recommend me a quality street/strip converter

searching for a quality street/strip torque converter, not looking to cut corners or cheap out, which brands need to be avoided and which are recommended.

going into a well built 727 behind a 512ci A-body with 3.55's, 28 inch rear tires, 3000 to 6000 rpm range. i'm considering a 3000 rpm stall speed, your opinions?


thanks

I use and recommend Ultimate Converter Concepts 843-264-5448

PTC makes a very good reasonably priced street strip converter. Call Kenny Ford 256 383 6868
Doug

Turbo Action S-800 "pro street" type converter. Call them and tell them your specs and have them make one for you.

https://www.turboaction.com/s800.html

Turbo - Action is also very good .. both my 8 inch converters were originally made by them .. redone for my combo by Ultimate . I have T/A valve bodies in my 904s and their shifter

Another one for Turbo Action here. I've had a few different brand converters over the years, but my TA with the steel stator & mech sprag has been the best by far.

Don't see prices, out of curiosity, what's the typical cost for a generic street/strip converter?

I have a Lupo convertor as well. * 8" 5400 stall and very streetable with 6% slippage thru quarter mile. Cruising trans temp rarely gets over 185*.

Lupo here as well.

I ran a Hughes 3000 stall behind a 440 in a 67 Dart, and was happy with it. I got it via Summit. Besides the price (it was a long time ago but back then was one of the lower priced options), and ability to use coupons to make the price even lower, Summit (at least for me) has always provided great customer service should anything go wrong. My dad has a 2500 stall Hughes behind his 440 and it's been fine too. We're not racing and haven't compared to others, but they drive well on the street and are plenty fast when called on. I've also run an Edge racing out of Florida that I got on ebay, 3800 stall. Other than higher stall speed, they are all the same in terms of being problem free for street driving and occasional blasts.

For my most recent, though still about 5 years ago, I got a Dynamic converter. Pretty sure it was around the 600 range for a 4200 stall 9.5" back then.

I've got 2 turbo action convertors, love them both! Paul is the man!

I'm running an 8 in ATI works great.

Been real happy with my Turbo Action 8" converters. My car is street driven and has been all over the country with an 8" TA that flashes 6400 in my fat A body.

I have PTC converters in three of my cars. I am happy with all of them. All street friendly for cruisin and flash where expected at the strip. I have a 9" 5600 in my Challenger, a 10" 4000 in my Roached Runner and a 10" 3600 in my Charger.

Getting a converter to flash as much as you want with your combo will be no problem. And getting an efficient converter is not hard either. The biggest problem with converters on a street combo like yours is getting a converter that doesn't drive like a weak clutch on the street. 3.55s behind your high torque engine will mean that with any throttle on street pavement, you are either gonna hit the tires hard enough to not go anywhere, or flash the converter up.

The comfort zone on this is a matter of personal preference. Many guys lean towards the race feel of these converters just like they are okay with big bumpy cams. But the more a guy wants a stock feel to the car on the street, the harder it becomes to get a converter tight enough.

I have struggled with this for years. First with the 500 wedge and then with the 540 Hemi. With light throttle, the converters would move the car out just fine. But if I crowded it, they would usually flash to 4,000+. PTC was my go-to builder. I talked to them and others about this and they said the problem was that there just weren't any cores big enough to hold our big torque combos down. After several converters and many conversations, I ended up sending my PTC converter (which they had tried twice to get where I wanted it) to Lenny at UCC.

In the end, Lenny said that there was a limit of how tight they could build converters for this application because there just aren't the cores and parts to do it. What he did was to tweak what I already had (no real secrets or anything) and told me to run a BIG cooler to keep the fluid as cool as possible to maintain as much viscosity as possible. The final piece of advice from him was for me to run John Deere Hy-Guard summer fluid with just a touch of ATF to give it some color. He said that most hydraulic fluids are a compromise on viscosity with only one grade. JD's summer is a higher viscosity and as you know thicker fluid lowers the flash and 'tightens' the converter overall.

