Thought I had remembered it being a 200R4! That is not a FWD transmission, it is the famously, pathetically weak and failure-prone RWD 4-speed automatic GM put in a great many of their midsize and full-size cars from about 1977 through about 1984, when it was replaced by the somewhat less-bad 700R4.

There were class-action lawsuits, same as when Chrysler put the A604 in their cars, and for the same reason: Early, repeated and expensive transmission failure.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Why in the hell would you want to put a powerglide behind a MOPAR engine when the 904 or 727 is the better choice. My transmision has been in my race car four years it is a 904 and it will run 12.50 in the 1/4. The only problem i had it broke the flexplate . This transmision has about hell 4000 runs on it and that is the only problem that has happened. Of course a great transmision builder is your best buy. Thanks Ron Parker







It Aint Over Until I Win

I have a buddy who has a powerglide behind a 250 in a Nova. That has to be the most irritating trans that I have ever seen. The thing that really bugs me though is the RPM drop that it has between gears, especially when you only have two gears to play with. It is pretty sturdy though since his shifter has no reverse lockout it has been thrown into reverse accidentally going about 50.

I wouldn't recommend a powerglide to anybody. They are very annoying to try and drive on the street.

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82 D150-225/727
02 Dakota-3.9/5 speed
87 GMC C7000-8.2 Detroit Diesel/5+2

They went to the 'Glide because it weighed less than a 904. They thought the reduced weight would offset the lack of a third gear. It didn't.

The main reason many Mope racers go to a Glide is that they have been conditioned to believe that a 727 is a bomb. Poorly prepared it is, and will blow up catastrophically. However, it costs less to prep a 727 correctly than to switch over to a Glide. Sometimes racers are just sheep.

A Glide will settle a violent car down on the starting line, and some cars with lots of torque will actually go fatser. A Glide will also allow a car to react faster on the starting line.

All of this is irrelevant to us Slanters though. We don't have enough power to make one work.

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

PGlides are usually used in higher HP or lightweight drag cars. Low HP or heavy cars seem to do better with a 3spd trans. I think a PG would work OK if it was in a super light under 2200 lb slant six car with 275 HP or better.

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Slant Cecil

Wilcap has adapters to mate the GM autos & sticks to the good old slant. I forget the prices, I posted on this a long time ago. At that time I knew the cost, but I've bumped my head and had a few beers sense then.

http://www.wilcap.com/webdoc8.htm

cheers,
matt

Here

http://www.wilcap.com/downloads.html

http://www.wilcap.com/225350.PDF

$525

Auto kit comes with a flex plate, and the stick kit comes with alum or steel flywheel.

matt-

I'd love to know how anyone could prepare a 727 so "poorly" that it is more likely to fail than a Powerglide or Hydramatic. Yeah, you can blow the OR clutch doing a burnout incorrectly. As the doctor told the patient who said "it hurts when I do this," well... don't DO that!

Hell, I'd trust a 727 pulled from the junkyard with no more "prep" than kicking the mud-dauber nests out of the bellhousing as much as I'd trust a custom-built GM transmission.

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So what is the proper way to do a burnout?

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82 D150-225/727
02 Dakota-3.9/5 speed
87 GMC C7000-8.2 Detroit Diesel/5+2

Any options to get into a overdrive auto are interesting to me, but for the expense it does not seem worth it to try to swap to a 200r4 or 700r4. It's not just the overdrive that would be nice , but the 2.75 or 3.00 first gear too. Either of these tranys can be put together for a decent price and can hold up to alot more power than a slant on the street will ever make. This was not the case in the past, they came from the factory with things like plastic washers, weak pumps, soft stator supports, bad calibration, torque converter problems and lube circuit problems. Unless you get into hard-core racing parts it is not that expensive to fix these problems during a rebuild and have a great street performance trans. However, adding a $500 plus adapter and all the little misc. parts and mods would turn into a big deal. As pointed out about the powerglide, NOT FOR THE STREET! Think about how fun to drive it would be with only 2nd and 3rd gear, thats were the ratios are. It is the trans to use in certain classes of racing, and done right will be very expensive. When cars get well below the ten second time there is less time for shifting and it is all about getting into high gear and hanging on at high rpm down the second half of the track. I have not had the time yet but am very interested in just what it would take to bolt a later mopar auto OD onto our slant. My gut feeling is that in the end I will have a lower gearset in the 904 that is in the car now and no OD. Lower first gear, not NO first gear!

"Don't"

OK, the issue I'm talking about (grenading the OR clutch) is really *only* a problem when you're running slicks and you have to do a burnout in the water-box at the dragstrip. We're talking 12-second type cars and faster here. Power-braking and doing a "burnout" on dry pavement with street tires isn't going to grenade an overunning clutch.

What happens is that in the water box the wheel speeds have to be very very high, PLUS to properly dry the slicks you have to let the car "creep" out of the box and finish the burnout on dry pavement. If you do that with a standard valve body then when you lift off the gas and the wheels grab pavement and lock up, it will whang the bejeezus out of the overrunning clutch. Sometimes hard enough to crack the case. When you get to racing at that level you should have a manual valve body (or at least one that is modified to FORCE 2nd gear when you pick 2nd gear, aka "2nd gear start") and the burnout should be done in 2nd gear so the OR clutch never comes into play and never gets hurt.

Oh, and doing a "neutral drop" where you rev the car in neutral and then drop it into drive is just as likely to 'splode the OR clutch and crack the case as what is described above- and you CAN do that with a street car.

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So I should quit spinning the tires in my Duster on wet pavement?

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82 D150-225/727
02 Dakota-3.9/5 speed
87 GMC C7000-8.2 Detroit Diesel/5+2

:shock:I've had two different race tire reps tell me that doing a burnout on street tires actually HARDENS the compound. One should drive around the water box and do one hard hit against the converter to clean the tires off. Also, look into the trailer of some Competition Eliminator racers at an NHRA event and you'll find a lot of racers running 904 series T-flites regardless of the car make. And it's because of the different gearset ratios available for one. These guys have to literally bomb the index just to qualify, so they are looking for every hundreth they can squeeze out. RICK

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If you can't be good, at least be colorful

You're way more likely to damage the rear end that the trans doing that.

I always did funny car burnouts with my Duster on street tires at the track. It doesn't hurt a thing, and it is a great way to have fun without getting arrested for it.

A mild Slant doesn't have enough poop to hurt a 904, unless you do something rerally stoopud.

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

Well, that's up to you

But what breaks things are BIG HUGE STICK-AS-CHEWING-GUM slicks heated in the water-box and then grabbing dry pavement, together with much more powerful engines. Not street tires behind a slant 6 on wet pavement.

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