My 88 S4 has a PKS installed. It works very well, making the car lively. I read how if you start out with the gear selector in 2 you should start in 1st gear. With the kickdown switch engaged while doing this, my car seems to *stay* in 1st gear no matter how little throttle is applied, until I switch to 3. Then, if the RPMs are high with low throttle, the trans will go to 2nd and then immediately to 3rd.

This is interesting and can be managed, but I wonder if the behavior should be different. The car will start pretty easily in 1st gear with D selected, so long as the PKS is engaged and you give it a little gas (1/2 or so).

Who could have imagined so much fun with an automatic!

-Sean

 

mine starts in first when i have selector in 2nd....

It does have one weird issue... under HARD acceleration (WOT) it shifts from 1st to 2nd at about 3500 rpm.. i am trying to figure out how to stop this..

BUT
When accelerating moderately it stays in first a lot longer...

 

Yard pro, it sounds like your kick down switch is not being engaged by the pedal at 100% (or slightly less, you can set it up how you like it) throttle OR the relay that the switch links to is toast. Will the car hold ANY gear to redline? If so then something else is going on (maybe vacuum issues), because the point of the kick down switch is to hold a gear to redline and get a double down shift from 4th to second at anything below about 55 mph.

Sean, your car should start in 1st when you pull the lever back to "2". The point of the PKD is to get it to start in 1st while leaving it in "D". If you are holding the switch down you should stay in 1st gear... The 2nd and then 3rd right away with the PKD pushed seems a bit odd to me, unless you are talking about having manually shifted it to "3". The point of the PKD (let me reiterate this ONE MORE TIME) is so that you DON'T have to shift with the lever! SO, either push on the PKD or shift with the lever, I would not recommend doing both...

 

james,

the only gear that does not redline is 1st.
2nd gear redlines, and i have not yet redlined third....

 

OK, I guess you're right James, it's pointless to shift manually with the PKS on. I'll stick with either-or, the combo has some interesting behavior probably best left alone.

 

yardpro, sometimes 1st gear will shift a bit shy of redline in some of my cars. It seems rather random but some more than others. It may be that I have let up just enough so that I have actually let off the kick down switch (I don't have any wired as a PKD) and thus is shifts at that time. I think I read somewhere that 1st shifts a bit early normally in these cars when at full throttle, but I could have just dreamed that. That said, if it is shifting early in any of my cars it is not more than about 400 rpm early, we are still shifting above 6000... If you are shifting out of 1st gear when the PKD is depressed at less than 6000 rpm then something is not right... Bowden cable not right maybe...you should (at full throttle) shift above 6000 rpm no matter what gear you are in.

 

first shifts at about 4K..
second shifts at redline

 

Yea, something is not right there... it should hold 1st gear up to 6000 at least. My T-bird is the opposite of what you are seeing, 1st will hold and shift on up the rev range and then 2nd will short shift. Not gonna mess with it in that car though.

 

that's what i thought...

 

OK, so, I decided that manual shifting plus PKS is kind of dumb, so today I tested manual shifting with the PKS off.

I'm still getting a strange result. In 2, the car starts in 1st gear and will not upshift (I didn't take 1st all the way to redline so I don't know it might have eventually, but I thought that when I took throttle off it should have upshifted rather than decelerating rapidly in 1st gear) . I have to shift to 3 to get upshift to 2nd gear at a reasonable RPM, and then 3rd gear. However, when I tried downshifting by moving lever to 2 (being careful about the speed just in case), it did not double-downshift to 1st gear, it did use 2nd gear and continued using it until I switched the lever back up to 3.

Need a minor adjustment here? At what throttle position/RPM should the trans upshift from 1st to 2nd gear while in 2 position accelerating from stop?

 

The basic idea is that in a 928 automatic, you never need 1st gear except for maximum acceleration from standstill.

No, once you are in first gear, it will hold it until you reach redline - no matter what.

If you want to go into 2nd, you have to shift to position 3 and right back to 2 - If you leave it in 3, it will go to 3rd gear.

In position 2, it will not go into 1st gear until you are close to standstill. This is probably to prevent over-revving. It would also throw passengers into their seatbelts, if it'd let you get into 1st at speed.

It should not automatically shift until you hit redline. If it shifts significantly sooner, then you need an adjustment.

I mean, your shark does...

 

Nicole is quite correct on all her points...sounds like your car is acting as it should.

 

OK, great, thanks for the info. I see that the way the manual shifting operates is a bit interesting and not obvious, we are not exactly driving a "tiptronic" here, are we?

 

^^^^^
I sure wish they had put a tip in these cars or by today's standards a PDK would be even better!

 

When I first got my 89 S4 it would shift arounf 5000 rpm wot. I adjusted the bowden cable and now when starting in 2 and flooring it will start in first go to about 5900-6000 then shift to second. If I keep it floored and shift to 3 it will hold second gear to about 6200 and then shift to third. It is scary how well they pull as the revs get over 4000. I don't think I've ever hit redline in third, at least not from a standing start. My failure not the car's.