I actually LOVE the stock 307. It keeps me out of a lot more trouble. Even that TT 3.0 V6 in the wife's Caddy puts down some rubber, (when she's not with me) and does great with "spirited" driving with the magnetic ride control. It's weird, she drives fast everywhere she goes, yet if ~I~ do it with her in the vehicle, somehow I'm trying to kill us.
Did you know when they were new, 83-85 OZ transmissions popped VERY HARD into 2nd gear? You old-timers that bought new ones know what I'm talking about. With new, rubbery, Eagle GT's and the right road conditions, you could chirp the tires when it shifted into 2nd by itself in Drive. It was pretty easy to get a 2nd gear chirp on asphalt roads, but just a jarring hit on concrete. Once the clutches started wearing, the bump was still noticeable, but obviously not as strong. This was one of the main reasons they "re-calibrated" the KZF's in 1986 to be firm, and not shift with a hammer.
This did pose a huge safety risk, though. As rare as it was in Charleston, SC, there was a hard freeze/sleet the night before one cold winter morning in 1986 and you know what that does to morning rush hour traffic...jams...the sun was just coming up and here I was on a sloped curve on an overpass on I-26 going to work and decided to drive the 85 that morning. Stuck in traffic, we inched along. The shadows hadn't quite cleared below the concrete walls so along that slightly sloping curve there was still ice on the road. Let off the throttle, started rolling slow, it got up to around 15-20 mph and "bump" it shifted hard into 2nd and the wheels spun and I started to fish tail into the other lane. And I freaked because it didn't want to respond to correction at slow speeds. So here I was straddling two lanes. Luckily, there was a big truck in the lane I swung into which hadn't got up to speed yet allowing my car to swing into an empty space. Otherwise the transmission shifting would have caused an accident. Whew! I think I'm still picking Claret seat fuzz out of my bunghole to this day.
