[Jeff Chambers]

Mach1, you say even a modded AOD won't hang? I beg to differ. I race week in and week out against Tremec'd and T5'd cars building the same range of horsepower. The stick cars are all pro-shifted with trick clutches (e.g. long style slippers) and the AOD cars will not only hang with them, but will win quite often. Just like with anything else, it comes down to picking the right parts to give you the best output for your money. The factory AOD is anemic, at best, but it doesn't take a whole lot to greatly improve it. The extra weight can be offset by running a few gallons less fuel or removing your spare tire. The 2.40 first gear is still tons better when you consider a 1.5-2.2 torque multiplication provided by most converters. The inability to miss a shift is priceless. And if you're smart enough to go with lock-up, you'll find yourself driving AWAY from the stick car at half-track.

As far as the 40 horsepower goes, a magical mystical number that's misleading. I made 325RWHP on the chassis dyno with a T5 and 324RWHP on the dyno with the AOD in lockup; nearly everything else remaining constant. Unlocked it only makes 290RWHP, but that's still good enough to run 11.4's at 117+ because of the multiplication of the converter and efficiency of getting through the gears.

People ***** and moan about the AOD's performance only because they either don't understand or don't want to know how to make it work.

I hear people making the same argument about putting 'factory, low flowing, small valved, cast iron GT-40P heads' on their ride. Spend an extra $500 and get some real heads they say. Yet I'll spank their TFS headed, Vortech S-trimmed, T-5'd bucket any day of the week. There are no 'bad' parts out there (other than the Tornado ), just bad implementation of them.