Thread: spend money on motor or tranny

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Just my opinion, but I wouldn't fool with the 700R4 in a performance platform. It's fine for a modest street combination, but the steep first gear (3.06), drastic rpm drop on the 1-2 shift (3.06 to 1.63) and 4th gear ratio (0.7) all come together to make this a nightmare for a performance application, again, in my opinion. I'd use a THM400 and gear the diff for the cam.

The lockup converter of the 700R4 is a nice feature, but if you are running any kind of perf cam, with the 0.7 top gear, the motor is very soggy at the lower r's. Although I've never used one, some of the fellows recommend a re-worked 200R4. Ratios are 2.74, 1.57, 1.00 and 0.67, so you can gear numerically higher for the cam without having a ridiculous first gear ratio.

When you have a dual-purpose car, everything is a trade-off and the car can neither be optimized for high-performance or for good street manners. It has to be balanced somewhere in between. Tough call.