hello again. very infrequently the door locks wouldn't work and the shifts would get so bad that it felt like someone used a sledgehammer to put it into gear. the first indication i should have had that it was vacuum was with vacuum reading i got from the mighty mighty vac at the line going to the modulator. it should read about 14 at idle and drop off gradually as rpm is increased. mine went from idle at 13 to zero the majority of the time. i now simply disconnected the bypass just like the other gentlman suggested and viola!! perfect shifting. i can not tell you how great it was to drive to work today and have it shift the way it should. i was lead astray from the vacuum system because the severity of the clunk, but fear not, i would bet my paycheck that 99.9999% of the time it is the vacuum system. i wonder what else i can plug in the vacuum that would lessen the likelyhood of developing leaks? thanks to gsxr, psfred and surfblau for the extra info. cya later, adam