Behind The Scenes: BlownZ’s TCI Pro-X Converter Assembly

TCI Automotive, one of the industry’s’ leading manufacturers of racing transmissions and torque converters, boasts a wide gamut of products designed for a range of applications and power levels. Among their most advanced offerings is the Pro-X converter, which was designed for Top Sportsman, Top Dragster, and the countless Outlaw Street Car classes in the sport.

With the ability to handle extreme power levels in an abusive racing environment, we knew the TCI Pro-X was an excellent choice when constructing our most recent Power Automeda project vehicle — the Project BlownZ Outlaw 8.5/275 Radial ’00 Chevrolet Camaro.

The Pro-X line of torque converters feature hand-fabricated steel stators, oversize bearings, races, and anti-balloons. Whether it’s a multi-stage nitrous, supercharged, or turbocharged combination, the Pro-X is intended to handle it all.

With 1,300 horsepower on tap from our 388 cubic inch, supercharged LSX powerplant and some 3,400 pounds to get down the race track on a set of tires measuring no more than 10.5 inches wide, no ordinary torque converter would do. So the team at TCI went to work to construct us a Pro-X converter specific to our horsepower, weight, transmission, and gear ratios to ensure BlownZ had exactly the combination it needed. TCI prepared us a custom, 9.5-inch Pro-X unit set up to work with our turbo-splined TCI Powerglide transmission.

In an upcoming technical article here on Dragzine, we’ll be taking a more in-depth look at and testing the TCI Pro-X and other Drag Radial-style converters on our Project BlownZ, but in the meantime, the staff at TCI provided us with a number of photos our of converter being built — much of it by hand as previously mentioned — at their Memphis, Tenn. facility that we wanted to share with you, our readers. Below, you’ll find several informative images that provide a glimpse inside a torque converter and how they’re built.