Torqueflites rely on the kickdown linkage for line pressure control as well as kickdown signal, so you have to do something to turn up pressure if you don't have it.
A full manual shift valve body is the best way, if that's what you want, but that's $150 out of the budget.
Tying the lever all the way back definitely helps, but it might make the trans downshift hard when you're not ready for it ( not so good on the road course - makes for nice loops
).How about this - drop the valve body and replace the accumulator spring with a short piece of pipe that will keep the piston right at the top of the bore.
Then, turn the line pressure screw (driver's side of valve body next to linkage - allen head screw under sheetmetal bracket) until the spring seat is even with the kickout in the bracket.
Finally, reinstall the valve body and tie the lever back no more than 1/2 way.
Hopefully, this will allow nice hard shifts, the trans to live, and you to manual shift without severe automatic downshifts.
Depending on how high you're going to rev it, you could still run into automatic upshifts; there might be safetys in the stock valve body that could rear their heads.
Of course, you could also rig a junkyard throttle cable (Fiero is nice and long) as a "pull" kickdown linkage from whatever throttle you have...You do have a throttle, don't you?
