4.10 and 33's simply isn't enough gear to run in overdrive.
As for the supercoupe stuff, if you paid extra for a Special supercouple gearset, I have some ocean front property in Arizona, some swapland in Florida and a nice little house in Times beach or Love canel that that would be perfect for your extra money.
Supercouple got some special band and/or clutch stuff to handle the extra torque. But the gearset was the standard stuff.
The output shaft didn't change for strength, it changed because of a lube problem in the rear of the planetary gearset. '80 to '87 has one style case and output shaft oiling. '88 and newer has a different output shaft and oiling passages in the case. At one time there was a retrofit kit to drill holes in an old case so the new parts will work.
The 2.84 gearset was NEVER installed from the factory. It came out after the transmission went eletronic. But it does swap over into the '88 and newer pre-eletronic transmissions.
The biggest fault of the AOD I feel is the poorly done lockup converter. Wonderfully simple in concept and worked well. Just not nearly as well as doing a conventional lock up converter (which they did change to when they went eletronic in the AOD-E and the later varient 4R70W). What Ford did in the AOD was run a conventional converter for 1st and 2nd gear. There was this tiny little direct shaft that bypassed the torque converter that fed into the direct clutch. When you reached 3rd gear the direct clutch applied. Normaly when you reach 3rd gear (theroetical 1:1 ratio) you lock a couple elements of the planetary set together and what goes in is exactly what comes out. But Ford didn't quite do that. Instead they locked one element to the converter, another to the converter bypass. This little trick pushed 60% of the power through the bypass and only 40% through the converter. The converter is now partially locked. Well not really but that is how the system behaves. You can run lower engine speeds at higher torque demands and more efficient as the converter isn't slipping as much since it is only dealing with 40% of the power. Oh, 100% lockup in overdrive completely putting all the power through the bypass shaft and totally skipping the converter. Really a neat trick in 1980. There have been a few different ways around this. non-lockup converters that always send converter power to the direct clutch hub. This eliminates the lockup, converter slipps all the time, mileage goes away, heat issues at highway speeds due to converters slipping at high load/low RPM cruise.
There was also another who applied different clutches to skip the 60% lock in 3rd but still give 100% in OD
Aslo note that the AOD upgrades are almost always taking parts from a 4R70W. Why not just use the 4R70W in the first place? it has the upgrade parts all the AOD people want and much more that they can't get. Fear the computer is total ignorance. You shouldn't be allowed access to internet or even an eletronic ignition in that case. It's not like you will be programming it in binary or hex. Setting up A Baumann to control a transmission is easier then logging into most corporate networks to check your email. Diagnostics (if you ever need them) are easier then figuring out a dead Duraspark.
