Never heard that about a T400.
I'd do a quick 1,2,3 till I got good white smoke then power out of it,
Ran my old nova W/ T400 that way 7 years ZERO problems.
Maybe ya'll need a new tranny guy?
To me it's important to be as consistent as possible, you can't John force them one time and the next time just haze them.
Pay attention and do it the same way everytime till it becomes a routine and very natural.
I do like alot of the guys above me mentioned but with a few variations.
I wet the tires by romping the motor once in the water box, pull up about 2 feet to where it's DRY ( sometimes I open the door to see this or have a spotter do it for me) Then pump the brake pedal a few times to build up plenty of pressure, hold the brakes down, hit line lock button if I got one, release the brakes, nail the throttle, (you can't ease into qa burnout) and when the tires start spinning over easily shift into high wait a few more secs ( I usually count to 3 to be consistent, like one thousand etc) and then power out of the burnout, no dry hopping, no reving the motor to 9K prior to staging or in the staging beams, if your doing that to "clear it up" you need to take it back home and work on it.
Then slowly ease up to the staging beams and pre-stage and then stop - concentrate- give everything a one last look see to make sure everything is ready to go I.E plenty oil pressure, fan and pumps on, engine at proper temp, shifter in LOW, then slowly bump into the last beam, take a deep breath exhale and most importantly think win!
Later, Cp