The transmission kick down is actually controlled by the lever on the side of the transmission. Nothing on the throttle itself. Proper adjustment is required of the cable and linkage rod to the throttle. The cable needs to adjusted so that with the pedal all the way down, the kick down detent is engaged on that lever. It can be felt. Push the lever forward till it stops, and then push further. The pedal needs to get this here. Then the rod  gets adjusted do that full throttle is almost reached just before the kick down. The spring will compress further as the kick down is engaged. Shortening the rod lowers the shift points below full throttle. 

At kick down the tranny should not upshift until ~5,200 rpm which matches the 5,400 rpm governor. 

The factory shift points for a stock engine are fairly well matched. Most performance or acceleration issues are due to an engine performance problem or a bad torque converter. Do the test in the Bentley. If you can’t reach the stall speed then the converter cannot make torque and acceleration will suffer. 

Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of Rocket J Squirrel
Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2011 7:04 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Auto Trans: Upshifting later, per GTA? [REPORT]

I just got back from a test drive.

Per suggestions here and from the bloke at GTA, I shortened the transmission > throttle adjusting rod by about 1/2 inch to move the kick-down switch point closer to where my fused ankle can access it.

BIG difference. Rather than having to downshift the auto trans manually to get any pep  when hitting a hill or pulling into traffic, I can now easily cause the trans to downshift when needed.

The van feels a whole lot peppier! My goodness.

Watching the tach, I can see that the trans is now shifting more like I'd be shifting if I were driving a manual.

This little modification made my day!

Thanks to all for chiming in on this subject.

Question of the day: Is the kickdown switch on the side of the trans an electrical switch, or what? How does it do what it does?

--
Rocky J Squirrel