slap shifting

[91_honda_CB7ben]

Okay i have a 91 accord auto trans and sometimes i shift it myself. i usually shift it at about 4000 rpms but when i race i shift it at 5000 rpms, but i dont race that often. Is that bad for your tranny because i was told your just shifting it for the engine, but then i was also told by a different person that imma burnout my tranny that and that its bad for it. So is it bad or not cause im confused if its bad or not. Help me out....

[fatboy1185]

It's a 20 year old automatic tranny. Driving it anyway except like a 80 year old woman is bad for it.

[cb7rush]

It's a 20 year old automatic tranny. Driving it anyway except like a 80 year old woman is bad for it.

anyway that you drive it its bad for it, the best thing to do is enjoy the hell out of it and drive it like you stole it..lol

[deevergote]

accordtunerx tested manual shifting on the drag strip. He ran a significantly slower time by shifting it manually than he did by just letting it shift on its own. At full throttle, it should shift at redline. If it doesn't, it's not healthy in the first place.

[19dabeast85]

People like to bash the auto but it's really not THAT much slower than a 5spd, especially for those who don't know how to race with a 5spd. The benefit of the auto is it makes the same, perfect shift every time over and over, very consistent.

Shifting the auto like a manual isn't going to improve your performance though and like deev said, could very well hurt your performance. The manual shift of an auto has a delay that you must compensate for and back when I was auto and the few times I shifted manually, I'd push it into the next gear at 5500 and by the time the engine reached 6k the auto was just getting around to catch 2nd, etc.

I realized the best performance from my f22a1 auto by "tricking" the tranny into shifting at 5500 @ WOT.......go WOT until rpms reach 5500, very quickly let off the throttle slightly, the TCM detects this through the TPS and will immediately shift up, 3/4 through this shift go WOT again. You're going at a high enough speed that the tranny will not shift back down, it'll just pull in your next gear. This whole process takes about 3/4 sec. I did this because the f22a1 has no power-band above 5500.

I drove my auto HARD for 30k until I swapped 5spd at 215,000 and it shifted great, performed great, and gave me no trouble at all, it was perfectly fine when I pulled it. It's all about proper maintenance.

[deevergote]

Automatics have lots of performance potential. Muscle car guys almost ALWAYS run autos. Many of the performance automatics on the market today (mercedes benz, cadillac, etc...) will outperform their manual counterparts.

The biggest downfalls to our automatics are 1) they are 4 speed only... which means long gears, and probably a good bit of time out of the powerband... something more easily managed with a 5 speed manual. 2) They're not geared for performance, they're geared for fuel economy, reliability, and cost. And 3) very many of our 16-20 year old gearboxes have not been properly maintained... such as having the fluid changed regularly with proper Honda fluids.

20 years of abuse will take a toll on anything. Hell, a fair amount of our manual transmissions are failing (synchronizers) at this point!

[19dabeast85]

Automatics have lots of performance potential. Muscle car guys almost ALWAYS run autos. Many of the performance automatics on the market today (mercedes benz, cadillac, etc...) will outperform their manual counterparts.

The biggest downfalls to our automatics are 1) they are 4 speed only... which means long gears, and probably a good bit of time out of the powerband... something more easily managed with a 5 speed manual. 2) They're not geared for performance, they're geared for fuel economy, reliability, and cost. And 3) very many of our 16-20 year old gearboxes have not been properly maintained... such as having the fluid changed regularly with proper Honda fluids.

20 years of abuse will take a toll on anything. Hell, a fair amount of our manual transmissions are failing (synchronizers) at this point!

Absolutely, a properly built and geared turbo F22 auto would be wicked in the 1/4 mile. I used to own a 1991 F350 turbo diesel with a 4spd auto and it was a piece of crap. I had it rebuilt properly and it completely changed the tranny character and endurance.

You're right that most of our cb7's have been abused/poorly maintained. I was lucky to get my cb7 from an older couple who followed the factory service schedule to the T and had Honda do every bit of work......it shows in many areas on my car.

