Shifting Habbits 5.4 auto

[SoCal_FX4]

I just bought a "new to me '04 FX4 with a 5.4. The four cars and trucks I had before this were all manuals... and did I drive the pants off them. But now my driving responsibilites are more of the work/hauling variety and less of the mountain driving scene at 3 a.m. putting to shame wannabe "built honda's with my lowered, but otherwise, stock 86 Toyota pickup. But onto my question. Because Im so used to manuals, I find my self selecting gears for my auto. Merging onto the freeway I'll take O/D off, put it down into 2nd, then into drive, then O/D back on. I never slam It hard it first though... I do take car of my cars... I swear! Does anyone else do this? Is this hard on the tranny? Harder on an auto than it is a manual. What about those of you tuned with Edge...? Also, if I do go with an edge down the line, will an aftermarket clutch help at all or do the stock clutches put the power down well enough? Thanks for your patience as I settle into the full size, automatic truck scene.

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[Frmboybuck]

Well first off, you dont have a clutch so a new clutch will do you no good. Just put it in drive and go. I dont have an edge but I do have a superchips and love it. You can change the shift points in the tranny.

[scott1981]

The engine and trans communicate very very well. While you are benefitting from more power by manually selecting gears it is probably overkill. The truck will sense the load and the TPS will figure if your asking for more power and shift accordinly. I programmer will help because you can hold your gears a little longer and that seems to be what your after

[SoCal_FX4]

I guess my main pet-peve was putting the pedal down at 75 mph and the truck tries to tick it out in 3rd. But the truck just turned 38,000 miles and it seems to just have broken itself in...