Recent News and Articles
Amsoil / Street Rodder Road Tour 2010
The Cotati Speed Shop goes to work
When the Intercity truck showed up at Cotati Speed Shop, the Shadow Rods XL27 Road Tour car was well on its ways, but anyone who has built a street rod knows that there are a thousand details large and small that have to be taken care of even when you start with something as far along as our Shadow Rods roadster pickup.
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The 2009 Amsoil / Street Rodder Road Tour Leg 6
The next stop was the Akron, Ohio, home of Gearstar Transmission. Gearstar has been the official automatic transmission supplier for the Road Tour cars for the last four years. We put about 20,000 miles on our Road Tour vehicles each season and the Gearstar transmissions have performed flawlessly every year. At Gearstar we were greeted by owner Zack Farrah and his staff of technicians. After a question and answer session with the experts at Gearstar we all enjoyed a great lunch before traveling on to Youngstown, Ohio.
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Parts Department - Maximum Overdrive Made Easy
The Gearstar Performance 700-R4 Street Performance transmission and torque converter package is designed to work behind a small-block engine producing up to 400 hp with 300 lb-ft of torque in a street-driven vehicle.
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Building an overdrive automatic the Gearstar way
How times have changed. When our Chevy was new, there were two choices when it came to transmissions: a three-speed manual or a two-speed Powerglide automatic. Interestingly, when the automatic was ordered it came with a larger displacement engine (235 versus 216 ci) with more ponies (105 compared to 92 hp).
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Power to the Ground
Today’s automatic overdrive transmissions offer gear ratio spreads that are perfect for a truck that will see more time on the highway than the dragstrip. Gearstar specializes in building hi-po versions of these trannys that will stand up to anything I plan on dishing out through motor mods.
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Automatic for the People
For the longest time, if you ran a Ford small-block or Windsor engine and wanted to run an automatic, your transmission of choice would likely be a C4. For heavier duty applications you'd likely opt for a C6. As with everything, time and technology move on and today many overdrive automatics are available, mostly computer controlled.
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Street Rodder Road Tour Lunch Stop - Gearstar Transmissions
Zach and the crew laid out the welcome mat for the Road Tour travelers who welcomed a stop in the Rubber City and a chance to see the inner workings of what has become one of the most popular transmissions shops in America.
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Ramrodder: Part 3
When we decided to build a street gasser there were only a few things we knew for sure: The car would have a straight axle, a blown Hemi, and fenderwell headers. Granted that wasn't much of an initial plan, but after finding our '50 Plymouth three-window, the concept of RamRodder-a car loosely based on the Ram Chargers altered from long ago-started to come together.
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Into Overdrive - September 2009
You probably thought I'd forgotten all about the project '49 Chevy huh? Unfortunately a combination of work schedules, the start of the show season and the fact that I have been doing a few jobs on my '46 roadster pickup meant the Purple Pig has sat unloved down in the basement for a while.
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No Recess!
Overcoming A Major Engine Setback With A Direct Sheetmetal Firewall. I can remember back when Total Cost Involved was about to drop the '58 Chevy 235 engine and Gear Star Turbo 350 trans in my '39 just as they finished up the suspensions. Actually, what I recall the most was one very simple question they asked: "Do you want the firewall cut or not?" For those of you wondering why they'd even consider that, let me explain in a little more detail.
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Trans Fusion
Hints on installing an automatic
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Maximum Overdrive
If You’re Tired of Blowing Up Your Fourth-Gen’s Slushbox, Then it’s Time to Upgrade to a 4L85E.
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Shifting priorities
Gearstar's owner, Zack Farah, got his start over 25 years ago at Tristar International where they were manufacturing upwards of 100 transmissions each day and 300 converters. While bulk production was Tristar's bread and butter, the portion of the work on high performance transmissions drew Zack's interest.
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Hitting the Sweet Spot
One of the most common components in today’s classic trucks is an overdrive automatic transmission, and one of the most popular of the breed is the General Motors 700-R4. Although the 700-R4 is a good transmission and can be modified to withstand huge amounts of horsepower, reliability is sometimes an issue, but it’s often not the transmission’s fault.
