{"id":31476,"date":"2019-11-23T16:00:24","date_gmt":"2019-11-23T21:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dodgegarage.com\/news-api\/?p=31476"},"modified":"2024-03-25T11:23:53","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:23:53","slug":"automatic-transmissions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/how-to\/2019\/11\/automatic-transmissions.html","title":{"rendered":"Automatic Transmissions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Automatic transmissions are an engineering marvel,\nreally. \u200bEven to the savviest mechanic, the complexity of an auto transmission and how it operates can be hard to get a grasp on to. I am NOT going to explain how one works. There are plenty of resources on the\nweb that can do a better job than I can at that. But I will throw out some\ninformation that anyone can understand regarding what it takes to be able to\nhandle more horsepower through your transmission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To make sure you can follow me, I will throw out a few basic explanations so\neven if you know ZERO about a transmission, this will make\nsense to you. Your flywheel, or often called a flexplate, is spun by your\ncrankshaft. The flexplate is connected to a torque converter. Think of the\ntorque converter as the clutch in a manual transmission.\nIt is what couples the motor to the transmission. The\ntorque converter is connected to the transmission via the\ninput shaft. Inside is where all the magical unicorns live. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pretty basic stuff so far. I\u2019m sure you all knew that already. So what then,\ncan be improved upon to make a transmission handle more\npower than it is configured for in its OEM state? There are three basic areas that\nreally comprise the majority of how much a transmission\ncan handle. And it\u2019s way more easy to grasp than you would think. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Clutches. Inside the transmission reside many clutches and “steels” inside drums. They function like a “clutch” in a manual transmission in that their job is to make contact with the next component and not slip from that position of initial impact. Just like a manual clutch, automatic clutches CAN and do slip. As you can imagine, this is bad, just like it is for a manual transmission. It can take as little as a few good slips for the clutch material to burn off and it\u2019s done for good. How well a clutch “grabs” is based on two things: surface area and fluid pressure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Let\u2019s talk about surface area for a moment, as this is probably the more\nimportant issue at hand. In simple terms, the more surface area, the more power\nthe transmission can handle. Think of jumping off a cliff\ninto a lake. What is going to bring you to a stop faster: a belly flop or a dive?\nA belly flop, of course, you silly person. Likewise, greater surface area on a\nclutch allows it to lock faster\/harder\/more instantly and, therefore, no slipping.\nThe same principal of upgrading applies to larger brake rotors. Bigger rotors let you\nuse bigger pads for increased surface area, which will slow you down faster. So let\u2019s\nsay for a moment your transmission has three clutches in the\ndrum that is associated with 3rd gear. If you were to add one more clutch, you\nhave just increased the torque capacity by 33%. In some applications, a transmission uses clutches with material on just one side of\nthe clutch. Others use dual-sided clutches. Let\u2019s go back to the example of three\nclutches in that drum, and they are single-sided. Switching over to three dual-sided clutches, you just doubled the torque capacity of that transmission. So one of the most effective ways to increase the power handling of your transmission is to increase clutch surface area through using\ndual-sided clutches, adding additional clutches, or a combination of both. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Pressure. Automatic transmissions work off of,\nwell, as you may have guessed, transmission fluid. Just\nlike your brakes or power steering, fluid is compressed so that it can be\nutilized to produce extreme force on a component. Think of simple brakes on\nyour bicycle. The harder you squeeze the hand brake, the harder the brakes\ngrip. Conversely, the lighter you squeeze it, the less it grips the wheel. Not\nenough pressure causes the clutches we just discussed to slip when they engage,\nwhich leads to burning out the clutches. With so many transmissions\nin existence, I can\u2019t just offer a blanket suggestion on what to do here. But\nthe bottom line is this: you need to increase fluid pressure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"vehicle<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This is usually done within the valve body. The valve body is sort of a\ncomplex electrical and mechanical component that you can think of as the heart.\nIt routes fluid to various parts of the transmission\ndepending on what condition the transmission is in –\nup-shifting at part throttle, down shifting, up shifting at full throttle, etc.\nThe valve body has lots of little chambers in it with various little mechanical\nsprings and valves that help route the fluid to where it needs to go. It also\nhouses shift solenoids, which is what controls the fluid pressure going to the\nclutches. There are often upgrade solenoids as well as valve bodies that are\navailable that have been modified to increase line pressure going to the\nvarious circuits of the automatic transmission system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. And, lastly, one of the more\nsimple yet important components needed for higher horsepower is your input\nshaft. To put it simply, they are basically the “driveshaft” for the\ntransmission. The converter attaches to the input shaft, which turns all the\nmagic unicorns inside. And out the other side is the output shaft, which\nconnects to your driveshaft or CV axles. There really isn’t anything special nor complex\nabout them. The biggest issue is that they have to be able to\nhandle the torque without snapping. I’d venture to say, the majority of the\ntime, stock input shafts are capable of handing the power in most typical\nbuilds. Unless you are getting into super-high-horsepower levels, it\u2019s likely\nnot something you need to worry about. Chances are your transmission will slip\nbefore it breaks an input shaft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Let’s lump it\nall up here in one pile. You want your transmission to handle more power? Look\ninto increasing the surface area of your clutches, increasing line pressure\nand, if you go real extreme, using a stronger input shaft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Automatic transmissions are an engineering marvel, really. \u200bEven to the savviest mechanic, the complexity of an auto transmission and how it operates can be hard to get a grasp on to. I am NOT going to explain how one works. There are plenty of resources on the web that can do a better job than I can at that. But I will throw out some information that anyone can understand regarding what it takes to be able to handle more horsepower through your transmission. To make sure you can follow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":31486,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[639],"tags":[2011,547],"class_list":["post-31476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-how-to","tag-hemi-engine","tag-mopar"],"acf":[],"custom_fields":{"post_thumbnail_image":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/automatictransmissionsfeature.jpg","icon_selection":"article","external_link":"","featured_article":[],"upload_background_image":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31476"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31476"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31492,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31476\/revisions\/31492"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}