Turbo Action valve body

I am switching from a Griner reverse pattern manual valve body to a Turbo Action 17876 XA ........ I think.
The old dog / new trick thing is one reason.
I never got comfortable with the reverse pattern.
The T/A unit is supposed to have a clean neutral and forward pattern.......solves two problems.
Or does it ?
I read on Turbo Action's site that it has to have a kick down cable from the carb and shifts automatically or manually.
I read on Summit or Jegs sites that it eliminates the kick down and is a manual action.
I have a call in to Turbo Action , but the person who is supposed to know these things isn't there yet.
They took down my number and threatened to have him call me when he comes in.
Anyone have experience with one of these ?
I really want a forward pattern and a clean neutral is a huge bonus.......any other options for me ?
I bought the Turbo Action on ebay for about 1/2 price ........never installed supposedly.
And no instructions either.
So I am kind of driving blind here.

Order extra solenoids.....I've had numerous failures when I had a TA brake in the Duster. Also it's a slowwwwwwwww brake compared to that Griner.

I am not going for a brake........I foot brake the car for now.
One more facet of the old dog , new trick phenomenon.
That , and the valve body is just the start.
Then , it is a delay box. Or two.
And all the limiters , chips and assorted doo dads that go with it.
I'll be in the home before I figure all that out.

Here's the instructions:

https://www.turboaction.com/17876XA%206-04-18.pdf

That model TA valve body is NOT a full manual, it's a "manual/automatic" that still requires using the kickdown linkage.

If you're looking for a TA forward-pattern manual vb, the older and current model #s are as follows:

17675 - CHEETAH Pro Street Valve Body - PRN321 Stock Pattern, Manual Only (Pro Street and Competition Use) --> Low Band Apply

17680 - CHEETAH Manual SP Valve Body - PRN321 Stock Pattern (Competition Drag Strip Use Only) --> No LBA

17875XA - CHEETAH XtremeAction Pro Street Valve Body - PRN321 Stock Pattern, Manual Only --> Low Band Apply
- https://www.turboaction.com/17875XA%206-04-18.pdf

The 17875XA also has the same "If your Low/Reverse rear servo has a heavy aftermarket spring you must change it back to a stock return spring. If you do not use a stock rear servo spring you will burn up the rear band." warning, which I asked about on here last year.

Yep.
Jegs and Summit both have the wrong product descriptions.
One more for the " You had one job " file.
I spoke with Paul at T/A for a while this afternoon and he is being very cool about it.
I bought the piece off of ebay from the original purchaser , but it doesn't look like it was even installed.
He will examine it and replace it with a 17875 XA if it is in as new condition.
Heck , I dropped nearly 50.00 on the new gate for the Cheetah shifter........I'd hate to see that money go to waste. LOL
Nothing is ever easy on this build.

I run the older version Turbo Action 17676 Auto/Manual Valve Body on the street in my 71 Bee

My Low/Reverse uses the heavy duty spring that came with the Valve Body

The newer Turbo Action 17876 Auto/Manual Valve Body doesn’t use this heavy duty spring per instructions

Has the auto shift feature or shift manually

And uses the factory kick down linkage

I just installed one in my friends car in fall

Anyways


I had the chance to talk with Randy in detail about this when I bought my billet servos from him thru email , what is the difference between both valve bodies , old and new

Man , what awesome customer service a few years back by the way

He wanted to know what exact valve body I was using because he said the newer 17876 Valve Body uses these two bleed holes in the picture , hence eliminating the need for the heavy duty Low / Reverse spring


My 17676 Valve Body did not have both of these bleed holes

I am not a Transmission expert hence my questions when I was buying his billet servos and installing my Turbo Action 17676 Valve Body that was still new in the box , never installed , that I bought from a local guy

And yes I am running the factory kick down linkage with this 17676 Valve Body

And yes the Valve Body has the auto shift feature with part throttle kick down

That was part of my problem.......I have a Griner RMVB in there and no kick down , so I couldn't use the 17876 without tracking down the parts and reinstalling the linkage.
Paul was more than happy to answer my questions , and I think I am on the right track now.

FWIW, I was asking questions on here about the TA 17875XA valve body sometime last year. It might be worth searching on that valve body # and see if anything else you might want to know comes up. At the time I was looking into changing from my TA 17680 to something w/ LBA, since mine's a street/strip car.

Brad we put the A & A low band apply reverse manual valve body in my sons Dart last summer. It had the old Turbo Action valve body I bought in the 80's that was a reverse manual valve body with no low band apply which is the kind I use in my 63. The A & A unit works great in his car as it did not slow down at all and we feel no 2 element fight as the 1-2 shift feels just like it did with the TA no low band apply. We did install their low/reverse servo and spring which they recommended with it. Ron

That makes me think back to around 1996 I believe it was where we had a lot of snow in Md where I live in about a months time. We got like 8" of snow and then 6" of snow about 4 days later and then a few days later even more snow. But I remember a service bulletin where many were complaining their trucks went into reverse to hard and they hit kinda hard when going in reverse. The service bulletin had us remove that check ball and the truck did not hit so hard then going in reverse. But right in the middle of the snow storms we started seeing trucks coming in with no reverse as they were burning up the low/reverse bands. And they all had snow plows on them as it seems they would shift from drive to reverse so fast and then nail the gas before the truck had reverse fully engaged since reverse took longer to engage with the check ball removed. I still remember we had 12 trucks at the shop with reverse gone out of them and we had 3 trans people as I was one of them. I stayed very busy for them few weeks after the big snow storms and of course Mopar had us putting the check balls back in the valve body and telling people that a little bang going in reverse is normal. But they did bring another service bulletin out later to address the banging in reverse. Ron

I've got a CRT RMVB with LBA waiting for me to swap out my current TA FMVB.

So how come CRT doesn't sell a stock pattern manual shift meant for street/strip or competition only?

Yet, T/A sell's a stock pattern auto/manual in street/strip.....and full manual competition only version with stock shift pattern.

Line pressure?

Does the T/A FMVB not release quick enough?

That is exactly what I was hoping for.
Forward pattern and full manual.
If this deal goes south , and you want to sell yours , I am probably the guy. lol

John at CRT said his FMVB simply doesn't perform as well as a RMVB, but I don't remember the technical differences he mentioned. He still offers a FMVB, but recommends strongly that applications beyond a certain performance level use a RMVB.

My TA FMVB (no LBA) is the earlier "Competition Only" version. At the track it worked very well; on the street it has too much 2-3 overlap below during part-throttle shifts under about 4500 RPM. I was going to put a restrictor in the case to tame this behavior before deciding to change valve bodies.

Have to wonder what it is about forward pattern.........i see plenty of GM tranny's that fwd manual shift

For me , it is simply a matter of what I am used to.
I tried the RMVB for a couple years and it still felt foreign to me.
Gonna stick to what I know.
Old dog............new trick.

I think you can get a PPP shifter that will forward shift a RMVB.... just to throw that out there

Too late. Installed the forward pattern gate in the Cheetah shifter last week.
The proverbial object is in motion.