I've been offered up a running V8 Granada; the parts would be used for an engine swap into the Datsun. My fabricator prefers the C4 trans, I hate automatics but I'm told the can be modded to get rid of most of the things I hate about them.
Anyone ever use a C4 trans on a road course car and if so can you tell me the pros and cons as far as road course work goes?
Things I dislike about automatics on a road course:
1. The disconnect between the throttle and the rear wheels, I steer with the pedals so it's particularly annoying to me.
2. Abrupt mid-corner upshifts.
3. Kick down out of top gear, I routinely carry a taller gear on purpose but then the car downshifts when I don't want it to.
4. They generate a lot of heat.
pirate
HalfDork
6/9/20 2:42 p.m.
Don't know how helpful this is but they have shift kits for C4 transmission to make them manual shift only which would eliminate some of your concerns. Have no idea how they would work or how durable they would be with a road course. They use them for drag racing.someone here will have an answer.
The C4 is a great transmission. Small, light, simple, easy to obtain parts, a chinch to rebuild with a couple of special tools. They are amazingly strong too. I ran a C4 behind a 429SCJ NHRA stocker that weighed 3600 lbs and would do this on launch.
You can (and should) get a full manual valve body, there are many suppliers of them. The full manual simplifies the transmission considerably as it removes the governor, modulator and the kickdown stuff. They are usually reverse pattern so they go PRN123. A good aftermarket shifter with appropriate gates make sure you find the right gear. The most important thing is to get the right torque converter. For drag racing, like my car, I used a very high stall speed, about 5800 RPM, which is how you get a heavy car moving. For road racing you would want a much tighter converter, probably not much different than stock I would say. I've never tried a manually shifted automatic in a road race car, but I could see it working if it was all set up right. The converter is going to come into play on downshifts from 3 to 2 which you are likely to do a lot of. I could imagine that if the converter was too tight it could break the rear tires loose pretty easily, like downshifting a manual without a heel-and-toe thottle blip. There are even aftermarket gearsets that let you change the OEM ratios if you needed to. Third is always 1:1 but stock 1'st is 2.46:1 and 2'nd is 1.46:1. Use a big cooler and a deep pan.
In reply to Tom1200 :
A manual valve body solves quite a lot of that and there's the bonus of very quick gear changes.
Not sure if a locking converter is an option, but that can help with the delayed feeling.....
They do generate a ton of heat, so lots of cooling and fluid is needed.
Gear ratios would not be an issue...............the car is currently at 1600lbs, the V8 & C4 would take it to 1850lbs.
Tom1200 said:
Gear ratios would not be an issue...............the car is currently at 1600lbs, the V8 & C4 would take it to 1850lbs.
Yes, but with proper gear ratios you could make the car faster/easier to drive.
In reply to Stefan (Forum Supporter) :
It will still have fairly narrow tires on it so it will likely be able to light the rears tires at anything below 80mph.
