1995 850 Turbo - Curiosity - Auto Trans AW50-42

[SidneyAB]

Hi everybody,

I have a curiosity about how much power the AW50-42 Auto Trans can handle? I live in Brazil and all 850 model cars here are automatic, I want to give some extra horses to my car but how far can I go with this Transmission? And how difficulty it's the replacement for a manual transmission?

Thanks again.

[Ozark Lee]

Guys over on VS run around 400 HP all the time with an automatic. I don't know whether they blow the engine up before the transmission or not.

Manual swaps are also fairly common and the '95 model is particularly well suited for it since the vehicle speed sensor is on the transmission rather than being derived from the ABS module like it is on the '96 and on models. The real trick is to get the right firmware burned in the ECU so that the Check Engine / Lambda light isn't on all the time due to the ECU not being able to communicate with the transmission control module. The manual transmission firmware also changes the way the engine idles down when you let off of the accelerator.

If you are doing a big build you will need to get the ECU modified to get there anyway and that is the time to get the manual transmission modifications made to the code.

...Lee

[SidneyAB]

Direct to the point as always.

Thanks again Lee.