qwk93ta

iTrader: (13)

I feel for you....good luck!

w3s1c0a5t

iTrader: (3)

That sucks. For sure keep this thread updated. Im still considering swapping away from the 4l60e.

CarsandWomen

iTrader: (19)

me too but this is where im at:

$875 - Brand new Circle D stage 2 2c converter
$1600 - Brand new Performabuilt lvl 2 4l60e
$505 - First trans repair ( i pulled it myself and took it to Circle D for repair)
estimate on new reapirs, Circle D pulling and reinstalling, is MINIMUM $1000 so far

this will be the first time somebody other than me has worked on this car in the 3 years ive owned it, ive r&r'ed the tranny 3 times in the last 6 months in my tiny 1 car garage

Glen told me yesterday afternoon it acts like the 1st gear input drum, something with the 1 gear clutch pack, or something with the case itself is broke. I told him to go ahead and pull it, open it up, and well go from there.

gotta love how this is all brand new hardware that is supposed to handle 700whp, but is pukeing its guts out with 137,000 mile bolt-ons ls1.

performabuilt

iTrader: (25)

I am sorry to see your having problems. However it is odd to loose the input sprag and then shortly after somthing in the rear low reverse. And its unfortunate it was out of warranty. I do wish you had chosen to go the route of the restore as while there may or may not have been a second failure it would have been covered under warranty at least that way. Its and unusual situation but things do break sometimes oddley like that. At any rate again let me know what you find broken.
Frank

CarsandWomen

iTrader: (19)

i didnt have a long time to talk but this time its been the planitary sets, the Front Planitary Drum and stripped some set of splines out of the rear planitary set?? ill get more details later today......

^^^ Frank, this is my daily driver, i simply cant afford to pull it myself and send it to you for a 2 week round trip. Obviously i wish i had now but i never expected it go again 3 days later.

biggest problem is now im getting disheartned, very broke, and feel like im getting fucked six ways from sunday

usmc320

iTrader: (3)

That's why I don't trust the 4L60E, even built ones. Why spend money building up a weak transmission to make it less weak? Sure, some people seem to get away with it, but too many people still break the built ones.

OP - Maybe you can find a good used takeout transmission for cheap to get the car going again. Then you could save up for an 80 swap. Good luck with everything.

TurdsOfMayhem

iTrader: (4)

Parts to fail unexpectedly. My uncle on here had LMR rebuild his tranny, and some little band broke that put him out of business for a little bit. Always unfortunate for sure.

w3s1c0a5t

iTrader: (3)

Dude this sucks. Has circle d verified that you actually got the trans you payed for?

I completely agree on a trans suppose to hold a lot and it cant deal with your 330rw car.

performabuilt

iTrader: (25)

Unfortunatley parts do fail on occasion reguardless of HP just like sometimes transmissions go bad in new cars and low milage that are stock its unfortunate but it happens. We do already have the longest warranty in the business I am not sure how much more we can do beyond that. We have a very low failure rate which is why we can offer a warranty so long. And we have cars some several years out in the 9s 10s with no issues. Fact is though sometimes things break and unfortunatley sometimes out of warranty which is why we have the $950 dollar restore which includes shipping each way and gives a whole new warranty (shipping-parts-labor-warranty) to me at least thats a good deal.
I do however find it fustrating when something does break when some people come in and say "are you sure it has what its suposed to in it?" etc . Answer without doubt is yes it does. We have well over 2000 units out there at this time and most in high HP cars and trucks but just as with anything the largest majority will have great service but there will be some here and there that will fail for one reason or another reguardless of power its the nature of all things man made and mechanical no matter who builds it or what parts are used. When it is in warranty we fix it no questions ask. I do feel bad for the OP however I also feel that we did all we could do and offered all we could without simply throwing the warranty limitations out the door which if we did one we would have to do for all. Meaning everyone would get a unlimited forever warranty which no business can do. Hopefully the OP will get it all worked out and solved and I am sure Circle D will do the best they can they are a good company.
Frank at PerformaBuilt

PS. I would suggest to the OP carefully looking over the rear end. Particulary if there was a jerk at either failure or both. The types of failures you are having i have noted are generally associated with ,
Rear end failure(spider gears etc) (spinning on gravel or pavment and suddenly catching traction)(spinning in water and suddenly catching traction) But by far most comonly when i have seen a roller sprag accompanied with other failed hard parts the rear end turned out to be the issue when all was said and done. Just a suggestion.

w3s1c0a5t

iTrader: (3)

Was not trying to be insulting. When i have called you guys even tho i have not spent any money you guys have helped. But tearing up a trans like this with out an real power behind the car... Its just hard to swallow.

