[Alan Roehrich]

Bill, you are pretty close. The second gear clutches and steels are in the case. The outer race of the second gear sprag is what they engage. The second gear sprag is mounted to the direct drum. Shifting to second gear stops the direct drum, as a sprag is a one way clutch, it holds in one rotation direction, and slips in the other. When shifting to high gear, the second gear clutches release, the direct clutches apply, and the direct drum accelerates instantly to match the speed of the forward input drum, which is turning at or near the engine RPM, depending upon the slippage factor in the converter at the time. When in a forward gear, the forward input drum clutches are always on, and the forward input drum approximately matches RPM with the engine, again depending on slippage. You may or may not have the low gear clutches applied, depending on whether or not you leave in manual low gear. If you have any sort of auto 1-2 shift, in a 3 speed automatic, most of them do not use the low gear clutches, but rather they leave on the low/forward sprag.

Any time you accelerate a component from a stop to a relatively high RPM, the heavier the component, the more power is required to accelerate that component. That power is used to accelerate that component rather than to accelerate the car.

A sprag is a liability. Any time you use a sprag on an upshift, you run the risk of "rolling" that sprag, so a bigger, stronger, and therefore heavier sprag is required. A 350 or a 400 that is operating close to the way they were designed to will be using a sprag on the 1-2 shift. In order to make a 350 live, it is necessary to use the heavy duty 2nd gear sprag from a 400.

There are basically two ways commonly used to stop a drum. Either a sprag mounted to the drum and external clutches (as found in a 350 or a 400 in second gear) or a band on the outside of that drum, as is found in most other 3 speed transmissions. A TorqueFlite uses a band, as does a C4 or a C6, and the 200 Metric. When using a band, you have the torque capacity of the band itself, and the servo you apply that band with, so to increase the torque capacity you may increase the band area or the friction coefficient of the band itself, you may also increase the line pressure, the size of the servo, or both.

Using lightened components does two things. It lessens the load on what ever is being used to accelerate or decelerate that component, and it lessens the power absorbed trying to accelerate that component, allowing more power to be used to accelerate the car.

I hope this answers the questions that were asked. And there was no intent to belittle anyone's knowledge on the subject.