fordfanboy

That product will not help you. Riven is 100% correct...

Listen guys, the reason you get problems at WOT has nothing to do with the shifter. It's the tranny. Specifically the design of the S197 causes the tranny to slightly shift when you put it under load. This slight shift, causes the probelms with shifting when you're on it hard.

The best product to resolve this is the K-arm brace and engine torque limiters from CHE performance. It is an easy bolt on mod and will ease your shifting at WOT greatly.

http://www.cheperformance.com/cartge...pid=208&cid=15

classj

That doesent sound right to me. I think you mean that the engine/trans is moving due to the flex in the engine mounts and being that the shifter is bolted to the body and the trans, binding occurs in the shifter when the engine moves.

Riven02

I beleive that is what He meant since he referenced the torque limiters....

fordfanboy

Exactomundo - the shifter is bolted to the trans and the engine mounts really have nothing to do with it. Even if you upgrads your engine mounts to the steedas or prothane, you'll still get the tranny shift. The engine mounts do help and allow the motor to sit slightly lower and is great benefit for header clearence issues but the the way the shifter is set-up, the torque limiters really are the best fix to keep that tranny planted.

classj

Umm, I think I get what your saying but please understand the following one point in case you don't know or I am missing something. The trans is firmly bolted to the engine. There is essentially zero torsional deflection between the trans and the motor.

What holds the engine and trans in the car are the engine and trans mounts. The mounts are what allows the motor and trans combo to move with some freedom independently of the body. Assuming even solid motor mounts were not enough, then the only deflection would be the K-frame twisting in relation to the unibody. Which does occur but not to a great extent, certainly minimal when compared to engine movement on its own mounts.

So all we are essentially doing here with the above kit is better securing the engine to the K-frame. Which serves the same purpose as stiffer engine mounts no matter how you look at it. The advantage to these braces usually is that they still allow the mounts to function correctly to some extent, but limit the engine movement on hard shifts and launches. I have even seen some that have absorbsion fluid in them so they are "invisible" under normal conditions and have adjustable stops that restrain the motor from moving more than a certain amount.

Assuming the movement is the problem, the limiter will work.

I have seen old school torque limiters that were sold in the past. Some were nothing more than a piece of chain with a turnbuckle end. You adjusted the chain so it had a little slack so around town no vibration and harshness transferred to the body. But it restrained the motor on a hard launch.

Actually, most factory engine mounts have mechanical stops anyway that limit how far the engine can move. So while the engine is just sitting there tooling around town, there is a fluid or rubber isolation. But at WOT, the engine moves enough to make two mechanical fingers lock against eachother inside the mount to firmly limit how much the engine can move with relation to the chassis.

You also have to be carefull where you mount the limiters to. Most points on the block were not designed to handle the large forces that can be exerted by the engine movement. Especially given the fact that we are now dealing with aluminum rather than cast iron.

I have seen mounting points ripped off of 426 hemi where people that thought they were being smart jury rigged limiters and just tore them off on a hard launch and kinda tore up their block a bit.

Personally, I want to know what is causing the shifting problem, but I am not so sure I am willing to install a limiter or mounts to to fix it. At that point I just might live with it till someone comes up with a better solution. Aftermarket parts for these cars are in their infancy right now. Eventually, what works and what is BS will be sorted out.

cekim

What is causing it is as described... squishy link between **** and transmission... engine/trans twist under torque - shifter **** does not - mayhem ensues...

My persional view is that the only way to "fix" this is undo what ford did wrong here... put the shifter back on the transmission.

There is a rig out there somewhere (saw a picture, but cannot find it again) that does this but I think it was a custom job - noone seems to be selling it...

The $5K solution is this:
http://ddperformance.com/new_parts.htm

And you get a free 6th gear!

That said, since going to the prothane mounts I have not had any issues at all shifting even with a few extra horses under the hood (and I did run into this prior to the mounts even N/A)...

I am a little leary about the torque limiters myself for the reasons you mentioned - AL block - large forces poorly distributed about the rear of the block sounds like a good way to rip off a corner of the block...

classj

My thoughts exactly. Besides, if I decide to risk killing a block, it would be for more HP. Not smoother shifting. And even then I wouldent do it.

Riven02

I dont beleive there is anyway this could break the block. It you take a look at the pics where I installed it, the bolt goes through about 2 inches of threads in the block and has very thick walls. Also we are not talking about solid mounts. These are not picking up 100% of the load. A portion of the load is still transfered to the motor mounts. Also the weak point of this is not the block. The bushings in the torque limiters and or the 1/4" bolt in the limiters are going to fail before the block.

cekim

To be fair - we're not talking about "smoother shifting" - at least I am not...

This is a go-no-go situation in that I have my foot on the floor and I cannot get into 3rd or even worse, I get halfway into 3rd and if I am not fast enough, I liquify something in trans...

In stock trim, I kinda doubt you could break the block too, I was more concerned with how it will hold a bit more than 300HP...

Point taken on the small parts vs the block, though Al is pretty darn brittle...

Riven02

I had the same concerns before ordering the Torque limiters. As a matter of fact I pretty much decided not to order them. Them Mike@ powerhouse sent me some pics and I got to see just how much block these were attaching too. The flange on the starter side is even gusseted. I would bet my check the loads would look pretty good in a FEM analysis.

I don’t think I would call alum brittle; there is a lot of alum flying in the skies over head. It is weaker than steel in a per THICKNESS bases, However, It is roughly the same strength per WEIGHT as Ti and I wouldn’t call Ti brittle. Aluminum is also not really high on the fatigue critical scale. (It’s not great either)

The limiters are not extremely stiff either. The bushings make the shaft have a good bit of flex. They are defiantly not holding the motor solid. When I first received them I was worried they would not be stiff enough. Before installation they seemed too soft to provide adequate support. However, after installation it does seems like them in combination with the factory mounts will hold it firm to make 3rd gear no longer a problem.

As stated above this mod was not done for “Smoother Shifting” under WOT 3rd would not engage sometimes. IMO the risk of thrashing a transmission is WAY higher than breaking the block.


I missed 3rd a few times and just decided I would live with it. And I did until I missed 3rd real bad. I let the clutch out thinking it was in gear (Since it would not push any farther) at about 6200RPM. After hearing the noise that made I knew I HAD to fix it. Now so far I could not be happier with the torque limiters.