Again this was not an attack. As I said earlier im just on the fence about building a 4l60e and these are the things that worry me. They just seem to be more "hit n miss" then they should imo (which is worth what you payed).

LS1 Sounds

iTrader: (11)

I am also suspicious that other factors may be coming into play here, and think that looking into other potential problem areas (rear) is excellent advice. Even a stock 4L60E shouldn't fail at this power level. I have bolt-ons, 315 DRs, some suspension work, a Yank PT4000 and 24k cooler on an otherwise stock trans. I beat on it regularly and haven't had a problem (knock on wood). Currently at 50k miles...

Good luck solving the problem(s)!

performabuilt

iTrader: (25)

I actually disagree on the hit and miss heres why. On this forum alone there are literally 1000s of 4l60e car owners, And a pretty good portion of them do have built 4l60e units many from us many from other vendors here. On average you see something like this once a week or so where a built unit some really high powered others not fail. But you have to look at the bigger picture there are 1000s out there and Unless I am mistaken most Fbodies have the 4l60e as oposed to the 6 speed. So really at least from what I have seen watching over the past few years here the vast majority do have good service out of the 4l60e reguardless of what vendor they got it from. This is its easy to miss the numbers fact when each week you come on and someone somehwere has lost there 60e. But remember there are 1000s that didnt at the same time.
I have also noted that on occasion and 80e post as a fail but when you think about that even if only one person every two or three months posted and 80e as a failure that would still be a higher ratio than the 60e since on the board though i have no way to verify this there is probably only about 1 4l80e to ever 1000 4l60e trans in f bodies.
Point is that wether its us or one of the other vendors if the failure rate was that high we simply could not stay in business. This is I assure you is not a high profit business at all. In fact one failure during warranty can cost you the profit of 4-5 units in a single blow/
I would imagine if there was indeed someway to get every person whos doing well with there 60e built or not to post at once and all the persons who had bad luck with them you would have a hard time digging out the bad ones from the crowd. But people dont make post about there car part that didnt break.
But at the same time these are performance cars and that too has to be kept in mind. One guy can indeed have 700rwhp and not break his and another at 300 but alot of things come into play. How you drive and what the cars used for. Stall size, rear ratio, weight, type of power adders.

Just some observations I have made not to say it makes it suck any less when its yours that failed. I raced and have had performance cars most of my life and I understand the pain of repairs but that its also part of the hobby.

BubaGumpShrimp

iTrader: (1)

[QUOTE=CarsandWomen;12474811]Me and transmissions have never agreed with each other, im 23 right now and i think this is like the 6th or 7th time ive had a major trans failure, 3 of those times smoked the whole thing.

Combo is a full bolt-ons minus LT's 98 ls1 camaro, mild weight reduction.
Performabuilt lvl 2 with like 3500 miles on it
Circle D stage 2 2C installed with trans
3.42 gear
Frost Tune
stock rubber trans mount

I would really question this and what has been done to the tune in the trans tables, did he rasie line pressures,mess with shift times,lock up speeds, or any other tables. Messing with thoes tables and an already tweaked/built trans= NFG... just a thought and something you should look into what was done to the tuning .

performabuilt

iTrader: (25)

I would agree that presures, lockup timing etc should be looked at but also bear in mind that his multiple failures have been across several vehicles and transmission types not in this particular car or particular type trans.

CarsandWomen

iTrader: (19)

A. as evidenced by ls1tech alone Frost is a VERY expirened tuner and knew it was a performabuilt lvl 2
B. regardless of tune half the power the tranny is supposed to handle tells me a lot about why its breaking. in a full weight f body this trans potentially should go basement 10's, ive yet to get out of the 12s.
C. Performabuilt makes no formal recomendations on tune
D. ive checked out the rear end recently ( im selling it soon, i checked it to make sure i dont sell off a POS ) and saw no problems. i rebuild axles for side money and have never had a single failure in prob over a 100 so far so im pretty sure its ok.

based on failures we decided it was the Sonnax Super Servo that has been causeing problems along with band slipping. were replaced with with factory band and 'vette servo, Circle D had several reccomendations with upgrades to keep the sonnax servo but this has sucked me dry money wise so i down graded to stop failures for more than a week, canarge pics coming now.

CarsandWomen

iTrader: (19)

broken planitary frame

^^^cracked all the way accross

here you can see evidence of the band slipping (dark marks casued by heat, band was only making contact on outside edges) , caused by the drum being worn in the middle by the original oem narrower band, this drum was not or was mistakenly checked for strait/flattness

^^^the splines are also completely stripped out of the planitary set

this is the original cause, when this went it wiped out the planitary:




when the piece in the last three pics went, it expanded inside the planitary set. the planitary cracked and expanded till there was enough room and the splines disintagrated. its doesnt show in the pics but you can see evidence of this expansion in the crack.

