70 L78 Nova T400 Question

[Bill Pritchard]

OK, time for the oddball item of the day.

Back in the day, I had a good friend who had a 70 Nova SS with the L78 and Turbo 400 trans. He bought it new. It had bucket seats and console, so it had the little curved T-handle shifter in the console. When the shifter was pulled all the way down into low gear and the accelerator was floored, the engine would wind up to 6800 - 7000 RPM and the trans would shift itself into 2nd gear, without touching the shifter. The shift handle would move itself into 2nd gear at the same time [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif[/img] We used to call it "Houdini" due to this strange trait. Didn't do it going from 2nd into high gear. It did this many, many times to the amazement of all.

Anyone else ever hear of anything similar?