As a result, the car is much tighter around town. At low speeds, I can crack the throttle and the car lurches forward much more like the OE stuff did. Not as tight as OE, but noticeable better than before and maybe as good as I can get. In that 1,500 to 3,500 RPM range where we spend a lot of time in casual driving, the car just feels crisper and more responsive to the throttle.

You did not say how you were looking for the car to drive around town, so this may not even matter to you. And most discussions are centered on flash and stall and such. But those do not really tell the tale of how the converter feels down low when tooling around town. Getting a converter for your combo to do almost anything you want is not a problem. Except for getting a tight, crisp feel down low.

Again, this is all a matter of personal comfort and preference. Not a matter of right and wrong. I was just hoping to show a side of this that is often not discussed. In case it matters.

Checked Summit, looks like they carry TCI

Prices vary from $900 to $1800........................ More than my car is worth

Is this normal, or have prices shot up with Covid and inflation?

thanks fornyour detailed response, i ahgree with you 100% and plan on having the same struggles, i also am looking for a fairly ''tight'' converter that i can drive around town or the highway at 2400-2600 rpm without slipping

This is a superb explanation and highlights the key points of what us the street (90-95%) and strip (5% at best lol) folks face.

I have read a number of references to the John Deere fluid...can you provide more specifics as to what you use?

My 9.5" 4k stall Dynamic is a great WOT piece and actually feels pretty nice on the street as well...but the throttle crispness I felt with the previous 2800 stall is long gone...wouldn't mind some of that back...and a fluid change is a worthy (and a fairly inexpensive) experiment!

Ultimate missed on two converters for me, I sent it to PTC and Kenny helped it. I replaced it with a Coan and haven't looked back.

I have a 9" Ultimate in my car, and it works well for the gearing and camshaft, I have no complaints but it definitely isn't crisp like a stocker. I was worried on nitrous it was going to change the stall speed too much, so I tried switching from conventional type F to ATI's 30 weight synthetic type F. Just the fluid change dropped stall speed by ~200 rpm, it doesn't feel appreciably different on the street. Worthy experiment for sure but don't expect much from the fluid change. It's my understanding the JD fluid is ~30 weight.

I second that. Had a PTC behind the 512 in my Super Bee. Call kenny, give him car and engine info including cam specs. Also used PTC in all my drag cars never had one problem.

Get as large a tranny cooler as you can, keep the fluid out of the radiator, and run the regular Hy Gard. I even insulate the tranny lines next to the engine to limit the amount of heat that they might otherwise pick up there. The cooler than optimum temps will not do anything bad to our trannies. We just don't drive them enough to. That came from Lenny and is the way I have driven my cars for years now. And the only reason to add any ATF is to give the fluid some color that makes it a little easier to read on the dip stick. Otherwise it is not necessary. I don't add ATF, I just put some baby powder on the stick to read the level.

https://jdparts.deere.com/partsmkt/...draulic.htm#_Hy-Gard_and_low-viscosity_1

Me thinks there is a lot of misinformation made here, Dave
If your making over 700 HP then maybe this applies to your parts, I've been told by more than one good west coast tranny builders to have at least 160 F fluid temps on street drivers, not clder
Their recommendations were from 160 F up to 260 F, replace it if it starts to turn from bright red to dark red or brown or black.
I ran a tranny temp gauge in my last S/P car with a glide and a 5800 RPM stall converter shifting it at 7000 RPM that ran in the high eights in the 1/4 mile at 150.+ MPH, iI had decent tranny cooler on it mounted under the floor and the temps would get up to 170 F on the return rode driving back to the pits.
It wouldn't get as much heat in it at the 1/8 mile local track, maybe up to 150 to 170F in the summer after several runs
A1 said to change the fluid after 25 runs and adjust the front band at the same time, I did that for over 6 years and had no problems with it

Street driving with my 4500 8" and a "normal" sized stacked plate cooler temp is never a concern. I have seen 200 degrees one time and it was in a massive 5 lane traffic jam that was idle speed and crawling for almost 2 hours. Everything was hot at that moment. Engine 210, trans 200, fuel 135, angry fuel pumps, and and angry passengers lol but we made it.

