Trans brake Ford C6?

[greg fulk]

What will happen to a C6 with a brake? My buddy @ work just had one put in his C6 it's for his 428 FE in his 69 Fairlane.

[Phillip marvetz]

Originally Posted by greg fulk

What will happen to a C6 with a brake? My buddy @ work just had one put in his C6 it's for his 428 FE in his 69 Fairlane.

See post #3

[Rory McNeil]

It should be fine, Greg. I ran my Art Carr transbraked C6 for many years, running 10.5ET`s s at 3200 lbs. The brake itself worked fine, and the trans was very reliable. The only knocks I had were that on a 4/10`s Pro Tree, it didn`t release as quickly as most other transmissions, and at times when you pushed the button, the car would roll foreward a couple of inches. I always found that if I quickly tapped the button a few times between the burnout box and the staging area, the "roll in" was eliminated. The relatively slow transbrake release was never an issue on a full tree. Of course, the C6 does eat up a fair bit of power, as do all automatics to some degree.

[k.pascoe]

I ran a c6 brake in the early 90's. Used TCI, Art Carr, Hipster, and one other, but I can't think of it now, my brain wants to block that period in my drag racing career. I had multiple c6's built. Many well versed in the C6, but the nightmare was weekly. 2-3 flares, foreward clutches burnt in one pass, huge amounts of et lost from weekend to weekend.
Put it this way; 1973 Gran Torino Sport 4000lbs. super stock car with bracket set-up. Almost stone stock 460 c6 with brake struggled to run 11.98 et. After a change to a T400 w/ brake 11.48 et. No more dropping of pans, Type F all over me while trying to race, no more have to pull the r/side header every week to remove the trans. (Pieces of the cylinder head started to crack and break off!!)
Don't get me wrong, the c6 is a fine transmission in a truck, even a turbo boosted 7.3L diesel. And I had pretty good luck with just a manual valve body, it's just when I tried a brake is when the nightmares began. Just my .02

[Rory McNeil]

Well, your C6 experiance was certainly worse than mine. I ran my 428FE powered bracket racer Fairmont with a C6 from 1988 to about 2000. For the first few years I ran a basically stock C6 with a TCI reverse pattern manual valve body, and I decided to try NHRA Super Street in 1990, I went with the Art Carr transbrake valve body, along with the Ford Motorsport low drag needle bearing setup, with the lower first gear. (about 2.72 if I recall correctly). At that time, S/ST was a .400 Pro Tree, and 2500 lb minimum, to get any RT~s better than about a .480, I had to go to really short front tires, and even then, anything better than about a.430-440 was a guess. After 2 years of that self abuse, I just bracket raced the car, first in Pro, and later in SuperPro with a delay box. The transbrake C6 worked really well there, very consistant, and once I got the delay box dialed in,I won a lot of rounds, and several races at 3 different tracks. My C6 was built by a local MoPar racer who owned a transmission shop, and after the first 2 seasons , everthing inside still looked like new, so I left in in for 4 more years, and it still looked good. I did use the 428CJ R servo setup, and never experianced any flare up between shifts. And I didn`t baby it, every pass was WOT on the trans brake (5200RPM, it would go 4500 on the footbrake), it was dead reliable. The transbrake was almost a tenth quicker in 60 feet 1,40 to 1.48 foot braking. The only reason I ever sold the C6 was I was getting bored, a Jerico & a clutch pedal fixed that rather nicely.

[k.pascoe]

My last pass with the c6 in my Torino; Tried to stage the car, it rolled foreward about 6 inches and turned on the red bulb. When the brake released I made it to about the 800 ft mark and smoked all the forward clutches. I clicked neutral and rolled to the turn off at old Gateway. (Witch is a long way from the old road course pits.) I only had reverse; so I drove that fastback car 1/2 mile backwards all the way back to the pits.
That was with a fresh trans. and a brand new Hipster brake. I called them on Monday, I forget the gentleman's, name but he said to cut that c6 brake in half, because he was sending me his best brake for a T-400 a adapter plate to bolt the trans to my motor.
A tab was welded to my crossmember and a new shifter installed. A trip to the driveshaft shop; It looked like that big turbo belonged under there. Drag racing got a all lot more fun after that.

[greg fulk]

Thanks guys....This car will be a high 11second car @ best & just a "bracket" car. He would like to run S/ST some day but has a 63 Comet to put the 428 in to do that!