[deevergote]

Wow, that's like the Holy Grail of CB7s!

[CB7 Sleeper]

Well, for the guys spraying nitrous with auto trannys, manually shifting is IDEAL.

Why? It is because you want to avoid spraying while shifting at all costs, in order to save the transmission. This is something I learned from RICHIE*GT35R.

So start in 1, go WOT, spray at 2500 RPMs, let off the button at 5500 RPMs, shift into the next gear, when shifting is complete spray again until 5500 RPMs, and so on...

So, "slap shifting" is definitely the way to go when running nitrous in our cars.

Other than the reasons above, there really is no point in manually shifting the auto. Sure it can be fun, but it's useless.

Manually shifting your auto isn't going to burn it up or eff up the transmission. All you are really doing is changing shift points, and controlling the shifts.

Depending on how you drive, you could potentially get worse gas mileage manually shifting it though. If you are keeping it in the high RPMs and such a lot of the time because you think it sounds cool or something, you aren't going to get the best fuel economy. The transmission is made to shift at the necessary points to achieve the greatest gas mileage possible.

BUT, revving an auto in neutral or park and dropping it into gear is one of the STUPIDEST things you can do. That is probably the quickest way to wreck the transmission. So "launching" or whatever you want to call it when you are racing with an auto, is TERRIBLE. Keep that in mind.

[CB7 Sleeper]

Automatics have lots of performance potential. Muscle car guys almost ALWAYS run autos. Many of the performance automatics on the market today (mercedes benz, cadillac, etc...) will outperform their manual counterparts.

The biggest downfalls to our automatics are 1) they are 4 speed only... which means long gears, and probably a good bit of time out of the powerband... something more easily managed with a 5 speed manual. 2) They're not geared for performance, they're geared for fuel economy, reliability, and cost. And 3) very many of our 16-20 year old gearboxes have not been properly maintained... such as having the fluid changed regularly with proper Honda fluids.

20 years of abuse will take a toll on anything. Hell, a fair amount of our manual transmissions are failing (synchronizers) at this point!

Quick question.

Say an auto guy wants to boost his F22A. Would the best bet be to grab a low mileage auto transmission like the H23 auto, upgrade the clutch packs and the torque converter? Could an auto transmission handle the abuse of boost with these modifications?

Sorry OP, don't mean to thread jack.

[Tippey764]

Quick question.

Say an auto guy wants to boost his F22A. Would the best bet be to grab a low mileage auto transmission like the H23 auto, upgrade the clutch packs and the torque converter? Could an auto transmission handle the abuse of boost with these modifications?

Sorry OP, don't mean to thread jack.

If i was going to use any auto transmission it would be the tiptronic one out of the 97-01 prelude. Im not well knowleged but i would have to imagine that one is designed the best considering its working with a 200hp engine from the factory.

[bcjammerx]

Automatics have lots of performance potential. Muscle car guys almost ALWAYS run autos.

exactly...you will never shift faster/smoother than an auto. The wifes auto 00 shifts after the rpm's reach peak hp.

The main reason I like them is because our autos aren't race inspired. So the manual is better for upcoming turns as our cars ecu's tcu's are not designed for such things.

but for drag, an auto shifts pretty quickly...also you have to consider number of gears in the auto vs. manual and the gearing in both.


btw...don't treat your car like that...it isn't built for it.

[CB7 Sleeper]

btw...don't treat your car like that...it isn't built for it.

This is true.

[deevergote]

Just because the "tiptronic" (that's an Audi/VW term) transmission is more complicated doesn't mean that it's made any better. It's just more stuff to break.

If you want to boost an auto, have it built by a reputable automatic transmission shop, such as Level10 (I pass them once a week...) A stock tranny will hold for a while, at least with an additional cooler and synthetic fluid (like Redline)... but having it built will ensure that it does what you want it to do.
Then you have to worry about ECU tuning. That's more complicated when it comes to automatic.