Torque converters were first made and used in 1902 and they were mainly used on buses at that time. Over the years, it has been installed in other vehicles with starting in Fords first. The part itself really hasn’t changed much from its original designed. This part is what helps convert and transfers movement from engine to the automatic transmission in the car.
Since it has a simple design, most are known by calling it a bagel, due to its disk shaped body. The torque converter has three main parts, which are the turbine, reactor, and pump. There is also a special fluid that is in a case that helps with lubrication and cooling off the elements.
Modern day converters use a lot of different electronics that keeps an eye on everything with the converter. This makes it to where you will know if anything is wrong with your converter. The pump is attached to the element body, the transmission is attached to the turbine of the converter and lastly the reactor is attached to the overrunning clutch.
When operating the converter, the pump wheel rotates and provides the fluid the movement that it needs. When the fluid collides with the reactor, the reactor will then go in the opposite direction and increase impeller rotational movement. The force that is transmitted depends on the speed of rotation. The torque is transmitted to the automatic transmission. The pump wheel is always going faster than the turbine wheel.
When looking at converters for you vehicle, it is important to know what stall speed is and what converter fits your needs. Stall speed is when the converter holds back any of the engine speed from the transmission which then causes stalling in the engine rpm.
When considering which converter fits your need, the two things to consider is your power curve and torque output.
When looking at the converter, you want to make sure that the stall to lock up around the peak torque that the engine puts out. With bigger cars that has higher gear ratio and tires will have higher stall rpm.
Smaller cars with smaller gear ratio and tires will have a lower stall rpm. So the important thing to remember with looking at torque converters, you need to look at: vehicle weight, engine displacement, compression ratio, cam profile, rear end gear ratio, tire diameter, the type of fuel system and transmission model and year.
There are several things to keep in mind when looking at vehicle parts and the most important one is what fits you vehicle the best and will make it run the best of its ability. Converters are an important part of your vehicle because it can make the difference in how fast you can go. If you do not understand what all the converter can do for your vehicle, then you would need to take the vehicle to a shop where they can check it out and provide you with the help you need.
The converter is only used on automatic transmissions because the manual transmissions have a clutch that holds and releases the power between the engine and transmission.
Modern day vehicles have the converters that have sensors on them to tell you if it is low on fluid or if something is wrong with it so you do not have to check it as often as what was needed at one time when they first became available to be on vehicles.
The converters really help on buses and bigger vehicles by allowing the energy to be passed between the engine and transmission so that nothing gets overworked.
