so i have drag raced my car 3 times now...once when it was stock (all runs were made with 20" wheels) it ran a 15.13@96, added hks exhaust, k&n drop in, ran 15.3@94 thought i needed a tune, so i put the wideband on it and safc in it...(was a 11.2:1 afrs....now a solid 13.5) so i thought FOR SURE i was going to be back up to 96+mph and be into the 14's finally. well that didnt happen. went 15.18 @ 92mph.

soooo....all 3 times ive been to the track, ive done more mods, and the car has gotten SLOWER. ive been around the block a few times and i know this isnt right.

i think my suspision was confirmed last night. i was at a friends house, and got talked into doing a smokey burnout as i left his house.......foot on brake...foot on gas..........nothing but revs.

if i try and power brake it, the tires DO NOT break loose ive tried it several times today and still the same...it just revs to about 1500rpm and just sits there....like the clutch is slipping in a 5 spd. this is my first auto car so im new to the tq converter thing.

wtf is going on? is a slowly failing tq converter to blame for this????

 

We had the same thing happen to our GS, and the torque converter was the problem. It somehow ended up destroying a transmission seal which caused a small leak to develop, which is how we noticed it. With the burnout attempt, you probably did some damage to it. You will more than likely have to get it replaced now.

 

thats kinda what i was thinking (about the converter) it doesnt leak at the moment...

anyone else have any insight???

 

So, I am new to this as well...

Are you saying that if you put your foot on the brake and gas at the same time and your wheels don't spin your torque converter is bad?

...I should try this out of curiousity.

At least now you have a reason to get a high stall PI TC!

 

13.5 is way too lean you should be around 12.8-13.0. But you still should be able to break tires loose when powerbraking. You can have a converter problem, your trans could possibly be slipping or you engine could just be down on power. ITs hard to diagnose a car over Interweb. First things first i think you should dyno the car and if its down on power then you know where to start if its fine, you should start looking into your trans/converter.

 

8 - 12 is rich. 12 is max. performance. 13 - 16 is lean. 16 is max fuel economy.

 

ok first of all at 6:1 your car wont even run, 12.0 is rich for N/A car, high 12s is ideal to be safe, i wouldnt run anything lower then 12.6:1 on a stock GS400, it will hurt performance i would highly suggest not go over 13.3:1. Car idles at 14:6.1, also that 99% of cars that run at that range during part throttle. Not really sure where youre getting your information from.

 

ok lets get this out of the way real quick...i tune honda's as a side business. ive tuned LOTS of them. 13.5 is perfect afr's for an n/a car. ive dyno tuned many a car and have lots and lots of experience here...the afr's are good and thats what its staying at.

NOW, back to the problem....i have powerbreaked this car many times and have never had any issues breaking the tires loose...now it wont do it at all, so i know something is up. ive never owned an automatic car, so this is new to me. i really dont have any other issues/symptoms with the trans so i have limited info to work with.....

what are the usual signs of a tq converter going bad? any common issues with gs400 transmissions that this could relate back too?

 

The only other thing that may be the cause is the clutches are fried. Does the Trans oil look black or smell bad? I thought that if the TC was bad, you could power brake and the car would rev higher since the TC couldn't hold the power and the would only transfer the mechanical power to heat.

On the outside chance, did you happen to turn off the VSC when trying to do the burnout? Sometimes we forget to do that and the car's VSC will kick in when it notices the front wheels not moving and the rear wheels "slipping" so it stops the burnout from happening. But I am sure you already checked that right?

 

yes the vsc was off...a buddy of mine is a trans tech for dodge...im going to invite him over for beers tonight and lure him out to the garage to take a look lol....i also havent checked the trans oil yet (kinda feel dumb for not doing that already lol)

 

so i spaced off the fact that i work with a guy that is a crew chief for a national trophy truck team....i picked his brain for a bit and he is positive that the stator fins are bent over and the converter is toast. he said that also explains my slowing quarter mile times.

he went out and drove it and said without a doubt its the converter. he said the car is driving straight through the converter and its not locking up. he pointed out to me that when you romp on it, then take your foot off the gas to about 1/4 throttle...the rpms stay in 1 spot the entire time...said the converter is just slipping and not locking up like it should.

guess its time for a lextreme converter...money is too tight these days or i would love to get the PI one.

 

guess its time for a lextreme converter...money is too tight these days or i would love to get the PI one.[/QUOTE]

The main reason for getting a PI one is that it is billet and they stand by the product even if it is out of warranty. FYI, I bought a PI TC almost 5 years ago and thought that my tranny trouble was due to the TC. I called them and they said that they would check it out, fix it if needed then send it back but I would have to pay a "cover" charge since the cover was not reuseable. I didn't want the down time so I decided to order a new one. They understood my situation and told me that they would charge me just the "cover" charge and shipping and refund me the balance of the new one when they recieved my old PI TC.

Long story short, They got my PI TC and looked at it and told me nothing was wrong. I was refunded the balance after shipping and "cover" charge, and only spent 260.00 for a totally new TC from PI. How is that for customer service? I don't think you can beat it.

 

can you get anystall speed with PI or youre stuck with 2800?
Glad you can figure out your problem dumbed, i also have tuned many cars/bikes and 13.5 is a little on the high side i've never said its way too lean but sometimes you loose a little bit of power running on the lean side of things

 

...If you hold brake and gas to 1500, it WILL just rev, that's what the torque converter does...

I hold both for brake launch at 1800 with VSC off in PWR mode...

With heavy 20s and wide tires (I have 19inch 275 rears), it might not spin the tires at all, at least in my case, I don't even heard my tires one bit during my launches.

 

i have 20" wheels and 285's in the rear. i have ZERO issues getting the tires to break loose (well i did lol) if your power breaking it at 1800 rpms, you may also be having converter problems. when i bought the car, i couldnt even get it up to stall speed without the rear tires spining.

proof is in the pudding lol






as for what converter to go with...its either lextreme or taking mine to a local guy to have it reworked. he also carries a lifetime free warranty (or re-stall) on all of his converters. i highly doubt i would ever have converter problems...im pretty much done modifing this car, and if i do continue to mod it...its going to have an lsx heart and trans lol