Automatic Tranny Shifting

My friend has a 72 Chevelle and swears that if he manually shifts thought the gears when he races it makes his car faster. It is an automatic so would "you" shifting make it go any quicker? In my car if we race from a roll it feels faster to manually drop down to 2nd but does it actually make you quicker? Thanks

On my 1995 Grand Prix, And 2001 Eclipse it makes a big difference.

on a race from a dig it makes no difference, it can actually make you slower. If you think its making you faster, thats your butt talking not your brain. What its responding to is the jolt of going into the next year after you already started accelerating slower in the previous gear.

It's not how it shifted, but when. If he is shifting at a different, and better, rpm than the trans. does by itself, then it will go faster. It's very rare for an automatic trans. to shift at the optimal point, unless someone has spent a lot of time adjusting the transmission internally. If they did shift at the optimal point, no one would need a racing shifter. 8)

I have a ratchet shifter in my truck. Having that and a shift kit makes for some neck snapping shifts. It makes a big difference in my truck, because If i let it shift through itself it would only rev to 4k, when i should shift around 5200 or so.

The above two replys are dead on and true. A automatic in automatic mode was designed to shift at normal shift points and not in the power band. I have a Pro street car with a automatic and it don't, won't even shift in the automatic mode. I have to shift each gear manually.

Isn't shifting at every gear manually in an automatic bad for the tranny and hard as hell on it, therfor it won't last as long?

well yeh deffinately. I mean, it's designed to let off the RPMs when it shifts itself, and if you've just got it matted and shift it manually, then it's really going to clunk hard into each gear. It would deffaintely be hard on it.

i put a shift kit in my tranny, so it WILL NOT shift until i let off the gas a tiny bit. when i first got it i slammed it against the rev limiter a few times...^^