ETA 9th April

Well,

My car has finally left the US. Should be here in a few weeks. Going to upgrade its suspension with RideTech coil-overs and 4 link rear.

The car has some added horsepower in its 351c motor and a 2000 or 2500 rpm stall converter.

How does a Stall converter effect the cars normal cruising? I always thought things like that are for drag cars and make the car drive like garbage for a street car?

Thanks in advance.

My 69 Pontiac GTO had a 2800 stall converter. I drove it daily for several years no problems at all. It was fun off the line too.

It depends on how the car is geared..

If your gears are such that the car is running would normally be running at 1800 RPM at 60 MPH (use a gearing calculator), and your stall speed is 2,000 RPM, that means that the convertor will be slipping at 60 MPH and generating more heat. This can be a problem if the car already runs warm to hot as the introduction of the additional heat from the transmission via the cooler would make things worse for the engine.
If it does not already have one, I would advise you install an external transmission cooler.

Thanks guys.

Randy, are you basically saying that whatever my cars RPM will be when I am cruising at 60mph, if it is below the Stall level of the converter it means the car will be slipping and thus getting hot.

If the cooler is put in place (if it does not have 1, need to find out) will there be any problems with it slipping then while cruising?

Otherwise, if car cruises at 3000rpm say at 60mph and the stall converter is 2500, then it will cruise the same as though stall converter is non existent?

George,

To answer your question about problems with it slipping while cruising - not really any problems as long as you can keep the transmission fluid temperature under control.

You hit all the other nails right on the head.

I did have a trans cooler on my car. It is my understanding that larger cubic inch motor will make a stall converter stall sooner because of the amount of torque applied is greater. Maybe Randy can add to this. If your car has a 3.50 gear or better your cruising RPM should be over 3000. I had 3.08 gears with a 462 cubic inch engine.

Hi Dave,

I believe it is the other way around, the more torque the engine develops, the later the convertor stalls.. I may be wrong, but this is the way I have always known it to work.

Case in point - people used to use Chevy Vega automatic convertors in their Turbo-350/400 transmissions and would stall at around 2200 to 3000 RPM. Wth the little Vega engine, the stall speed was under 1000 RPM.