A904 late shifting into 3rd gear
so should i give more slack in the line for the kick down cable for a sooner shift?
On the other hand if you have a tighter cable you get a later shift and its snappier?
I'm still trying to figure out how it works
Exactly on both counts.
Just back off the TP cable until you get it where you like it best.
I don't have a shift kit in mine mostly because it's a daily driver and not a hotrod, but I did drill the 1-2 oil port in the valve body, block the accumulator and add a part throttle kickdown kit.
I like a nice firm second gear shift (barks on occasion) with anything more than half throttle, and I like to keep the RPM's up as opposed to more throttle.
At normal driving around my car shifts 1-2 at about 20mph and 2-3 at about 45
Anything under 30 and it stays or drops down to second unless I am almost completely off the throttle.
If I am doing say 45 it only takes about half the throttle travel to kick down into second again. (due to the part throttle kickdown kit)
I also have freeway gears so that makes a difference (2.800 RPM's at 80 in third)
It's really close to the way I would manually shift it if it was a manual valve body, and that's what I am shooting for as an automatic shift.
Before long here I am going to drop the throttle pressure down a bit and take some weight off the governor valve because it shifts too early at wide open throttle. (about 3k) on the 1-2 shift.
I'd like it more around 4,500 or so wide open.
It takes a lot of time and experimentation if you want to be that picky about it. :D