ORIGINAL: 90_Mustang_GT

start out in 1 than when your ready to shiftinto 2nd throw it into D and than back to 1 to hold second gear and than back to D for 3rd gear.

ORIGINAL: samseed101

Yup, that's what it is. The AODE shift pattern is P-R-N-D-2-1. So in an AODE, you can start out in first gear and hold it as long as you want. When you want to shift to second, you select second gear and again, you can hold it as long as you want. When you're ready tro shift again you put it in D and it will shift to third gear. If you have OD turned on then it will shift into OD on it's own (unless you're at WOT), otherwise it will hold third gear.

But the older AOD tranny has a shift pattern of P-R-N-OD-D-1. So you can start out in 1, but when you shift it up one position it goes to D. When it D, it only stays in second gear for a very short period of time before automatically shifting into 3. Of course, you want to be able to hold 2nd gear longer than that. So as soon as it shifts into 2nd gear, shift it back down to the "1" position. By doing that, the car will actually stay in second gear until you shift it back into D again, at which point it will shift into 3.

So by shifting 1-D-1-D, you are actualyl shifting 1-2-3 by forcing it to hold in second gear (even though the selector says 1 when you shift it back.)