Anyone have any advice on installing a TransGo shift kit in an FMX transmission?
The TransGo kit is a real good idea. I think it’s the only kit for the FMX which when set up and maintained properly is a good unit. I have 3 cars with the kit and they shift great. The kit’s only $70.00ish as I recall but it’s been a while since I bought one of those kits. Follow the instructions to the letter. If I can do it anyone can. You’ll want the Street/Strip pieces as the Strip only mode would probably be too harsh for day in and day out use. If you’re doing this with the trans in the car while on your back a little wheel bearing grease will hold the spring and ball bearing in place as you install the “rooster”, this being the piece with the detents for your gears. Don’t worry, you’ll see what I mean. You’ll have to remove the valve body which means the selector shafts have to come out. These go from the linkage on the outside of the case into the trans. By all means replace the selector shaft seals even if they’re new as they are a lip seal and it’s been my experience that those seals are designed to have a shaft go through them just once. I recall there are two, one the size of a dime and the other the size of a quarter. And they are cheap at $1.50ish each. Get a few and that way if you have to pull the shafts out again to redo something you’ll have new seals. On final installation put just a small amount of wheel bearing grease on the lip seal so you don’t run it in “dry”.
If a trans shop is doing this for you bring it to their attention. They may question this but those seals are cheap.
Running an auxiliary cooler? Go to a hydraulic shop and have hoses made up with AeroQuip type fittings and be done with any leaks. For fluid I run Amsoil Slick Shift synthetic fluid, a direct replacement for Type F, which is the type of fluid you want. The Amsoil simply won’t break down from heat which is the biggest enemy of an auto trans. The Amsoil is horribly expensive at about $120.00 a case , of which you’ll need about 11 quarts. If you can’t afford that then NAPA’s Premium Type F would be a good choice.
The FMX gets knocked by a lot of people. When it’s done right it’ll work great. Our three cars are 320ish horsepower baby doll cruisers. If you want to blow off new StingRays on a road course you’ll need more trans than that FMX can possibly give you.Set it up, keep it clean and you’ll be fine.
A quick follow-up-
While all this is apart, put a drain plug on that pan. So easy to do-drill a small hole, on the outside weld a 1/2"X20(?) fine thread hex nut and then use a drain plug as on your oil pan. The location would be right hand forward corner of the pan.You or your trans guy will thank me a million times over as the next time that pan has to come off all you have to do is take the the drain plug out and the fluid drops right into a nice clean pan. Without this you can have a drain pan the size of a pick-up truck bed and that fluid will run all over the place. Trans fluid has to be the most free flowing fluid ever invented.
I have done a number of FMXs with this kit and have gotten the same complaint from everyone about the 1-2 upshift at light throttle: If you put the strip kit in, the 1-2 shift under light load shifts early. A real pain. Under full throttle it shifts great. The fix for some has been to take the kit out and it goes back to shifting great at light throttle. However, the kit lets you keep it in gear longer and lets you manually shift just about at will.
I personally ran the strip kit in my car for years and loved being able to manually shift it into 1st at just about any speed. But I would not put in for a regular street car – I would keep the factory setup instead. But if you feel inclined then I would start with the minimum kit first and drive it before committing to the strip version.
I like the TransGo kit in the FMX. The TransGo kit is supposed to fix shift timing concerns. Perhaps if the part throttle shift is early you may want to turn the modulator screw in a couple turns.
Do you have any questions in particular about the installation of the kit?
no questions at all. my dad is going to give me a hand. he has installed many just not on a fmx