Is anybody running a th400 with a full manual reverse valve body and compression breaking on the street? I am thinking about doing a valve body in my K5 but want to know if there will be any problems running it on the street before I do it. If you are running it can you give me some feedback on what you think.

Is anybody running a th400 with a full manual reverse valve body and compression breaking on the street? I am thinking about doing a valve body in my K5 but want to know if there will be any problems running it on the street before I do it. If you are running it can you give me some feedback on what you think.
I know its not quite the same, but I have a TH350 with full manual with compression braking. I like it a lot. It shifts hard, but I like that. I have been told that without the kickdown hooked up, I will prematurely kill my tranny because of high line pressure, but so far so good.

I ran a hughes full manual forward pattern in the TH400 in our old comp buggy.. I called around and everyone told me the same thing - You can't make a TH400 valve body reverse pattern and retain engine breaking. Perhaps things have since changed, but that's why I went with a forward pattern full manual. As to how it works.. It's no different than driving a stickshift without a clutch, if you can deal with the harsh shifts. Also, they tell you not to downshift manual valvebodies unless you are under power because it is hard on the internals of the trans. How true this is I can't say, but generally people will tell you to either wait till you come to a complete stop before downshifting (like at a stoplight), or give it gas while you downshift (passing on the highway). I would assume you get used to it relatively quickly, and it's prolly not that bad if you have a decent shifter. I beat the snot out of the one in the comp buggy and it never once complained.

I am planning to run the Art Carr shifter or some sort of gate shifter. I also believe it was on Art Cars website that I found the reverse manual valve body with compression breaking. It is not daily driven and I already have it shifting pretty hard so that shouldn't be a problem.