Gen 5 Camaro Drivetrain Tech - 6L80 to Turbo 400 swap....... almost complete.

Posted a while back on this. Trans is in.... converter built... driveshaft cut and re- balanced.... Hurst quarter stick in. That was the easy part. As far as the electronics went, i had to pull the TCM out of the factory trans and mount it external plugged in. Could not fool the system any other way. Everything works on the GM lan data system and windows.. radio.. heater... cluster... all were inop with it unplugged. So far so good. Gonna have the tuning done soon and hope for the best. Thought id share and hopefully make your project simpler than mine was.

y would u change the trans? whats wrong with having a 6 speed??

probally wants more of a drag car, also having that 6spd build would probally cost at least double what a th400 built for 1000hp would cost

Exactly. Cheaper to build and a lot of experience out there with the TH 400... rather than only a handfull of people that can build the 6L80 to hold up as good. Got about 400 miles on the install . Happy with it so far. Lost some low end but that was expected... thinking the 410 gear could solve that.

ya i went from a fast 90/90 and 3.23 gear to a fast 102/102 4.10 and it woke it up for sure and mine was only a big cam only ls1 not a bad ass 6.2 or whatever you got :)

Waiting on the tune.... been spraying it with a 150 shot. Gonna come up to a 175 after the tune. Going to a plate system also. Hoping for some low 11's without the gear. anxious to see the outcome.

i had to pull the TCM out of the factory trans and mount it external plugged in. Could not fool the system any other way. Everything works on the GM lan data system and windows.. radio.. heater... cluster... all were inop with it unplugged. So far so good. Gonna have the tuning done soon and hope for the best. Thought id share and hopefully make your project simpler than mine was.

all you had to do was jump the can lines, pin 10 to 14 and 11 to 13 to complete the can data circuit:

Tried that. Then i ran into problems with the PRNDL. Need park or neutral to start... then need drive for the tune to work... otherwise it would hit the limiter at 5000 RPM instead of the programed 6900 RPM and would run in a limp mode... lower power.. acted like the timing was off. So far moving the PRNDL by hand into drive works till i find a better idea. ????????

jump the can lines and program your ecm with a ls3 file, then turn off all the starter enable checks in the tune

I went with the 4L80E in mine. Also since it was a Stick car I didn't have a lot of problems with the tune or ECU. Also I used a 2.75 first gear and the stock 3.45 rear gear.

So far my best 60' on radials has been a 1.56.

Robin

I used to rebuild TH400 trans in the late 1970s.... basically bullet proof 3-speed that can handle tons of power...

Posted a while back on this. Trans is in.... converter built... driveshaft cut and re- balanced.... Hurst quarter stick in. That was the easy part. As far as the electronics went, i had to pull the TCM out of the factory trans and mount it external plugged in. Could not fool the system any other way. Everything works on the GM lan data system and windows.. radio.. heater... cluster... all were inop with it unplugged. So far so good. Gonna have the tuning done soon and hope for the best. Thought id share and hopefully make your project simpler than mine was.

why not just load a Manual ls3 camaro operating system?

you would still need to jump the can data lines at the tcm connector to complete the data circuit

you would still need to jump the can data lines at the tcm connector to complete the data circuit

thats fine, but at least that way you wouldnt have the PCM looking for the TCM

you would still need to jump the can data lines at the tcm connector to complete the data circuit

Do you have gm global connect access?

edward.coss@gmail.com

Do you have gm global connect access?

edward.coss@gmail.com

yes i do

....uuuhh wow....You guys sure know how to take a modern hotrod and step it back inn time 40 years.

Do we have an update on this car? How is it functioning? What was done in the ecu to allow for the car to start up etc. How about a speed signal to the speedometer, is the speedo working or no? I have a turbo400 in my G8 right now, but we havent dug into the getting the car to run yet. So any tips would be great.

you must have crazy room in the tunnel
with that big ass tranny gone now.

now if only we can get your 6 speed auto
to work with out all the computer stuff.

