Ok guys, You might all think I'm a sissy cuz I like my auto but I live in the city, ( City of The champion Steelers by the way), and I don't want to be shifting all the time. But I do like shifting my auto once in a while to hear that thundering sound of down shifting. My question is am I hurting using my tranny like this? I like to down shift at stop lights sometimes, I tell my wife this is to "Save The Brakes", or start out in first and run the RPM's up a little higher then the tranny dose on it's own before shifting up to 2nd and third gear. This is my first real hot rod and I don't want to hurt her.

Your not going to hurt anything.

I agree with Tyler. You're probably not going to hurt anything doing the acasional manuel shifting, although I wouldn't make a habit of it. ( Downshifting is actually harder on the trans then upshifting). Either way I'd be more conserned about the rear end. Their kinda breakable like glass on our cars, don't take well to a lot of hard holeshots and thrashing. Trouble is, these newer metric tranys and differentials are lame compared to what we had in the old days. If I was gonna race my car or beat on it all the time I'd upgrade to a Turbo 400 and a Ford 9in. rear end. That combination would be practically bulletproof. Dave