Kickdown adjustment from the horse's mouth

I mated my rebuilt 904 / PTC 10" converter to the stroker last weekend. My tranny used to shift perfectly with the stroker and a 2500 stall converter except the stroker made the 2-3 shift skip. I have the KD adjusted so the lever on the tranny is fully to the stop as the throttle is closed and there is no gap between the carb rod and the back of the slot. As the throttle is fully opened the lever on the tranny is also fully at the open stop. Holding the KD mechanism full open (like it got stuck that way) and releasing the carb it can move to idle by using all of the slot. It is a lot easier to adjust the linkage with the engine/tranny out and mated together.

While I was playing with that stuff and the aircleaner isn't on so I can see the butterflys I saw why I liked the way the car drove so well on the street. The 830 Holley carb I use has progressive linkage between the primarys and secondaries. So as I am driving on the street with partial (ie barely opened) only the primaries are open. The secondaries don't start to open until the primaries are about 1/3 open and the kickdown then wrestles with the pressure built up by RPM establishing when the shift / downshift occurs. I was able to manual shift at the track at 7000 RPM and drive it on the street in D with my foot in control of how agressive the shift is. When I barely open the throttle (strokers don't need much) it would be in 3rd by the time I got across the intersection. Made cruising by the popo softly real easy.

I really liked the way that tranny worked. Hopefully PTC didn't screw it up.