The 350C has a locking clutch in the torque converter that is very easy to make functional with a couple of switches and a little creative wiring. It allows a 10% reduction in cruise RPM at light throttle highway speeds by eliminating the built-in slippage in the torque converter. The minimum clutch engagement speed can also be adjusted by changing a pressure-sensing switch in the valve body that responds to governor pressure as the driveshaft spins.
Jerry
Thanks for the info Jerry,in fact it was you who originally informed me some time ago I could safely run the TH350C without hooking up the lock-up and it would basically run as a stock TH350,to be honest i'd never heard of the 'C' until I got mine.
I've put over 13,000 trouble free miles on it so far but didn't realise connecting the lock-up function would physically reduce RPMs too,I just thought it reduced slippage/heat build up to help fuel consumption,this was one of my main reasons for going 'manual o/d' as I feel it's still a little high at freeway speed i.e. 70/80mph.
A 700R4 is out of the question for me financially as even ones requiring a rebuild fetch silly money here and frankly "giant leap backwards" or not,I DO actually
like stirring cogs and stomping on a clutch pedal!
As Lugnutz (sorry I don't know your real name) confirms,there are just so many variables regarding a swap to manual,this is what I was trying to avoid as my location and readily available conversion parts or even complete transmissions etc are thin on the ground here.
Available suitable donors,even the lowly S-10s are considered rare and unusual here and rarely get scrapped....
The few 5 speeds I have seen for sale here are astronomical (a.k.a. silly) in price and are usually snapped up quickly by Cobra replica builders.
I might look into hooking up the lock-up function on mine,try it and see where I go from there.
Thanks once again for your valuable input.
