Cheetah manual reverse pattern valve body question...

[Mean Gene]

Anyone else run one of these on the street? I have one in my car and was just curious if there is any maintence or adjustments that need to be performed. I know these are "race only", but I know a lot of us run "race only" parts on our cars.

[DartGT66]

I have run them for over a decade. I have not encountered any problems. Haven't seen any higher maintenance need either, but I have had 650 + hp cars with relatively limited street time. Maybe about 20000 miles during the last 10 years. The "problem" with the cheetah, and many toher reverse manual valve bodies is, that the do not use the rear band in the 1'st gear. The overrunnning clutch takes all the force applied, therefore you must not "hit" it in the first. The overrunning clutch chould always be preloaded first or it may fail. When that happens, the front drum starts turning at 2.2x the engine speed, and since it's cast iron it will explode when it reaches certain rpm. When it does, you just hope that you had a trans shield or a blanket.

[Mean Gene]

Yes sir...I figured that out VERY quickly! I ran the car hard up in first and lifted, and the thing went into "neutral"...freaked me out. I then realized it was supposed to do this and stepping back on the gas would rev the engine and then the tranny would engage and BOOM!!!! Glad to hear you have had no problems with the system otherwise...I was considering putting the original valve body back in. Think I'll keep the Cheetah.