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Dyno Tune Your Trans
Running your trans on a dyno before it gets bolted in your car will save you lots of headaches and ensure flawless performance.
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Chevy High Performance Insider
Zack Farah of Gearstar Explains How to Select, Rebuild, and Maintain the Right Transmission for Your Car
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Swinging Iron
WE DROP OUR 427-INCH SMALL-BLOCK INTO OUR SECOND-GEN CAMARO AND GET ONE STEP CLOSER TO HITTING THE ROAD
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Project Get Shorty
A few months back we took a trip up to Smeding Performance in Rancho Cordova, California, and followed along with Ben Smeding as he assembled their new 383 Hot Rod crate motor.
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Big Block Overdrive
Overdrive transmissions swaps make great upgrades for classic muscle cars, but since most were not intended to harness the power of a torquey big-block, they often fail in such applications.
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Talk The Torque
If there was a vote for the most misunderstood automotive component, we’re willing to bet the automatic transmission would rank pretty high, and the torque converter itself possibly higher still. OK, so it’s kinda like a clutch for a automatic, but how does it work? And, what do stall speed and lockup mean exactly? How do you choose the ideal torque converter for your project or driving style?
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Y-Block AOD Upgrade
As time rapidly moves farther and farther away from the 20th century mark, more and more customized classic truck owners have discovered an increasing desire to restore their truck’s mid-century appeal with a hopped up early V-8 engine.
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Gear Star Performance Transmission
It’s been said that a man’s commitment to his art can be judged by how he has equipped his workshop to handle the task at hand. In the case of Gear Star Performance Transmission their commitment to the art of custom building high performance automatic transmissions is clearly evidenced by the specialized equipment and dedicated personnel housed within the walls of their Akron, Ohio-home base.
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Overdrive Transmission Swap
The trappings of modern technology can spoil even hardcore authenticity buffs. Sample something new, and before you know it, you can’t do without it. It happened to us.
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Tested Diesel Tough
Before the advent of the Allison automatic transmission in diesel-equipped GM vehicles, the toughest transmission in GM’s arsenal was the 4L80E.
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Switching Gears
Transmissions are pretty much the most ignored component on a vehicle in terms of maintenance. People take transmissions for granted: and don’t think the slightest bit about the amount of heat that goes through them or the amount of wear and abuse they take to enable a vehicle to move, achieve highway speeds and cruise at manageable RPMs with crisp gear changes.
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Picking the Right Automatic Transmission for Your Street Rod
There was a time when automatic transmission had all kinds of unique names- Cruise-O-Matic, Hydra-Matic, Ultramatic, and the list goes on. But while he names were different, the basic operation was about the same and they shared the same basic parts, Today automatics are more often identified with a number rather than a name.
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How to Trick the 4L80E
Many drivers take components that work in unison, which allow them to pull the gear shifter of their vehicle into drive and reverse everyday, for granted. Transmissions keep our trucks moving, and when overworked and under-built, are usually the first things to kick up their feet and go into permanent retirement.
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Classic Trucks
One of the most common components in today’s classic trucks is an overdrive automatic transmission, and one of the most popular of the breed is the General Motors 700-R4. Although the 700-R4 is a good transmission and can be modified to withstand huge amounts of horsepower, reliability is sometimes an issue, but it’s often not the transmission’s fault.
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Stock Sucks
Three Times The Factory Power Equals One Tough Camaro SS. The Camaro has been through a lot in its 35-year existence, and this particular 2000 model represents the third year of the LS1 powerplant in an F-body and the seventh year for the fourth-generation platform. But there is more to this Camaro than can be seen on the surface, and for a father and son team it represents the passing of the torch and search for always wanting more.
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A New Transmission for the ‘ol Sedan Delivery
The ‘ol ’55 puts at least 10,000 miles on it every year and that old 350 auto trans. has been hauling magazines for the past 10 years, and well, you do the math, then add a bunch more from the previous owner- it was gettin ‘ tired! Needless to say, it was time to get a new transmission we knew probably wanted a 700R-4 since the majority of our driving was long hauling. The “hauling” part is not loads of magazines, but our 10x10 booth, chairs, even weight discs to keep the booth tied down in a wind storm and other promotional items all of which put a lot of wear on a transmission. We also knew that the summer of ’08 would have us on the road even more and we didn’t need a break down while going to an event - it was time to refurbish!
