Five o, im listening to you, you sound like you have experience with this setup
I've had plenty of stalled autos over the years, and I've asked lots of questions along the way to learn what I could. The internet and forums make it so much easier to trade information these days!
As you already have a 4300 rpm stall, I'd suggest getting some baselines with the current combo with a proper sticky tire. Then, if you're itchin' to go a little quicker, send out the stall converter to have it restalled higher. A lot of converter companies will do a free restall once. Then hit the track to see how much your ET's improve.
Yeah listen to Five O. He really knows that setup. I was told because my blower makes so much torque down low a smaller stall would be better and i wouldn't lose all that low end torque I have.
Thanks, Patrick. You're right on the money about the difference in blowers. It really comes down to building a combo that works in harmony. Your blower is a positive displacement blower which makes so much torque down low that you want to choose parts that work in that lower rpm power band. A big stall converter in your car would shoot the rpm's past the sweet spot that your blower works best in, so a converter in the 2500 to 3200 rpm range (like the 3K stall you have) makes a lot of sense for your car.
Porkipine's centrifugal blower doesn't make much boost at low rpm's, but should pull hard as boost increases at higher rpm's all the way up to redline. That means you want a converter that gets the motor into the higher rpm's instantly to hit the sweet spot of that blower, cams, exhaust, etc. I'm not sure what your shiftpoints are (6500 - 6800 rpm's?), but the higher you can tolerate, the more boost you'll make just before the shift. And, the cool thing about a big stall converter with a centrifugal blower is that on the upshift, you stay in the boost since the rpm's don't fall much. Guys with manual transmissions lose boost on an upshift (assuming they lift the throttle to make the shift). Makes the automatic cars quicker - all else held constant.
Can't wait to see some track #'s for your car, Porkipine! Keep us posted.
PI, fun on street, gas hog tho
It looks like PI offers 1 free stall adjustment and their converters should be lock-up converters, so highway fuel economy should be find if your tune commands lock-up properly. Around town, fuel economy takes a hit since your seeing more rpm's before lock-up can happen.
As for wide open throttle (WOT), I had great success with my 5R55S trans in my '07 GT once my tuner changed the tune to command lock-up a half second after upshifts to pull harder (without unnecessary slippage) in each gear. 1st gear does not lock-up, nor would you want it to since you need the car at high rpm's to launch quicker from a dead stop.
The right converter, tuned correctly, is the biggest bang-for-the-buck in these cars after forced induction. I saw a 6 tenths of a second improvement in my 1/4 mile time in my '14 GT with the converter. It was similar in my '07 GT, although I don't have the exact # since I did a couple mods at the same time with that car.