Frank what are your thoughts on this? I dont believe this was a mistake in assembly, likewise I dont think there where any problems with these parts when it was built, if there where i dont think there was anyway to see them. I think this particular failure started and finished since ive owned it, we think it was caused by a too aggressive shift but im definately interested in other opinions

performabuilt

iTrader: (25)

Well its possible that the shifts are to firm but I doubt its due to the servos as we use that servo set up on all our level 2 and 3 builds and we have literally 1000s of those units out there and many many level 2 units in the 10s and level 3 in the 9s. While the changing the billet servo out for the corvette may soften the shift some it should not shift so hard as to cause that type of break anyway particularly with a high stall converter. We set the presure at a max of 220 PSI on the dyno also so that should not be and issue either (Unless something has happened with the PCS or PRESURE REGULATOR VALVE) Both of these should be checked. Now based on the fact that it was driven for sometime without anything failing I would still suspect something has changed recently. Perhaps a sensor TPS range, MAF maybe or PCS issue . Of of course it also could be a simple case of one failed part lead to all the issues.

I see where the band was slipping however I would assume this is since the last tear down since I am sure Circle d would have noted that in the first tear down. i imagine that happened during this last failure probably when the planet locked up due to the failure.
I would sugest checking the max line on reassembly making sure something is not happening there, I would also suggest checking the TPS range and MAF readings along with making sure lockup is not occuring during any shift.

I do not think the failures are related to either build either by us or circle d as far as any assembly error. Barring the stuff I mentioned above I would have to go with the original failure resulted in the additional failures or is related. I will say however thought I am not doubting that you have checked the rear that these types of failures do indeed look like the type you see with a rear end failure or if a trans converter is locked during a shift. In fact this level and type of damage has almost always been traced to some issue with the rear end at least that I have seen over the years. Also if the shifts for instance at part throttle as excessivly harsh I would look at the PCS current and see wheat its doing. While max line is desirable at WOT it can cause excessive stress on parts if it at or near there at all times again back to TPS and MAF readings.

Our general proceeedure when we find a failure of this type in a warranty unit is to have the customer check over all the mentioned thngs and we also will ussually trash all the hard parts except the case just to be on the safe side. Since that type of damage is something we rarley see we always assume that everything has been weakened

As for tuning with our units we only suggest
1-Leave the line presure settings at stock
2-make sure the converter is not locked during any shift.
3-Suggest lockup in 4th only above 45 mph

I think these suggestions are pretty much standard accross all the builders here as far as I know.

I have not see carnage at this level often at all so I am curious as to what could have leveled that much impact. Unfortunatley unless it happens again and I hope it does not It may be something that cannot be determined.

Frank

CarsandWomen

iTrader: (19)

converter is locking in 3rd and 4th, locks around 40mph and will stay locked coasting down to about 35mph. Dont think it was locked for this as i was going about 25 to 30mph but i could be wrong, it happened on a downshift to 1st gear, it got in gear and pulled strong for a split second then crunch and lost all power.
cant check anything in the tranny itself, i got it back Friday evening and everything is good so far.
I can ask Frost for my tune file, i dunno anything about tuning, can that file be posted up here? when he tuned it i specifically asked the line pressures be left stock

im going to try and drive it as much as possible over the next week, im making a 500 mile trip next weekend, i wanna get this stuff checked out before then.

Frost

iTrader: (45)

All of these are good...

1. it's stock
2. I NEVER allow this
3. Lockup points are near OEM. Once the stall passes mid 3Ks I tend to hold off lockup until 4th all together.


Here is screen shot that shows the relevant trans bits. You can see the pressure table is stock, only the commanded times are lower at higher loads, but they are still higher than OE values from the 01-02 cars. You can see the lockup tables for the TCC.



With this said, it brings up another issue with 98s... You can take a bolt ons car, develop a shift profile that works great, copy it to another car and have it shift sloppy. The next car you copy it to will shift brutally at part throttle. When tuning 98s with built trans in person, I have commonly LOWERED the part-throttle pressure profile to help curtail shifting that is unnecessarily harsh. I have maybe had to do this on one later model car, but for 98s I have done it enough to know going in that it is always a possibility.

Jeff, when you get it back together, if it feels harsh at part to moderate throttle, let me know. We can change it at light-load conditions very easily if it's slamming around.

CarsandWomen

iTrader: (19)

its already back together, its much calmer now but still firm. honestly i dont like it, i love a good hammer shift, but im grabbing at straws to get it to stay in one piece.