Was heading home from Blacksburg today when I started feeling a very hard "clunk" when shifting from 2nd to 3rd. As I was on the front end of a 5 hour trip I thought it would be a good idea to do a little research, so I pulled up vehicross.info on the BlackBerry and learned about the likely culprit, something that seems to be interchangeably referred to as the transmission mode switch, range sensor, neutral safety switch, or SWITCH ASM; PO in the OEM parts catalog. All seem to refer to part #8-96017-511-0, and it looks to be about $150 from Merlin or IsuzuParts.com. Seems like a straightforward fix, but the experience today left me concerned about something else.

As coincidence/luck/fate would have it, I picked up a used Auto Trans Interceptor module from Marlin on Friday, and was planning on installing it at some point down the road. Before I bought it I did some research here and most comments indicated that you get much more "crispness" when accelerating, but at the cost of slightly "rougher" shifting. Originally I was okay with that, but after this weekend without the Interceptor installed, I'm a little more worried. So here are my main questions at this point:

(1) Should I go ahead and order the switch and have it replaced, or is there a chance that the existing part might just need to be cleaned, adjusted, etc.?

(2) Does the Interceptor create the same level of clunk that I experienced due to (we'll assume for now) a faulty neutral safety switch? What happened today felt like something breaking, not better performance. If that's the feel I'll get with the Interceptor, interested parties can start sending me PMs now.

(3) For those members that have Interceptors installed, what values did you set for the line pressure and torque converter delay? How hard (if at all) does your tranny clunk when shifting vs. OEM?

Thanks guys!