I thought that too, until after talking with Jerry, and reading his posts and thesis. The holes in the valve body are actually too small, but ford designed it that way for the luxury/sport cars so that they would shift smoother, but it ends up hurting the transmission because fluid is not going through fast enough. The thunderbird/mark viii transmission, in stock form, may only get about 50-60k miles before it craps out and needs rebuilt. Several had them go after only 40k