That is with the temp sensor in the pan. If you really want to terrify yourself put the sensor in the hot line going to the cooler....yikes lol.

So Lenny was wrong with his advice? And my experience with his advice didn't happen? But you didn't list any personal experience with this combo. Does that mean that you have no actual first hand knowledge with it? And your references appear to be more about very different combos and in different applications than I am referencing. I have ran this combo on several cars and combinations for years. And despite my best efforts, the trannies usually get to 160* or so with much driving time. FYI: None of my combos made over "700 HP".

Now for daily driver vehicles where you expect to put tons and tons more miles than we are talking about with our dinosaurs, I completely agree with your parameters with one minor exception, 180* rather than 160* for a preferred minimum. But the OP asked a question about a particular situation that I have a good amount of experience with. And I only offered the advise that I was given by an acknowledged converter expert and my experiences with that advice. If that advice and experience is even going the direction that the OP wants. Also, I am not suggesting that you and everyone else follow this. It is very application and preference specific.

I think it is very unfortunate that you disparage something that you apparently have no experience with and only go by 'what you have been told' vs your personal experience.

What exactly are you saying would happen to a street car tranny like the OP's should he decide to run the combination that I have? Or in my case, what should have happened to mine?

Thanks to all for your inputs, your comments and suggestions have all been very helpfull in helping me make a better decision

A few years ago I was going to buy an ‘ off the shelf “ type converter from like Jegs or Summit for the 518 in my 15 second D150. I called Lenny at Ultimate he told me to send him my stock lock up converter and he would go thru it . He did, I installed it and dropped my 60 ft. times by a tenth and a half … your results may very

Lenny doesn't own Ultimate Converters anymore. A couple Super Stock guys have not been happy with work that's been done out of there since. I would call Frank Lupo at Dynamic in DE. He just did a 'J' converter for my friend with a 620hp 440 stroker.

My response is based on my result s following the tranny builders advice and then switching to standard petroleum based Valvoline Type F fluids away from some of the "magic mystery fluids" that some of the other tranny company recommend, my old pump gas Duster my last S/P car both picked up .2 ET and .5 MPH in the 1/8 mile with no other changes
Warming up the tranny fluids to at least 140 F before coming out of the staging lanes helped a bunch on the ET and 60 Ft. times, warm fluid moves easier and quicker than cooler fluids do with less friction: work:

There are lot of options for a good converter out there. I use Atlantic Coast Converters. They've always done good for me. They used to run a couple of NHRA SS cars.

Just to comment on the JD HyGard fluid. I've been told by a couple of reputable trans and converter builders NOT to run that stuff. They both said if you need to run the thick fluid, then the converter isn't right and needs to be adjusted. They don't like the lubricating properties of that fluid in a high rpm application.

I thought Lenny still worked there on a consultant basis... Thanks for the info

You can have five different converters built by five different companies and they will all perform different. If you're chasing ET, then have at it. If it's "just a street/strip car", then anyone recommended here will be just fine.

I've ran TCI, Hughes, B&M, ATI, T/A, and Select. I send all of my stuff to Select now when it needs built or freshened.

Cab, you are right for what you want your converter to do. But the OP says; " i also am looking for a fairly ''tight'' converter that i can drive around town or the highway at 2400-2600 rpm without slipping." That is a different application than you are describing. What I am suggesting may not be best for the track (which you keep referring to) but could help the OP in his clearly stated street oriented goals.

YEP, and everyone of those five companies will recommend a different combo at least that is my experience. Just pick a reputable company to work with. Street strip not a big deal, drag strip, you may need to send it back several times to get it perfect. Then you change something on the car and start all over again, at least that is my experience.

Drag strip I keep the best one and buy another to play with