Ok Ok Ill bite, define looseness.
Back in the 60s/70s a lot of sub 3000 convertors, were just regular convertors with the vanes folded over with a pliers and "More or less", set to a specific angle. Maybe they'd put a couple of needle-bearing thrust-washers in there.
When you drive one if these, the bottom end had a real mushy feel, until the convertor approached somewhere near it's stall. This, I suppose was fine for straight line work, but on the street was ugly as heck. Trying to drive a car well below it's stall at Part Throttle, was a constant hunt on the gas pedal. This is my definition of loose.
They say
convertors are not modified this way anymore.
They say,
all the guts are specifically engineered not to do that; and so, the modern convertor drives at Part Throttle just like you'd expect it to. That is to say, NOT loose anymore.
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I don't have a modern convertor so IDK how they drive.
What I do have, is an early 80s, 2800 Modified factory convertor, that is neither loose nor tight, but does drive pretty nicely at Part Throttle. I really like it. With my mostly stock 318, when I floor the Thermoquad, she winds up nicely, starts to get the car moving, gets into the zone, and then I feel it clamp with a mighty grunt, and we are underway. I can't hardly get enough of that.
If I could compare it to something, it would be to the clutch lever of an old 50's John Deere tractor. Grandpa would pull the long lever about half way back, the nose would go up, the rpm would go down, the governor would catch, we'd start to move and Grandpa's hand would feed the rest of the clutch out. The nose would go down, and we were pulling, the motor working all it had.
That 318 combo of mine used to be my winter combo. One winter I ran it with 2.76 gears. Leaving town I would often floor it; The Rs would jump to ~2800, then I would manually shift to second and then third, very early, then with the mighty-TQ roaring, I would hold it there. For like 3 minutes, lol, until the low-compression Teener got up to 70. What a rush, lol.
But, that convertor would still cruize @65=2300 quite nicely, here in flatland Manitoba..
Jus saying.
