Hey, another Chicagoan, NICE! I do not believe HDC should be on. It is not on mine anyway (07 4.8i). That kick is possibly he HDC or the usual tranny issues most of our cars have in the pre-lci world. There are multiple threads on it, take a look and see if the symptoms match. That braking kick is absolutely one of them. Another is when you accelerate from 2nd to 3rd there can be another kick.

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