Transmission suggestions

[hotrodboyzmn]

okay you guys helped me so much on rearends I wanted to see what you thought about transmissions. Currently my gear is a 377 or 373 I dont remember. It is pretty low for my C4. I built up an aod to handle 500 horse (theoretically) with stronger bands, cluthces, etc. and I have a 3500 stall for it. I am running a 17*10" rear tire, dont remember final height maybe 26" or close to it. I want to put 4.10's in the ranger what do you think, switch out the C4 manual servo 3500stall with the aod 3500 stall or leave the C4? I want to do some highway cruising so you can see my concern with the deep gears. I am also wanting to do some weekend drags at the track.

[87ranger]

im usin an aod with 3.90 rear gears and a 315/35/17 tire (26") i had art carr build the trans and i recomend they're converter and manual valve body, with those parts and a one piece shaft you should be able to handle 900+hp with out issues, my converter will allow me to cruise at 2,200 rpm in overdrive at 60, trans brake at 3,100, and it will trans brake at 4,000 with 7 lbs of boost

[MalcolmV8]

AOD if you plan on highway cruising especially with 3:73s or the 4:10s you're looking at getting.

My blue truck has a 4r70w (electronic version of the AOD) with 3:73 gears and 31" tires (about the same as 275/75/15 tires) and I'm running at 1900 rpm at 70 mph.

Malcolm

[plowboy34]

AOD without even a thought. As 87ranger said if they are built right they are just as tough as a C-4. If you were straight up drag racing it would be C4 but if your gonna hit the highway AOD.

[broncobowsher]

Option 3:
4R70W. Low first gear. Comes with the good parts that they use to fix up an old AOD anyway. Very easy to program the shift points as needed. Can run a high stall convertor, but get a lock up version for easy low reving highway cruising. Unlike the AOD, you can leave the convertor unlocked in the upper gears and have good performance at high speeds as needed. then when you let off, the convertor locks up and back to easy cruise. A good 4R70W can take some real good power in stock form. I run one behind my 11:1 compression 351W and one in the stroker ranger with basiclly a valve body kit, good cooler and aftermarket trans controller. The 351 got opened up and new frictions tossed in as I had to replace the output shaft for the 4WD to work, the Ranger got nothing more then a valve body kit for it's inner workings. Less expensive and more versitile then getting an AOD and having to live with it's archiec engineering, plus you get the upgrades installed from ford.

[MalcolmV8]

Which controller are you using for your 4r70w?

[broncobowsher]

Bauman
www.becontrols.com

[MalcolmV8]

Same as me. How do you like it? I thought the user interface for adjusting shift points left a little to be desired. The rest of it seems to be OK though.
For me the tire diameter option makes no difference so I had to go through and tweak all the shift points just the way I wanted them.

[broncobowsher]

I actually have 2 of them. One in a Bronco the other in the Ranger.
The tire diameter and gear ratio were set at the starting point. After driving it a little I tweaked the shift points a little and got it where I wanted it. I find it very adjustable without going overkill and making you adjust everything. The one in the ranger was installed after countless failed tuning attempts with the EEC-IV '94 mustang computer. That was a POS to tune. Finally set the EEC to "stick shift" and but the Baumanator in. In about 3 outings I had the trans dialed in.

[MalcolmV8]

The one in the ranger was installed after countless failed tuning attempts with the EEC-IV '94 mustang computer. That was a POS to tune. Finally set the EEC to "stick shift" and but the Baumanator in. In about 3 outings I had the trans dialed in.

That makes me feel a lot better about never even trying the 94/95 Mustang PCM to control the tranny. It's always been in the back of my mind as a way I could have saved $550 or so. Now I don't feel so bad about it.

[cgrey8]

That seems like the typical story with people trying to control 4r70w trannys with the 94-95 EEC. I see claims that it "should work" but I don't think I've ever read from anybody that got it to work to their liking on the EECTuning forum. I think those 94/95 (CBAZA) EECs originally controlled the AODE, and evidently the 4r70w is enough different that the 94/95 EECs just don't do a good job at controlling a 4r70w. So most 94/95 Mustang owners that upgrade to the 4r70w wind up with the Baumann controller.

However people using newer EECs that controlled a 4r70w stock don't seem to have much trouble.

[94stranger]

I may not have all the brains like you guys have here for info and stuff, but a tranni question depends on what you want your toy to be used as (race type or economy) I' say every day driver OD, race 3spd.

my old truck (RIP) was a 3 spd with shift kit B&M slap shift racing shifter, and boy was she fast! around town it would be great but if I was going up north.... now thats a different story!
It would be on the highway doing 110 k, the sound would get to your ears after half an hour and I'd have to do 80 k, now with an OD you could go faster at lower Rpms as well as be a bit quiter. Like I mentioned first it really depends on what you want the truck for daily driver or weekend toy!