ramaircjm

iTrader: (4)

For those of you who haven’t already seen my car on CorvetteForum, I typically go through 6L80 transmissions faster than most people go through tires. In just the past 6 weeks alone I’ve managed to blow up a freshly rebuilt trans as well as one from a wrecking yard with very low miles, both after just 23 passes each.

Tired of not having having any viable upgrade options I was REALLY close to doing a 4L65 conversion before hearing about a new set of clutch packs that had become available from a company called Alto. As soon as I heard about this I was immediately on the phone inquiring about them but was a little disheartened to find out they didn’t have any real world results to validate how well the new clutch packs were holding up in high HP cars. The only results they were able to provide me with were that they had “put them in a few cars and they seem to be holding up well so far”. To me that wasn’t enough proof because quite frankly, you could easily put a bone stock 6L80 in a 1000 HP car and have it last but it doesn’t address the more important question of “how long will it last?”

I did a little more research on the new clutch packs and ended up talking to Century Transmission in TX, a supporting vendor here on the forum. Mike Kurtz (the owner) had gone a little further with respect to testing in that he was running a built transmission in a Magnacharged Camaro using the Alto clutches and while it was holding up fine so far, he hadn’t really beat on it very much.

After hearing about my car we worked out an agreement for him to build me a strengthened 6L80 (using the new clutches) to purposely beat up on at the track to see how well it would hold up. Unlike some companies who charge a fortune to do a 6L80 upgrade but provide absolutely no track results, Mike realizes that while there are a lot of people looking to upgrade their A6, very view people will want to do so without having solid proof that it will actually work.

The transmission got picked up from his shop on Friday and should be in Brentwood by Wednesday of this week. The current plan is to run it at the Test & Tune on Friday night in Sacramento and then again on Saturday and Sunday at Infineon. I figure I should get at least 23 passes over those three days so anything beyond that will be bonus. After that I’m going to keep racing it on a regular basis (approximately 40 passes per month) and once we get to the three month milestone I’m going to pull the trans and send it back to Mike to do an analysis of how well everything is holding up. The theory behind all of this is that if it can hold up in my car it should be able to hold up in anybody's.

Also, since this is admittedly the testing phase I promise I’ll be sure to post up the results be they good or bad. Mike understands this and as such I think it’ll be a win-win for everybody involved because we both agreed to do whatever is needed to make this project a success and in turn provide a much needed service to A6 owners everywhere.

Wish me luck and thanks for reading!

Christopher

KBG

iTrader: (32)

Great news Chris!!!

You helped me out more than you know with your write ups on the corvette forum when I had my C6

I just sold the car and coincidentally the new owner put about 500 miles on it (head/cam LS2) and the tranny was toast

-Hoping this at least helps the A6 cars out!!.....I'm thinking with all of the 2010 Camaros out maybe a few builders will finally step up to the plate and put a little R&D into making these things last!!!!!!

ramaircjm

iTrader: (4)

I think it was the Camaro that got everybody to talk notice of the need for upgraded 6L80 parts.

PtyMaro

I will definately keep track of this thread....I'm having issues even as we speak...I need a good built trans for my twin turbo 2010 camaro....

ramaircjm

iTrader: (4)

I've been keeping a similar thread on CorvetteForum more up to date:

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c6-t...y-be-over.html