Hey guys, Just got back from PR, had to go there in a family emergency trip. Well when everything was set and done with the family stuff, my friend has been trying to convince me to keep my fd auto. I want it a 5 speed but seeing that he is the one that got me into the rotary world I said, you swap your 5 speed for and automatic on your car and I will leave mine alone. He said no, but the next morning he dropped by the house and asked me to go with him to a friends house to check a car out. We get to the dudes house and the first thing I see is a black s4 turbo that looks really nice. We go into the garage and there is the fd sitting looking pretty. The guys is pretty cool and we start talking about the car and so forth, he open the hood and I ask what turbo is that (big) and he says its a t78. At this point I am thinking to myself with the turbo being that big this will take forever to spool. So at this point he asks me if I want a ride so I can judge for myself how automatics with single turbos respond. And I said sure let go for a ride. I asked him what computer he was using and he said PFC, I think to my self late spool and no hold this should be interesting. So we go out on the car, we are in a mountain and the streets are not very wide, this is just to give you a mental picture of the place where we are testing this car.

So we go out and stop at a stop sign. He says what is it that you dont like about the automatic the most. I said well, this right here, dead stop and going from here. So he says ok, I am just going to floor it and see what you think. He floors it and we go with the same crappy start to about 5 or 7mph, when the car just starts to pull really hard breaks loose is 1st gear and I grab the ohh sh%^t handle, next thing I know the car is shifting into second gear and the car is sideways again and I am about to start screeming like a little girl cuz there is a 1k foot drop right next to us and the car has no intentions of slowing down. So I told him, I am sold on your automatic, lets go back to the shop. He turns around and does a little boost breaking and next thing I know we are going sideways again in first, second and pulling like a **** on thrid.

We get back to the shop and he asks me what I think about the automatic, I told him that the word impress was not enogh, at this point he brings up the fact that the hold funtion is not working and the cars still runs pretty good. He said that the motor is stock, tranny is stock he changed the gears to 4.1, pfc, t78 kit at 18psi and big front mount. So I just wanted to share this story with you guys. Btw my friends 5speed in no slouch but the automatic impressed the hell out of me.

 

Automatics with the right convertor and brake can be a blast.

 

That is the point of the story, he has a stock tranny and convertor. He only changed the gears to 4.1 everything else is stock.

 

I don't think that tranny will last very long.

 

When I got to the Single Turbo TO4s stage on my first 93 mods, it was still an automatic at that point. That car was wicked fast no doubt. At 350hp or thereabouts I promptly fused the Rev/First clutch pack into one rotating mass during a hard run. I was lucky to make it home. The next day I ripped out my burnt auto and went manaul and have never looked back.

later

 

how much lag is there with a t88?

my friend has a t88 with only 500 miles in it, just sitting in his closet. i could probably get him to sell it to me extremely cheap.

i'm waiting for my motor to come back from a fresh rebuild with 3mm mazda seals...it would be nice to go single while i've got the motor out of the car...

---edit---

wait i read t88 in the title, and now i'm seeing t78 in the thread...

anyway, maybe a t88 is too big...perhaps i might buy it cheap and sell it on ebay and then get something a little smaller

 

In most cases yes however, he's not able to put all the power down so the tranny will last longer than you'll think. Putting the power down is when you start hurting the drive train.

 

Good point. Rear ends do seem to explode on the dragstrip, not the roadcourse.

 

i thought the auto tranny was only capable of supporting 320whp?

 

the auto trans will support 300-320 hp if its serviced with synthetic oil and in top condition. but it will not hold up to a lot of abuse. so the only way to make it a monster is with a level 10 upgrade and some 4.33 gears. thats the only way I would run a single turbo on a my auto.

Jeff