[Cliff R]

There are LOTS of companies building converters that will fit these applications and work fine.

TCI makes a decent 10" unit, as does Hugh's, both are somewhat "looser" than the Continental 10" for normal driving, and show more slippage above the stall speed on drag strip runs, etc.

I've also tested the very popular Hugh's 2500 BOP unit. It's not bad, but still "looser" than I like to see for these engines.

Pontiac engines are actually a poor design right from the start, the heads flow no better than the run-of-the-mill small block Chevy factory head, and they sit on much larger engines. They are also full of "heavy" internals, really long rods, and much larger crankshafts than BBC's use. This makes for a pretty strong design, but weight eats up power, and works against these engines at high rpm's.

Even with all that said, the Pontiac engines are EXCELLENT mid-range engines, producing power second to none in the low to mid-range. With this in mind, a "loose" converter, or one that isn't well coupled at lower rpms, and above the stall speed leaves considerable vehicle performance on the table, not to mention less efficiency eats up more fuel, and puts more heat into the transmission fluid.

I've tested just about every converter out there at this point, and NONE of the "shelf" units are all that great for these engines, especially when you start getting into the 10" units. They are just too "loose" for normal driving, and don't couple all that well above the stall speed. Pontiac applications notice this more as we typically don't gear our combinations to capitalize on high rpm power, the vehicles are heavy, and weight backed up against street type axle ratios really "works" a converter pretty hard with a large CID/high torque engine in front of it.

Continental knows this, and has worked with many of us for years to develop the 10" Pontiac units. They use special cores with HUGE fins to move the fluid so they can be very efficient for "normal" driving and not show a lot of "loose" characteristics or slipping excessively anyplace.

Being on 10" cores they also "flash" pretty high with good traction and when hit with big power (torque), so you get the best of both Worlds, a converter that is very well coupled for "normal" driving, then shows it's colors nicely at the track with good traction.

Other companies (custom units) can build converters that work well, so Continental doesn't own the entire deal here, but you simply aren't going to find anything close to them in "shelf" and low cost "generic" units from any vendor that I know of.

Buying a Continental converter for one of these vehicles is much like buying a camshaft from Dave at SD. It's been tested for many years by folks who know what they are doing, and it's just flat going to work well for the application, and you aren't likely to find anything else that works nearly as well just calling some tech line or flipping thru a catalog and buying a "generic" unit.......Cliff