That tranny weighs around 220 lbs. the turbo400 is like 120 with all of the lightened internals.

yes, there is definately a ton of room in their now and the cross member from the 6l80 works with the 400.

So far everything is working good. The set-up is in my signature. Havent tried the LS3 file yet but in theory it should work. The speedo still works cuz it gets the signal from the wheel speed sensors when the sensor in the factoy trans went missing. Just delete out all the trans codes it sets in the tune. So far so good. Got about 4000 miles on it and 15+ bottles ran through it. :D

Im running a Coan turbo 400 with a ford 9" 3.70 gear and a trans brake. Is your car braked? How is the car off of the line? I now have an iron blocked LS2 with livernois stage 3R heads and a .700" cam with the twin turbos... With the new 9" going in, i should be able to pound the piss out of this car.

Its terrible off the line. Needs a bigger gear really. Wont be much for the street if i do that though. Right now it runs 3500 rpm @ 65mph. Gonna put a small stage of nitrous on it for off the line then grab the big kit 60ft out. No trans brake.

What are your 60's?

More pics and vids please!!

The best 60ft was a 1.80, most are 1.9x. I suck on computers... ill try to post the video of the 10.95 pass today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzsuJ1zZT5I

This is a no et event. Pick your grudge races in the pits.. figure out who gets the leave and how much and run em. Gave him 3 and the leave on this one. 60ft was 1.85 on this pass. Hoping for low 10's on next years set-up... on the factory 20's :D

This is a no et event. Pick your grudge races in the pits.. figure out who gets the leave and how much and run em. Gave him 3 and the leave on this one. 60ft was 1.85 on this pass. Hoping for low 10's on next years set-up... on the factory 20's :D

So your purposely leaving on the factory wheels, I was gonna say hell you'd make up your time picking up some lighter wheels. The new camaros seem to have gotten a bad rap with the new 5.0 coming out but I knew it'd only be time and the 2010's would be kicking ass all over the place!!

The Turbo 400 is horrible out of the hole on a footbrake, u need a trans brake, especially on a heavy car. The turbo 400 i have is a 2.10 first gear which is so that u can hit the car hard on a brake.

What problems did u have with start up on your car when u just put the turbo 400 in? Turn anything off in ecu before prior to firing it up?

Running the factory wheels to keep the stock look. It is mostly a daily driver... goes to the track once a month. The main prolem i had was after taking out the 6l80E.. i had no neutral safety.. so it wouldnt start not knowing what gear it was in, not to mention the CAN data wires ran to the trans also, which made it not start and a lot of other things wouldnt work either because of the interuption in the data circuit. I removed the control module out of the trans, plugged it in and made a box to hide it in. Works good. Working on getting my own tuning software and over the winter gonna try what jay_lt4 mentioned.

Running the factory wheels to keep the stock look. It is mostly a daily driver... goes to the track once a month. The main prolem i had was after taking out the 6l80E.. i had no neutral safety.. so it wouldnt start not knowing what gear it was in, not to mention the CAN data wires ran to the trans also, which made it not start and a lot of other things wouldnt work either because of the interuption in the data circuit. I removed the control module out of the trans, plugged it in and made a box to hide it in. Works good. Working on getting my own tuning software and over the winter gonna try what jay_lt4 mentioned.

I took the tcm out of the trans also, plugged it in and when u watched the gear indicator on the dash, it wouldnt stay in D, r, N etc, it just jumped around. So what would i have to do next to fire this thing up?

Find the neutral safety switch. Its white with the rod that slides in and out. I found neutral... put a pin in it... found drive and also pinned it. So now it slides back and forth between the two.. neutral to start, drive because neutral only revs to 4000rpm.

Thanks for sharing.

Find the neutral safety switch. Its white with the rod that slides in and out. I found neutral... put a pin in it... found drive and also pinned it. So now it slides back and forth between the two.. neutral to start, drive because neutral only revs to 4000rpm.

