valve body, I could up the line pressure without screwing up the shift points because I would control shifting. I want the same shifts that my dad has in his camaro. It is hard to explain but his car shifts harder and it can chirp the tires through the shift. I want that. I seem to get a small "lag" through the shifts even though line pressure is over 210 all the time. What the deuce?

btcamaro

with the TCI full manual reverse pattern shift valve body that I have the shifts were great. when you shift it changes instantly without hesitation. the only reason that I took it out is because I got tired of shifting all the time. I just wanted to be able to just put in gear and enjoy driving. Just part of getting older I guess.

383_z28BABY!

You can get a pretty good shift when you put in a shiftkit, look them up on the internet, you can find alot of info on your specefic tranny. Plus not all kits are the same, you can find just about whatever you're looking for.

all4u

I was thinking about the trans-go shift kit for the 700r4. Is that a good one?

fusion116

I have a 350 turbo tranny with a shift kit. Not sure what type of kit because it was already in there when i got it and a high stall torque convertor. O yeah, and a B&M megashifter. (Loving it!!!)I am looking into changing to a manual valve body. I have heard that you can really mess things up when you try to downshift. Is this true and if so, why?
Thnx!!