how to get your car to downshift twice?

[BerniniCaCO3]

Hey-- how do you get your car to downshift twice?
If I floor the gas, it downshifts once, or, just holds its current gear longer. I see about 3500rpm.
How do I get it to downshift twice to an even lower gear, and attain higher rpms?

[1990LTD]

Depends on how fast you're going. There's a speed at which the AOD won't downshift more than a gear. Don't know what speed that is.

[gadget73]

normally it will not drop to second gear over about 45-50 mph. If you're doing 55ish, it should drop from OD to D (3) but thats all you're gonna get. You could putz with the pressure to force it to kick down further but that only goes so far, and it will tend to make the rest of the shift scheduling strange. The other option is to just manually downshift. It will not kick to first gear over about 25 mph, so pulling the lever to 1 will get you second gear.

[sly]

check RPMs from stop/slow up to speed... if the shift points are low... tighen up the TV cable. If you're running the stock lopo trans/shift valves with an HO, you won't be able to shift much higher than 4500 rpm IIRC. The hi-rev governor will allow the shift points to reach over 5K rpm. If you're already loaded up with the hi-rev governor... check your WOT shift points.

[86VickyLX]

Put it into 1. It'll downshift twice. :p

It's all deals with speed and load, and the innards of the valve body and how it's set up.

[whitemgm]

Ok! So I am curious about this too! My GM has 3.08 gears and downshifts to second only if you are going under about 53mph. Will installing an HO governor move this up a bit? I would really like to get it to where it still drops to second around 55-58. It doesn't pick up very fast at all when it only downshifts to 3rd at 55.

[gadget73]

no. Thats actually pretty much perfect pressure if it downshifts under 53. The usual setting is that it needs to downshift to second under 50, but not over 55. If you want more acceleration, make the engine produce more power or change the gears.

[whitemgm]

Ok gotcha. I adjusted the TV cable when I bought the car per some instructions I found on this site or some other site on the net.The bushing was gone when I got it, so I replaced it with the brass one and adjusted it at the same time. It really isn't unbearable, it just takes a minute to get moving when you step on it around 53-60. Sometimes I forget that it is a 4000 lb car with a 150 hp engine!! It does pretty good considering the odds.

[pantera77]

Ok gotcha. I adjusted the TV cable when I bought the car per some instructions I found on this site or some other site on the net.The bushing was gone when I got it, so I replaced it with the brass one and adjusted it at the same time. It really isn't unbearable, it just takes a minute to get moving when you step on it around 53-60. Sometimes I forget that it is a 4000 lb car with a 150 hp engine!! It does pretty good considering the odds.

Wile hey only have 150hp, lopo's at least have a decent amount of torque. Fast, hell no, but they will still move out of the way if needed.

[whitemgm]

Yeah, they do seem to pull themselves pretty well. Mine will spin on dry pavement enough to smoke the tires. I was shocked to find that out.

[tjc78]

Compared to other cars of the era, a SEFI lopo isn't all that bad. In comparison to today's car (or even an aero/whale) yes they are a bit sluggish. As Pantera said, torque is key here.

[gadget73]

dual exhaust even helps. Lots of simple things to get a bit more oomph out of these motors without getting too crazy. The very first thing though is ditch the single straw exhaust. The factory literature even says that its good for 10 hp and 15 or 20 ft/lb of torque.

[88Vic]

Hell yeah I ditched my single exhaust for dual, didn't want to mess with the cats so I went with pipe instead of mufflers and it breathes decent for a lopo, sure helped performance and mileage.

As for the transmission mine wouldn't like to downshift at all, so i'd manually downshift it. On the highway I almost never used OD, it picked up speed well in 3rd since it could breathe at those rpm, which weren't too high since it has 3.08 gears and I only drove it about 55mph on the highway in 3rd to keep it from burning too much gas. I would use OD when driving on the highway for an extended period, and one of those periods was when my slipping transmission (another reason to not use OD) is when it decided to crap itself, now it's a powerglide.

[packman]

Gearing/limited slip and exhaust for a lopo. Beyond lopo, consider better heads (at least GT40's) and a ported intake; or if your funds will allow it, aftermarket bolt-ons.


Packman

[cld783]

mine (usually) drops down to 2nd at 55 60. sometimes it doesn't though and you get blown away by v6 minivans.