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A Look Inside Gearstar Transmissions
Why is the last thing a car collector thinks about is the transmission? After all the money and time spent deciding paint, graphics, wheels and interior, the item that transfers power to the rear, usually gets a “Oh yea, my buddy has one laying around in his garage, I can use that!”
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How Does This Shift Work?
Gear Star Takes Us on an Inside Tour of its Performance Automatic Transmissions..
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Adapting To The Times
There’s little question about what the hottest trend in rodding is right now: traditional styling. Old speed parts and vintage powerplants have grown from an underground counterculture to one of the most popular trends in the industry. A rebirth of rodding’s beginnings and new manufacturing technology spitting out new-old parts have put higher horsepower vintage powerplants on the road.
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Simple C-10 Solutions
Why is it always the little things? They seem to be able to make or break just about anything in life, from trucks, taxes, to the opposite sex, but let’s just stick to trucks here. Last month we showed what it takes to rebuild a GM 12 bolt truck rearend, which is definitely one of the bigger activities one could do when it comes to wrenching on a truck. Along with this job there a few small yet potentially difficult tasks that need to be addressed, especially when you’re reinstalling that nice new rearend in your old truck/work in progress.
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Custom Classic Trucks
This is the first in a series of tech features on the 79 Chevy C-10 Big 10 that I recently put over 5,000 test miles on in less than two weeks’ time while participating in Rod & Custom magazine’s 2007 edition of Americruise celebrated in Lincoln, Nebraska. I know it’s not the Americruise project truck CCT readers were expecting so please allow me to explain the chain of events leading up to the last-minute substitution.
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Street Rodder
Gear Star has been remanufacturing performance automatic transmissions since 1984, but what separates the company from the rest is the fact that every one of its transmissions are built to the specification of the engine and its intended use.
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Installing a Gear Star 200R4
It’s not a stretch of the truth to say that one of the best parts of owning a classic truck is actually driving it, and one of the major components on he short list of making a classic truck a joy to drive is an overdrive automatic transmission.
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Replacing the old TH400 with Level 3 4L60
Some things have been commonplace for too long. Times are changing, an some of it is for the best. There probably aren't too many people out there faced with the question of having a three- or four-speed automatic in their truck who would opt for three, but again, there might not be too many people who have thought about it.
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Shift Into The Darkside
One of the most common components in today’s classic trucks is an overdrive automatic transmission, and one of the most popular of the breed is the General Motors 700-R4. Although the 700-R4 is a good transmission and can be modified to withstand huge amounts of horsepower, reliability is sometimes an issue, but it’s often not the transmission’s fault.
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Transfixed
Substituting computer for cable.
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Super Chevy
GearStar's Level 3 200-4R Transmission mated with Yank’s 10-inch Lock up Converter can handle your 800hp fever with ease.
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Street Rod Builder
Most of us spend money building high horsepower motors and back them up with mildly modified automatic transmissions. Builders add higher stall speed converters, deep tranny oil pans and shift linkage.
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Classic Trucks
TRUST ME Yeah it’s rebuilt...trust me. How many times have you heard that? It’s easy to get bamboozled in the game of buying remanufactured parts. It seems like you can’t trust anybody these days. Gear Star Performance Transmissions is doing its best to change this.
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Chevy High Performance
Foolproof Gear Star 10-inch Racing Converter
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The 200-4R Transfer of Power
It would make no sense to hook the RamJet 350 to a Powerglide when we have a selection of better GM transmissions. As fuel costs rise (especially in the summer, when we do much of our car event travelling), efficiency becomes more important everyday. We have to make the most of what we get the pump.
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Low-Revvin' Highway Fun
Low-Revvin’ Highway Fun - GEAR STAR’S ALTERNATIVE TO THE 700-R4
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Building a 1934-35 Chevy
Overdrive transmissions might seem like the perfect solution for any vehicle, and indeed they are offered today in almost every machine from the smallest puddle-jumper to the largest SUV. However, you need sufficient beans in the engine to take full use of one.
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