Ok guys, I have my ramjet 350 long block with holley stealth ram EFI all put together and waiting to go into the 442. I am on to making sure that I am not pulling the engine back out again due to transmission issues like I have had in the past. the 442 when I got it had no motor but did have the stock KZF, after I got the 355 into the car we lost reverse on it and soon after I didn’t have much of forward either. I ended up with a second KZF out of another 86 442 that I put into the car, all shifts fine and works as it should but I have a odd wining noise that from what I read is likely the front pump on the transmission. So now I am sitting here with the ram jet motor on a fresh rebuild ready to go in and thinking that I want to get this all right the first time, I am too busy too be yanking stuff in and out like I could before the kids/house/carreer…. so now I need to decide what to do with this transmission, do I pay to have it rebuilt? Likely the best option but I am looking at close to a grand, I am not sure about you guys but I like to keep my money in my pocket and I do not like paying people to do my work either. the transmission that is in the car appears to be functioning properly minus the whining noise when I put it in gear so I am thinking lets just rebuild the front pump, not sure 100% what this involves but I watched a youtube video on it and it doesn’t seem hard. Yea I am sure that someone is thinking that I shouldn’t be tearing into the thing but there was a point in time that I had never rebuilt an engine and now I have over a dozen builds including a few BBC marine motors pushing 500+ on budget builds. So with that I was also thinking is my torque converter what I want? could the torque converter be part of my issue? if I buy another one should I pick something different than the KZR/VIN 9 torque converter? If I am doing this much what other upgrades should I do to make the transmission function better? I know that the 200s built up can handle some crazy power, I have seen plenty of places say that a stock 200 can handle 400hp, who knows if that ones true or not. I am going to be at around 350 or so and I do not plan to go past that, this engine is staying the way that it is once installed. I am not going to be racing this car on a regular basis but it will see some Friday night passes once in awhile just for fun, the car will likely not be abused much and is more or a cruising and weekly local car show type of car so absolute peak performance at the track is not what I am after. I don’t think I am afraid to rebuild a transmission on my own either, I actually have considered this many times and now may be a good time to start, again the questions of what kits to buy, what upgrades are best?? I need some advice here guys!