Well, Patrick asked to post an answer to the question at hand so I threw this together. Hopefully it will help some of you. I also want to mention that a polls are misleading in forums like this sometimes. You know how it goes, if people are happy with something, you won't hear from them. The poll will be more revelant once a huge amount of 9/11 owners vote but at least you get to hear the bad experiences too which is good. I want to hear about the bad before I make a decision on buying something I've sold over 350 of these non billet 9/11 and they are running in most of the best trucks. I can honestly say there isn't a better TC out there eventhough some people might have had problems that were either blamed on the TC unjustly or correctly.
It’s true the old style billet thrust ring Third Gen 9/11 is not “readily” available. Yes, I can get them here and there but don’t sell them unless the person realizes it might take a while to get one. Usually the person is pissed by the time TCS can get it to them so I just don’t do it without getting my arm twisted.. Mike Lee bought 4 at the beginning of the year from me because he was willing to be the buffer for you guys. He would do the waiting for you so you wouldn’t have to. I sold 6 more of the old styles since then and am waiting on 1 still. The new billet ones are pretty quick in most cases. You do have to be careful though. There are several people out there that are copying the 9/11 and selling them as TCS 9/11’s when they aren’t. They buy some of the parts from TCS but not the important stuff because TCS doesn’t sell key parts to the 9/11. Rusty knows there are unscrupulous shops out there trying to copy his stuff and knows they can’t design their way out of a wet paper bag let alone a high performance 9/11 TC. Yes, they look similar but that is where it ends. Unfortunately this copy cat practice was the ultimate death of the old style 9/11. These 9/11’s were really nice and hauled ass. I never experienced a “loose” TC in any of my transmission builds. I know these transmissions like the back of my hand and only do them to the extreme but that is my business model. My transmissions are expensive but in order to cover my time, effort, and deliver what other shops don’t have the resources to deliver, the transmissions needs a lot of attention and the build method has to be strictly adhered to. I put WAY too much time and effort into these trannies and have figured it out. In retrospect, I wish I was doing something else with my life during all that time but heck, you live by your mistakes. Most shops, as you know, are lazy and will build trannies in 4-6 hours. Heck they even get lucky sometimes but most of the time, you get screwed in the end, especially if you have any problems. I don’t know how many times I’ve talked to a transmission shop on a friends behalf and passively listen to what these shops say not knowing I was on to them and what they were saying with in the first couple of words. Reminds me of listening to some of these hotshot wannabe computer gurus talking double talk while they are applying for a job in an interview. They are throwing around buzz words and twist talkin’ technology concepts that they want to make look like they know and you are just sitting there listening thinking this guy can’t be serious. Maybe that techno-babble works impressing mom but to think they think you are impressed with their total lack of knowledge is a little presumptuous. Plus I’m just itching to share this comic relief with my friends once I get a chance. Unfortunately, transtalk allows this same practice to be exercised without challenge most of the times. If you do challenge them, they tell you to get off their property and yell something about calling the cops or something.
True Story! Anyway, There are lots of factors that contribute to the tightness of a TC. The factors are magnified as the TC gets smaller but the rewards are greater once you get the criteria for a smaller one met. You can go with a big sloppy 12” and even in transmissions with questionable builds, it will perform closer to the stall the TC was designed to stall at because the shear volume of fluid that is in there being beaten between the fins. But if you have a pressure OR a volume problem, in a lot of cases isn’t very noticeable in a low stall TC like a 12” or even a high stall 12”, you’ll see a big difference in a smaller TC like the “9”/11. This fact plays right into the hands of 99% of the transmission builders out there. They don’t trust their own builds to perform in a small TC condition. Their business model is to advertise performance and sell something less. They will sell a 12” because they don’t have to worry about come backs when their quality isn’t quite up to snuff. A 12” can mask their lack of effort to truly give what you as a customer wants. It’s similar to buying a car with a $99 Maaco special paint job because you are wanting a nice car. Sure, it looks ok from 1000ft away but it still isn’t a nice car but it simulates one in some ways and in some cases maybe that is all you want. Then they are successful and everyone is happy.
TC shudder is another thing I’ve answered in the past. I’m working on a fix that doesn’t require any prom editing. If you know what you are doing, you can fix it in the prom. What is causing the shudder is the fact that your foot isn’t pushing the throttle down very far and thus not signaling the tranny to increase pressure. Upping the MPH makes you push in a little more and thus eliminating the shudder. There are other parameters that will also correct this. Remember, most chips either think you have a stock tranny and TC or don’t account for the differences a high performance TC has in every different application. Custom chips are the way to go. Either learn it or have someone do it for you. I’ve seen several cool alternatives for DIYer chip tuners.
I have a cool new billet TC coming out soon that will take some mods to get to work. Nothing hard but you have to know what you are doing or know someone that does :wink: It isn’t aimed at the average SyTyer so I’ll just post it up on the my website once I get it going. No time right now. It’s more for the big power LT-1/LS-1 crowd but for SyTyers or GN guys that demand the best, this will definitely be it. Hopefully it will be ready and tested by mid summer. I have a bunch of new parts that I’ll be announcing soon too and again, these parts aren’t for the average build but cool none the less.
If you go back and search my posts back when I was more active on this board, you’ll see that I have answered almost all of the questions that still come up today like the one in this subject. If you have questions, feel free to email me at
brianhartman@sprintmail.com I try to answer all my email but get overwhelmed a lot. I’m getting a lot of email from other boards.
I’ll be in Sacramento for 2 weeks. I will be there from the 1st of May up to around the 13-15th. I’m hooking up with some SyTyers out there and hope to meet up with other friends out there as well. If I drive, I’ll stop off in Reno to play with one of my best buddies, Yoda. This is Adam Auerbach’s crazy cat.
I’ll have to time it when they aren’t sitting down to eat cow stomach or goat or whatever that was last time. Adam has a beautiful wife that cooks some weird food from the homeland. I’m not adventurious enough to call eating a bug dinner either. That is a horrible life altering motorcycle accident in my book.
I’ll be in Virginia later in the month so hopefully I’ll meet up with some of my East Coast pals.
I think I covered everything but might edit this later and add some stuff later tonight if I have time.
Have fun and don’t so out racing your shit if you are slower that you should be.
That quote on JS’s tag is funny as hell. Why do people want to fight after getting their asses kicked in a race they started to begin with? Jeeez, happens more times than I want to count.
