I am gonna be ordering a superchip tomorrow and I was wanting to know before hand about the shift firmness. From what i have read hear and at another site, the shifts seem to be rather firm and hold up to 5,000 rpm or so--does it only do that if you floor it or is it gonna hold the tranny in gear If i am just barely holding my foot into it, I dont want my engine reving that high all the time.
I guess I would like a short answer on how the shifting is effected in a '97 5.4 auto with a superchip.

 

Opinion #1= If your concerns are harsh/hard shifting and gears rapping out at partial throttle, you're way off target. When you install the chip and take your first ride, immediately you notice the tighter shifts. The slip and overlap is reduced. It gets firmer at hard throttle and still has soft shifts at light to partial throttle. The firmness is only mildly increased IMO. It still feels like a sloppy/slipping shift with the chip at light throttle IMO. I added a shift kit and "NOW" it shifts hard. For someone that just wants added performance and improved shifting, the Superchip works perfectly. You can just hammer it and it shifts perfectly at the top of the power band automatically.

 

Hi Galaxie64,

In short, you don't have to worry about any of that, your shifts will be just as they should be with the Superchip.

It will only hold it to higher rpms when you have your foot to the floor, as the only shift points we change are at full-throttle, where it is set so the vehicle will accelerate the quickest. That varies from code to code, some of these trucks will upshift at 4800 rpm @ WOT (wide-open throttle), and some around 5000 rpm or so. Your engine is still fully protected by it's rev limiter with the Superchip, by the way.

At lighter throttle positions, it will still act normally with the Superchip, and upshift based on the normal parameters such as vehicle speed, load and throttle position.

When you are driving conservatively, the shifts will still be smooth, however, they will be quicker thanks to the removal of the various delays & retards. Then as you give it more and more throttle, the shifts get progressively firmer in direct relation to the amount of throttle opening, just as they should. The shifts are never harsh, the shifts won't upset anyone's wife or kids riding in the vehicle, for example. By the time you are at heavy throttle, the shifts will be noticeably firmer, but still won't be harsh or "tire-chirping" in nature.

For those who do want a really firm shift shift all the time, including "chirping" the tires on the full-throttle 1-2 shift consistently, that is best accomplished with a combination of the Superchip and a good shift kit, like the Transgo kit. The Superchip will take care of the powertrain program issues, removing delays on both upshift & downshift, removing transitional retards that reduce engine power during & just after each shift up or down, as well as adding power and everything else it does. Then the shift kit to allow more fluid volume to flow thru certain passages & orifices in the transmission's valve body, so the tranny can flow enough fluid volume to allow faster clutch fill times, etc.

For what you want Galaxie64, the Superchip alone will do just fine, and you won't have to worry about a shift being too harsh, etc. If you'd like to go over this aspect in more detail, feel free to give us a shout!

 

Mike T.,

Yet, another great piece of information. Everyone that rides in my truck now, notice the increase in performance. However, I need more "tire chirping" off the line. It appears that the transgo kit will help that? Is there a need to "re-burn" the superchip if I get a transgo kit?

I wish the Neal "the horsepower freak" Newman/Mike Troyer performance mods. stuff would hurry and start sales.

 

Thank You I went ahead and ordered one, I figured it wouldnt hurt your tranny or they wouldnt sell them but I was still a little concerned. Thanx much

 

Hi Iron Horse,

Hang in there, Neal & I are working as hard as we can on this stuff, and running into the typical issues when you're actually manufacturing parts. The intake kits, for example, the R&D has been done on them for some time, but because of changes from 2 suppliers, we have been forced to make additional changes of our own as a result, which held us up from releasing that kit in February as planned. We've finally made some progress on that, and those parts will be available from us here at Performance Products soon.

No, you do not need to change anything in the Superchip program when you install a Trangso shift kit. We suggest starting off easy, install a Transgo kit at Level 1 when used with the Superchip. That should be enough to give you a nice tire-chirping 1-2 upshift at heavy throttle, but not drive you out of the cabin on light throttle. And if you want more, you can always go back in and open things up to the next stage.

 

Hi Galaxie64,

You're very welcome, & it always pays to check these things out in advance to be sure, no problem!

 

Mike T.,

I got a little excited when I was able to do a search on this site. It is a very powerful research tool on this site. During a search, I found out that infact, you and Neal were working together. What was "neat" about that fact is that, with no prior knowledge, I had previously recommended in the comments/suggestions section, that you and Neal should work together to take the "guess work" out of performance mods.

Then, when I saw that Neal has obtained an extra 70 to 80 horsepower out of his F-150 with no nitrous or supercharger, I knew I was not totally insane when I commented previously in other threads that, more hp/tq. gains were possible. You both knew it all along!

The reason, I am waiting for you both to get started is that I am trying to determine what supercharger to get. I want all my mods. to complement my supercharger choice and increase hp/tq. (no zero sum game) levels above what a standard supercharger will provide or non-supercharger mods will provide alone.

Since, I will have to have a custom superchip, I want it customized based on my short term and long term performance "action plan" for my truck if possible? But, I can not determine this with out seeing a "menu" of your performance mods.

It would be nice if your new mods. were set up in "stages" so that you could buy another stage as disposable income becomes available (or credit limit ha!) and the stages of mods. would complement each other and increase overall hp/tq. levels.

 

Hi Iron Horse,

I'm glad to hear the search feature is back up and running again. It's always been here as long as I can remember, but the Webmaster was having some problems over the past coupla-few months, so he disabled the search feature for a little while. He migrated servers yesterday once again (speaking of which, we all should thank Steve Eppinger for doing whatever it takes to insure the bandwidth needs of this mega-site are met!), so perhaps he re-enabled that feature after doing the migration. At any rate, the search is indeed powerful, thanks primarily to the wealth of information that has been covered here over the years.

As we have discussed before, perhaps you have forgotten, but here at Performance Products we have been offered performance packages and various "Stage" kits for some time, all it takes it a phone call to learn the details and see how we can take your performance to literally wherever you want to go, right away. Taking anyone, regardless of their current level of modifcation, to the next stage or level of performance they desire is something we have been doing for a long time.

Neal & I have grown to be good friends over the years and work together very well, I'm happy to say. He's a very meticulous person and an absolute performance-junkie.