So i should have the stock tcm plugged in a mounted somewhere remotely, find neutral, turn off trans settings inside the ecu, and then i wont have to worry about making sure the stock neutral safety switch is in neutral all the time? Cause im gonna buy a hurst quarter stick like u, remove the stock shifter.

jump the can line wires at the tcm connector and flash your ecm with a ls3 file and turn off the starter checks in the ecm

pics?

i love my th400 swap

Nice to see someone else do this. Camaro section has a little more action then the G8 section so figured I would post here. I just did this swap as well: http://ls1tech.com/forums/pontiac-g8-2008-2010/1508324-th400-swap.html

all you had to do was jump the can lines, pin 10 to 14 and 11 to 13 to complete the can data circuit:

I tried that but car still wouldnt start. Plugged the TCM in and it fired right up. I also tried setting the trans type to manual in HPtuners but that didnt work either.

Tried that. Then i ran into problems with the PRNDL. Need park or neutral to start... then need drive for the tune to work... otherwise it would hit the limiter at 5000 RPM instead of the programed 6900 RPM and would run in a limp mode... lower power.. acted like the timing was off. So far moving the PRNDL by hand into drive works till i find a better idea. ????????

You can adjust max RPM in gear via HPTuners. I changed mine to 7k RPM in Park, actually in all gears. Mine was set to 4k RPM in P and R I believe. Theres another table right there to adjust as well, has to do with the timing your talking about.

So far everything is working good. The set-up is in my signature. Havent tried the LS3 file yet but in theory it should work. The speedo still works cuz it gets the signal from the wheel speed sensors when the sensor in the factoy trans went missing. Just delete out all the trans codes it sets in the tune. So far so good. Got about 4000 miles on it and 15+ bottles ran through it. :D

Sweet, my speedo isnt working though. Did you change anything for that to work? I deleted all the codes but one, still getting a P0658 which HPtuners doesnt have the option to block. Odd... I was able to do away with the P0700 code or whatever it threw the first time.

Running the factory wheels to keep the stock look. It is mostly a daily driver... goes to the track once a month. The main prolem i had was after taking out the 6l80E.. i had no neutral safety.. so it wouldnt start not knowing what gear it was in, not to mention the CAN data wires ran to the trans also, which made it not start and a lot of other things wouldnt work either because of the interuption in the data circuit. I removed the control module out of the trans, plugged it in and made a box to hide it in. Works good. Working on getting my own tuning software and over the winter gonna try what jay_lt4 mentioned.

Yepp had to do the same thing. Did you have to leave the shift lever plugged in as well. Right now my car wont allow me to remove the key unless the shifter is plugged in. Figure I would trace the wires and see what signal its looking for then remove it. But curious if you had that problem.

Find the neutral safety switch. Its white with the rod that slides in and out. I found neutral... put a pin in it... found drive and also pinned it. So now it slides back and forth between the two.. neutral to start, drive because neutral only revs to 4000rpm.

Yepp same thing, except I just left mine in Park since I adjusted the RPM for that gear.

i love my th400 swap

Good to hear!

Maybe this section is as slow as the G8 section...

Going to try and start mine up tonight. 6L80E to TH400 SWAP.

Some good info here!

I am just going to ground the orange wire on the TCM connector. That is the neutral safety switch wire. That way it will always start and key will come out.

Yeah I am pretty much fucked on mine. I dont have my original TCM that was in my car and the TCM I got from a buddy that he was using doesnt work because its vin burned. Screw these new Camaro's. I am awaiting hp tuners to send me a manual OS tune. Hopefully that does it along with jumping the can line wires on TCM connector

should have said something to you about this.. i was wondering if you were chagning you ecu..
i think you have to put a manual ecu in the car but im not sure.. i know the guys at RPM can tell you though and save you any more time and headaches.

Okay this info will be a huge help here. HP tuners cannot change the OS to an M6 file for you. Here is how you get around it. We discovered this on accident. Unplug the TCM and jump the can bus wires like stated in this thread. Download the ECM file with that done. Once that is done download the tune back in the car. What that does is deletes the TCM from the ECM. You will not have a gear indicator on your information center anymore once this is done and the car should start up and run just fine. I jumped the purple and black wires on the shifter connecter in the center console to key the key out without factory shifter as well.