All my valves and pistons were actually not worn too bad for the 40k hard-ish miles I put on it. The thing was pretty dirty I don't think the fluid has ever been changed or serviced. Brake cleaner made it good as new:
Assembled fresh new filter:
I wish I took a pic of the pan before...
That was it for the shift kit. filled the converter up with Mercon V and slipped it on:
Then I did the motor mounts which was actually the biggest pita. Took some time and patience grinding the rivets apart but what a difference these made. No more y pipe slapping the shit out of my floor boards spiking knock retard. On the passenger side the knock sensor should be removed but I smashed mine so had to buy a new one. It was pretty ancient anyways. Then the trans went back in with the new poly mount, the LS1 driveshaft and buttoned everything back up. Time for a tranny cooler:
I have quite the collection of junk in my shed. When I came across this plate and fin style Ford cooler (prob out of a diesel) I took the wizzer to the tabs and grinder and boom free cooler. I got some pretty handy zip ties for coolers from the Pep-Boys speed shop up the street and installed it right in front of my AC condenser.
I only needed ~2ft of rubber line I had laying in my shed, cut and re-route the stock lines to go in to the radiator, out and into cooler, and out into the return line. So my cooler is cooling the fluid after it goes through the stock cooler in the rad. Some will say this is silly but I don't care. The coolant heats it up to the specified operating range effectively. I logged it at the track friday and temps never rose above 80*C (~175*F). If I'm ever bored I might bypass the factory cooler and log the temps to prove it probably doesn't make a significant difference.
Then I filled it up with Mercon V. It was my first time filling a tranny from being bone dry so I kind of fucked up and overfilled it. It was smoke screening trans fluid out the vent tube on wot pulls on 213 so bad the whole back of my car was coated LOL. With the fluid level corrected and everything double checked we bolted the DR's on and hit the track friday and ran 12.9 first pass. Look in the racing/pics section soon for some awesome vids and pics.
In the end I think a converter is one of the first thing you should do with an auto car. It is a lot more fun to drive on the street and I'm about to start DD'ing it to school again. It hits HARD at the track and like I said just feels great. The shift kit is recommended to put less wear on slipping clutches after the converter. Its good to grab into gears instead of let them slip so much and there is lots of room for line pressure adjustments in the tune. If anyone has any questions doing similar mods PM me I wish I could have made a walk through but I just didn't stop for pics. Thanks for reading.
