mark viii transmission

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chappyviii

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hello everyone, i am new here.
I just bought myself my first car, a 1997 pearl white mark viii with only 95,000 miles.
I was just wondering if it is normal for the transmission to shift very soft and slowly under both light and hard acceleration? I am asking because i know these transmissions are known to shift softly thats why they have the JMOD, But this just seems too soft. I was thinking of running sea foam trans tune and see of that works along with installing a trans cooler. any suggestions?
 
I've not heard of Seafoam in the trans; from what I've seen the factory trans shift points are pretty mushy, granny gears?
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a tune and jmod will def change the mush; I have just the SCT tune and it changed the shift points nicely, reduces slippage which lowers trans oil temps; your car has a trans cooler already (part of the radiator) but a lot of guys add a bigger one. I'm not certain what type driving habits justify a larger stand-alone trans cooler
 
Thanks,how much does the SCT tuner cost for our cars? I think I found my problem. Although the oil looks brand new I just checked the trans oil level and it is over filled by at least a quart. Will that cause the car to slip going into gear? Or any other side effect?
 
Mine shifts like grandma too. I was told it was normal without a tune or J-mod.
 
chappyviii said:
Thanks,how much does the SCT tuner cost for our cars? I think I found my problem. Although the oil looks brand new I just checked the trans oil level and it is over filled by at least a quart. Will that cause the car to slip going into gear? Or any other side effect?
Click to expand...
when a ballon has too much air, it pops...get the fluid level correct and see how it does; a used unlocked xcal2 is around 150- if it says 'AFTERMARKET' it's locked, don't buy it; an xcal3 will be more money and won't be much better (for our cars) than a 2;
a standard tune scripted for your pcm's box code should be about 125-150; you may be able to get a true custom dyno tune for about 200- that's what I'm looking at
 
My car shift's like....I don't know what! No soft shift's here and all stock! I'm surprised I haven't broke anything yet! But there may be a difference between a soft shift and a hard shift. This car shift's hard and I was told "by the dealer" that it's normal. That was 14 years ago, and still doing fine.
 
mine is stock and the shifts are squishy at tines but it shifts up early and the rpms.drop and it starts lugging like hell puttering along sometimes the rpms move in sync with the lugging
 
Spree said:
My car shift's like....I don't know what! No soft shift's here and all stock! I'm surprised I haven't broke anything yet! But there may be a difference between a soft shift and a hard shift. This car shift's hard and I was told "by the dealer" that it's normal. That was 14 years ago, and still doing fine.
Click to expand...

Does it shift all gears firm?
 
Yeah I plan on draining some out today..spittle worried on how long it has been like that. I've had the car for about a week but I've only driven it a couple times...does anyone know what will cause only the front air bags to over inflate when pumped up?
 
I'm going to look into getting a used tuner now,thanks. All I want to do to it performance wise is a true dual with x pipe and a tune
 
chappyviii said:
does anyone know what will cause only the front air bags to over inflate when pumped up?
Click to expand...

I had that problem on my '94 recently. Fixed it by removing and cleaning the corrosion off the front airshock solenoids electrical contacts.

Here's how I fixed it. I detached the airspring solenoid from the front passenger side since that side did not seem to be venting properly. The air ride sensor had to be moved out of the way to get to the solenoid so I only unsnapped the upper mount of the sensor. All this was done with the tire and wheel intact while I raised the car from the K-member. There is enough room there to work once the car was in the air.

I needed to test to see if the solenoid was opening so I fed 12 volts to the contacts using a back-up car battery and some alligator clips. I had to make sure my connections were good several times because I could not get any activity with the solenoid.

With my volt meter probes at the end of the live wires, I was getting 12.69 volts. Reconnected the wires again to the solenoid and nothing. Not even a click. That told me what I suspected all along.....corrosion at the contacts......voltage was not getting through the solenoid....preventing the airspring to vent.


You may have to clean both front solenoids.










Welcome to LVC btw. You are the fourth LVC member from the Riverside area.
 
thank you! ive been looking all over for someone that had the same problem and i all i could get was"just convert your system to coils" very frustrating! i plan on buying the whole conversion kit at the end of this month but i dont want to be driving around with my front end pointed up towards the stars for a month, also it seems like it rides too firm up front because there is too much air in the bags. What did you use to clean the contacts? i want to do it tonight when i drain some of my transmission fluid out.
 
cleaned my contacts using a combination of flat edge scraper and 200 grit emery cloth.
 
if you get a Jmod, it might make sense to do that before the tune is created
 
To make your work alot easier, you do not have to remove the solenoid from the airspring.
You only need to detach the electrical connector from the solenoid. You don't even have to remove the wheels. Just jack up the front of the vehicle. That will leave you enough room to get to the solenoid. I disconnected the top of the height sensor and moved it aside so I could get to the solenoid.
 
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