I promised an update when I had more information. Brief recap - I bought a Yank GN Turbo Thruster 3000 converter with the standard carbon ceramic clutch. It stalled at about 2400 rpm so I pulled it out and sent it back. They inspected it and said it was perfect, and sent it back. I put it in, it was still 2400 stall, I drove it for 200 miles before making any passes, made 2-5 passes to verify it was still tight, drove it another 300-400 miles, suddenly it loosened up to 3500 stall. Made two passes and my normal 12.50/109/2.0 60' with 2800 stall D5 became 13.3/99.5/1.77 60', turning 5400 rpm in 3rd gear at 99.5 mph. Launch and spoolup were great but after that it was over. Put about 900-1000 miles on it total and sent it back in. They said that the fins had folded over because I was spending too long making boost on the footbrake - over 2 seconds was their definition of too long. I told them that the typical TR launch meant 5-7 seconds either building or holding boost 
. They seem serious about making a good TR converter because the owner bought a GN for driving and testing. Others had the same problem I did, and they were starting to work on a much stronger design, as well as doing repairs and spring cleaning on the new-to-them GN. That brings us up to about 5 weeks ago. Oh, they did offer a refund if I didn't want to wait on the new improved one but I told them I wanted to wait and talk with them about what they developed before they sent me anything.
Yesterday with no warning I received a new converter so I called Mike and asked what was up. This converter does not have their automatic TCC lockup under massive torque, which is one feature that had sold me on the Yank's in the first place. The clutch material is a step up from the carbon ceramic but is not quite up the Kevlar option. He assured me that it would hold up for many hundreds if not thousands of wot lockups. It is a 10" unit, not 9" - he said that they just couldn't get the fin and hub strength in a 9". Back half is all billet, and he said that the housing and fins were about twice as thick as the original design. Stall at zero boost in his car was 2900 rpm, and with boost he said it was about 200 rpm looser than a Precision "o" pump. That scares me a little because to me that means about 3200 rpm, but we will see. Efficiency above stall is supposed to be excellent, about 98% at 6000 rpm. He said that with that efficiency he just didn't see the need for the autolockup.
I hope to get it installed this week, and when I do I will report on the stall, spoolup, and driveability, and maybe get to the track on Sunday. That will get me to my fifth converter swap, and hopefully not on to my sixth if it needs to come back out yet again. We had spoken once about some compensation for that but not in our last few conversations. I don't know if they are still going to offer a somewhat beefed up version of their first converter but I know that they have sent out at least one of those to someone else whose fins bent over. He said that this converter would sell for about $1000, compared to about $800 for their first model.
. They seem serious about making a good TR converter because the owner bought a GN for driving and testing. Others had the same problem I did, and they were starting to work on a much stronger design, as well as doing repairs and spring cleaning on the new-to-them GN. That brings us up to about 5 weeks ago. Oh, they did offer a refund if I didn't want to wait on the new improved one but I told them I wanted to wait and talk with them about what they developed before they sent me anything.Yesterday with no warning I received a new converter so I called Mike and asked what was up. This converter does not have their automatic TCC lockup under massive torque, which is one feature that had sold me on the Yank's in the first place. The clutch material is a step up from the carbon ceramic but is not quite up the Kevlar option. He assured me that it would hold up for many hundreds if not thousands of wot lockups. It is a 10" unit, not 9" - he said that they just couldn't get the fin and hub strength in a 9". Back half is all billet, and he said that the housing and fins were about twice as thick as the original design. Stall at zero boost in his car was 2900 rpm, and with boost he said it was about 200 rpm looser than a Precision "o" pump. That scares me a little because to me that means about 3200 rpm, but we will see. Efficiency above stall is supposed to be excellent, about 98% at 6000 rpm. He said that with that efficiency he just didn't see the need for the autolockup.
I hope to get it installed this week, and when I do I will report on the stall, spoolup, and driveability, and maybe get to the track on Sunday. That will get me to my fifth converter swap, and hopefully not on to my sixth if it needs to come back out yet again. We had spoken once about some compensation for that but not in our last few conversations. I don't know if they are still going to offer a somewhat beefed up version of their first converter but I know that they have sent out at least one of those to someone else whose fins bent over. He said that this converter would sell for about $1000, compared to about $800 for their first model.
