Rude Awakening - Converter shock

Admittedly I am not fast paced in anything I do with my hotrods so to my surprise (maybe not so surprised) I am shocked to find how much a decent torque converter costs - Lord have mercy! I remember the days where you could get a decent 3000 stall converter for a few hundred bucks!

you mean a GER converter ? [i couldn't resist ! ]

TCI junk sure, but a quality piece from Turbo Action and likes have been $800+ for years now.

I have two Turbo-Action 8 inch converters for my 904 ( ones a spare )... they are over $1000 new both have been redone / freshened by Ultimate that alone is over $300

I had one in the 80s that actually worked. It was a unicorn for sure.

My last Coan 3500 stall was $700 with a discount.

In the mid-late 90s GER had full 2-page ads in the car magazines. Thier prices were about 40% than the go to names of the time. Their quote was: "A better converter cannot be purchased at any price" or something similar to that. The magazines praised them too.

It's not just converters, it's everything. I went to price new carbs and tires...sticker shock!

Seems to me that most things have about doubled in price since the '90s.
Unfortunately, income has not.

thats because the magazine was getting free converters for their articles and advertisement money... tons of poor info has been printed over the years because of that.

if not more. The B&M crap and others were just that. If you want a good converter 🤑. I bought a few from Dynamic and the last one wasn't much better that a B&M POS. TCI was junk, cleaned up some when owned by Comp Cams, then went back to junk as Comp did when they were bought out

TCI = T[otal C[rap] I[nside]

Do these aftermarket companies, develop and build the converters from scratch?
Or are they modified rebuilds of factory design and parts?

Thanks for the input guys ! I have not bought a performance converter since like early 2000’s so I had no idea !

TCI = T[otal C[rap] I[ncorporated] Fixed it for ya, but either applies LOL

I recall something that would bite mopar owners. The factory converter stall rating of a performance Mopars was already in the mid 2500s. Companies like B&M would state "1000 rpm above stock." The price would be very reasonable. Problem is their statement was based on a stock low perf GM converter which was around 1400-1500 RPM. So someone would buy a B&M 11-inch converter and have the same stall as what they replaced. Alabama converters have been around a long time and used to be a touch less $$ than the popular name brands. Not so much anymore.

https://bosshogtorqueconverters.com...nverters/mopar-torque-converters/page/4/

i need all the fixin' i can get !