whats a good way to achieve firmer shifting while on "M" mode or D...

i know for SC3/4 you would shim the valve body to increase pressure? what about the 2GS's tranny?

 

i wouldnt mind firming up the shifts in my gs430

 

They do make a valve body upgrade for our cars; I thought you knew that already? The only problem is that the shifting REALLY BANGS into gear when your driving normally (completely KILLS the luxury ride, when you want it). However, driving aggressively it shifts very quickly and smoothly. There has been a TON of information regarding this in previous threads.

This mod would be GREAT if the car is NOT a daily driver. Also, the ONLY other way to make the shifts feel firmer is bring your car to the dealer (or any shop) and have them replace the springs and other WEAR components in the tranny with OEM Lexus parts. I am SURE that our cars shifted A LOT quicker when they were new...~10 years ago. GL!

 

The main point when lexus engineers designed our cars is for luxury and comfort. There are ways to make the transmission shift firmer. The hack way is to shim it and increase valve body pressure. But properly modifying the shift solenoids and drilling key areas in the valve body and replacing it with O-rings will provide the best of both worlds.

 

hmm i like Rock's idea of replacing the wear items haha.

 

If you want to shift a little firmer, all you have to do is replace the accumulator springs with slightly stiffer ones. On mine, I replaced the with solid rods so there's no dampening at all. After that, mod the VB to raise the line pressure. There are different stages that you can do it and it will vary the shifting harshness. You don't have to go full out when tweaking the vb, most people do it because the turbo cars need to shift fast to prevent bouncing the limiter.

 

Hey jeff, do you have the lengths for the accumulator shims? I used to have them back in the days when I had my IS300 but have since lost it. I really don't want to pay $100 just for three rods. If you have them, can you PM them to me. Thanks.

 

I use solid rods, no springs in my accumulators. I make it so the accumulators have about 1/4 inch of play from the top. That's all you really have to do. I don't have the lengths off the top of my head right now, I'll post them up in 1-2 weeks when I pull out my trans again to do some tweaking.

 

Off the top of my head, I remembered that when I had the toyomoto VB upgrade, the rod lengths were different due to the shift firmness. You'll want to balance it out since you don't want the shifts to be so hard in the upper gear due to breaking traction when the shifts are too firm. I remembered about five or six years ago when I tried to source firmer springs for the accumulator but the problem is that the company that I source them from wants me to make something like 1k unit each min. so that was out of the question. Another question I have is, how firm are the shifts on your built transmission? I want a fast shift without any jerking effect and so far, I've managed to do that on my supra transmission but haven't taken a look into the GS yet.