Powerglide Installation and Technical Info

Please read all of the following information to get the best performance from your Neal Racing Transmission and Converter Combination

Transmission Fluid Requirements
How often should you change your tranny fluid?
Powerglide Transmission Fluid Capacity
Flexplate to Converter Clearance
Shifter Cable Backlash - the Silent Transmission Killer

Neal Racing Transmissions highly recommends the use of AMSOIL Compressor Oil for use in all of our transmissions, especially those in extreme horsepower applications. There are two specific reasons why we want our customers to use this fluid;

• Very High Flash Point - AMSOIL Compressor Oil has a much higher flashpoint than regular transmission fluid - It's rated at 495° and a firepoint of 522°. Many other brands of conventional transmission fluids have flashpoints between 320° for Type F to 375° for Dexron. That's a big increase and could save you from a fire someday.
  
  
• No Friction Modifiers - AMSOIL Compressor Oil has no friction modifiers. These transmissions are going into race cars, slipping clutches is not something we want to happen so we don't need friction modifiers to make our shifts "smoother". Note: Regular AMSOIL transmission fluid does have friction modifiers in it.

We've used this specific oil in many of the fastest powerglide race cars in the world with great success. The AMSOIL Synthetic Compressor oil is both safer and helps our transmissions live longer, more productive lives so they can go out and set records and annihilate the competition. Visit our Racing Transmission Fluid page to purchase Compressor Oil and other types of Transmission Fluid.

This varies a lot depending on what kind of car you have and the conditions you put your car through. In the extreme conditions such as a Outlaw Turbo Car that gets hung out on the starting line where you're at boost for say 5-10 seconds and up against the converter, you ought to change it after the pass because you just got the oil REAL hot and there is no doubt that you hurt it.

• For turbo cars we advise changing the fluid after every race.
  
  
• Nitrous cars should change their fluid every 4 races.
  
  
• 6.0 - 7.0 or N/A cars can get a whole season out of the recommended AMSOIL Compressor Oil.
  
  
• If you're using for some reason regular tranny fluid, you need to change it much more often.

A dry Pro Series Glide with 10" Converter requires 9 quarts of fluid to fill up. Make sure and put at least one quart of fluid in the converter before installation. The 10" converter should hold right at 2 quarts if you take your time to let it fill up. Also make sure to lubricate the converter and transmission seal before installation.

A dry Pro Series Glide with 9" Converter will require between 8 1/4 to 8 1/2 quarts. Again put at least one quart of fluid in the converter before installation.

The fabricated aluminum pans we use require the use of anti-seize lube on the drain plug threads.

Our glides with the fabricated aluminum pans require 4 1/2 to 5 quarts for between race or between rounds fluid changes.

Beware of improperly marked dipstick tubes, especially the LoKar and Moroso brand dipsticks. These dipsticks are almost always wrong and may need modification to read accurately. The Pro Glide should be almost flush to 1/2" low with oil at the dipstick tube opening on the case when it's full. With the car running the fluid level will drop to approximately 1 1/4" lower then the dipstick hole.

You should be able to pull your converter out of the transmission a maximum of .120" to a minimum of .100". Shim the converter lugs to this distance as required. Neal Racing Transmissions stocks aluminum shims that screw to the feet of the six lug aluminum drive covers, just call and tell us what thickness you need. Do not run the car if you don't have your converter clearance correct. If you must use washers, avoid the stamped steel washers which often vary in thickness, use machine washers or head bolt washers that have been measured with a caliper or micrometer to be the same thickness.

Shifter Cable Backlash - the Silent Transmission Killer

Some brands of low cost shifters have excessive cable backlash in them due to their poor "one size fits all" construction and cheap Chinese made cables. "Cable Backlash" or in other words, a sloppy cable and gate system can and has led to transmission failure that we've seen happen far too often. A good example is Danny Sample's Outlaw 10.5 Trans Am, this car burnt the transmission up on the chassis dyno due to a cheap shifter that was installed correctly, but had too much backlash.

What happens is the cable adjustment is set with the car in say low gear and when you move the shifter into high it lacks enough travel to move the shifter arm all the way into gear. Move it past high gear to neutral then back and it will drop into place but it's something people usually do not notice UNLESS you are looking for it. In Danny's car we got to looking and found his shifter had over .200" backlash in it which is more than enough to cause improper shifting, especially when combined with poor gate/shifter arm design. The damage a sloppy shifter can cause ($800 - $1200) to a race transmission makes the high quality shifters like the Precision Performance Shifters very price effective in comparison.

Not all cheap shifters have a problem like this, fact is we don't know which brand/models do or do not, what we're saying is check your shifter and make absolutely positive that the gates in the shifter line up perfectly with the all the detents in the transmission - look for the slop in the mechanism and cable that we're describing. If your shifter has it, get it fixed before burning the transmission up. If you don't have a shifter, call us, we'll fix you up with the best setup available.

Shifter cable adjustment should be done in High Gear! You want it adjusted so that there is absolutely no tension on the cable when the shifter lever and the shifter are in High Gear.

If for some reason you have to take the transmission shifter lever off, be aware that you can damage the transmission when doing this. In order to take the arm off, center the lever in neutral, then put some vice grips on the shaft so that you don't put any stress on the inside of the transmission when backing the nut off. Same goes with tightening the nut, you must hold the shaft with something so that when you tighten the nut up it does not twist the shaft. There is a little pin that can be damaged in the transmission if you fail to hold the shaft while tightening or loosening that nut.