Adjusting shift points during light/mid throttle

[87geeinn]

I tried e-mailing Lonnie but haven't heard back yet, so figured I would post here.

I would like to know the best way to go about changing shift points during light/mid throttle. At light throttle, car upshifts early and I'm in 3rd gear by 20mph. At slightly higher, say mid throttle, the 2nd-3rd upshift is sometimes nice and solid and other times it kinda bogs the car for a second before it fully engages. At heavy/WOT, shifts are great. However, if I'm in 3rd and roll into WOT, I have to really mash the pedal down hard in order for it to downshift from 3rd to 2nd. It also has the 2-3 "stutter" thing pretty bad where at light throttle it seems confused as to which gear it wants to be in. Also, while cruising in 4th and need to drop into 3rd (like accelerating to pass) throttle must be opened to at LEAST 3/4 in order for it to downshift. It takes too much effort to get it to downshift. It's like driving a five speed and trying to accelerate briskly in 5th gear without downshifting. I've played around with the governor and put in my stocker but shift points were a little too late and at WOT, car was revving 6000+ rpm. According to Lonnie, they calibrate the governor weight to match the build and the set up of the valve body, which makes sense. I understand there is more to adjusting shift points than shaving weight off of the governor so, I want to see what my options are for adjustment. TV cable is set properly to factory spec.

Very light throttle (like driving in a school zone):

1-2: 1900 RPM @ 13 MPH
2-3: 1700 RPM @ 19 MPH (trans shutters every time and when 3rd does engage, it bogs the car down)

Light throttle (like taking off from a stop light):

1-2: 2500-2700 RPM @ 15 MPH
2-3: 2000 RPM @ 23 MPH (car always bogs down and it takes takes a second for 3rd to fully engage)

 

[TexasT]

I sent you an article on the pm.

I would think if you modified the bigger weigh and/or remove the spring from that side it could help raise the shift points on part throttle.

I would "pin" the spring on the smaller weight while you have it apart.
http://www.turbobuick.com/forums/threads/how-to-pin-the-governor-spring.399648/

But I see you wrote that how to.

 

[Phoneguy]

I had similar shifting problems with an Art Carr 9" NLU

Bryan

 

[McHaggis]

I have the same issue and I've spoken to David Husek about this. He says it's simply a characteristic of most VB's. I'm running a KC4 and there's not a lot that I'm told I can do about it. The BRF ones work better in this respect so short of changing to one of these I'm not sure there's much you can do.
You'd think changing a few springs would fix it though.......??????

 

[87geeinn]

Lonnie finally got back to me. He suggested carefully taking some weight off of the big weight, amongst other things. Will be taking his guidance since he built the trans. I'll report back what I ended up doing.

 

[BEATAV8]

You mention it bogs the engine a bit on some shifts?

Check to see if it's going lean (lean spike) when that happens. You might be able to tune your way out of that one.

 

[87geeinn]

FWIW, I was able to bring the light/med throttle by shaving a good bit off the big weight if the governor. Feels better matched to the valve body now.

 

[TexasT]

Did you weigh it or take any pix of how much you took off?

Posted from the TurboBuick.Com mobile app

 

[87geeinn]

First pic: It's the one on the left prior to removing any weight and prior to speedo gear change.
Second pic: Note the big weight is now smaller. I will probably take off even more next time. No, I did not weigh them.

 

[87geeinn]

To anyone still interested, took some more meat off the big weight and it shifts right where I want it to now. It ended up being a substantial amount compared with what I started with.

I changed the nylon screw on the small weight to a steel one because Lonnie initially sent it to me with a metal pop rivet installed which was in there kinda lopsided and was binding up the spring. He explained to me that it wasn't a big deal but I tapped the hole and put a nylon screw in it. Went to the steel screw to add a little bit of weight back on there to balance it back out. Lonnie explained that the smaller weight is much more sensitive when it comes to adjustments and that he calibrates it to his valve body prior to shipment. Shifted at around 5600-5700 at WOT with the nylon screw. Haven't had a chance to see how much of a difference the metal screw will make.

 

[TexasT]

Definitely good info. Are you using the blue brf small weight side spring?
So this is a custom ea valve body?
Have you looked at the TV valve at full pull to make sure it is bottoming out the plunger since you had the pan down?
After reading the tvmadeez.com how to I think that there could be a lot of misadjusted cables out there.

 

[87geeinn]

The spring isn't blue although when I compared it to my stocker, they seem identical. Not sure though.

Yes, it's a custom EA valve body. If it tried to throw that governor in a stock BRF trans, it'd probably run like poo poo.

Yes, the cable bottoms out the plunger. I made damn sure of that when I initially installed the trans.