Oh God, finally Fastman got my replacement tranny shipped out the door last night! I cannot wait to get it installed! After driving my wife's Jetta, I am ready to get back and drive my D! Will also have my 52mm throttle body also! Cannot wait to see how my D will drive with a heavy duty performance built tranny and throttle body! I'll try to send some pics of the install process if possible.

Anyone that plans to buy a tranny thru fastman, I recommend you to exercise alot of patience. At their $1700 price, it was worth the wait. But at times, the long waits is worth the rewards!

 

That's really not a bad price at all as long as you can wait for it, Hell mine was $1800 for a rebuild and they screwed it up royally and it doesn't have any performance to it. Does that price include the core charge???

 

Ken, sorry to hear about the trans failure, but it's good to hear it's working out better now.

You got a 46RE from the fastman right???

Outta curiousity, what tourqe converter did they reccomend for street/strip use?

Anyways sounds like a good deal from the fastman $1700 + core and you got a better than oem unit.

Sounds like a good upgrade to do even if the stock unit is o.k.

Well Ken I'm look'n forward to some WOT pics post install.

 

Goto Fastman's website at http://www.thefastman.com under the full tranny build and you will see kinda the specs they do on their rebuilds. The torque converter I got is better than OEM but not setup for racing tho. I got the street/strip converter rated up to 650 HP. Stall speed is pretty much near OEM settings. I just like a buillet proof build on the tranny similar to Hydra and still make the D a everyday smooth drivable vehicle. If this build is similar to their 518 tranny build, it is suppose to be rated to handle up to 700HP. So all in all, I spent about $2300 for this tranny. $1700+$350+275 which is tranny+torqueconverter+s/h buddy will make the swap for me for a couple hundred and I am set. Also waiting to get my throttle body swapped out for the bigger 52mm so the 5.9 can breathe!

 

Ken, added thefastman to my favorites under autoparts.

That setup is killer, definately should'nt have any problems racing, towing, or WOT'n the crap out of it, and the best part is the price, and ya you gotta be conservative with the tourqe converter because the last thing a daily driver needs is one that makes every light a hole-shot.

Mine's so far so good at 57k, but I'm thinking of a swap mabe next summer because I eventually want to get her upto around 400-500 hp. Can't help it the first car I drove was my dad's '68 Coronet 500 convertable, 383 Magnum bigblock Carter 4 barrell 323 Shuregrip rear end,11.8's @ 119MPH on the quarter mile, also a daily driver. I've been a Mopar fan eversince.

 

I finally got my D out of the shop. Man, the wierd feeling you get when you have not driven the car in nearly a month. It will take a while for my senses to get used to driving my D again. The new transmission is sweet. Shifts firm and drives great. Except for one thing, when just travelling from 0-15 miles per hour, I mean, just barely touching the gas pedal, the tranny disengages/engages pretty rough. I am sure this may have to do with my transfer case also as I have a full time AWD. I hope it is not the new torque converter causing this? Also, the truck wants to take off at an idling state. Could this extra idle torque may be the cause of my hard engage/disengage at that speeds? Otherwise, if you give it gas to get the D rolling, it runs normal?

Other than that, I can say the 52mm throttle body upgrade, I notice increased throttle response. Hit WOT and man, felt like I hit 0-60 in no time. Tranny shifted firmly all the way thru the power band.

Iwill try to remember to take a pic of the original throttle body and fastman's 52mm version, you can definitely see a bigger opening and the ports are smooth for smooth air flow.

 

Ken, the low speed roughness in the trans may be low trans oil.

When I had mine serviced I ended up adding almost 3 quarts the day after.
When you did the swap they had to fill a new tranny and torque converter from nothing, so this is why I suspect low tranny oil, it takes a while for the oil to work it's way through the system.

Check the dipstick with the D in N with the park brake engaged for safety, and make shure she's at running temp, then hopefully all you'll have to do is top her off with some ATF+4.

BTW my 2wd D will start to roll up hill @ 600RMP just from taking my foot off the brake, at normal RMP all it means is you're gett'n all the power from that 360 transfered to the wheels, it's a good thing.

Nothing sucks worse than a car that you have to put your foot into just to get in the driveway.

 

That is good to hear, today is the first day I drove the D out of the shop. I'll have to check the fluids again. My buddy told me to monitor the fluids to make sure they are still up to norm.

 

Welp, all the tranny fluids still check good, but I still get that hard shifting when I am just barely accelerating between 5-15 mph. This rough shifting is really irritating and freaks out the wife because when it shift rough, it is like riding the bronco. I will have to ask Mr Dan Arcand about this. I know this tranny has a shift kit in it, but I don't expect this firm shifting will have this type of impact when you are not even putting any load again the tranny.

 

Definitely keep us updated as to what he says.