Sometimes I just have to laugh at New Transmission Products!
Today I have been laughing at Sonnax.

Sonnax has offered a 4L60e Family Input-Shaft/ Overrun Support Collar (Steel Sleeve and corresponding Overrun Apply-Piston) for quite some time now.

However... even when installed correctly (including supporting the Input-Drum properly on the Press) Input-Drum failures (Fracturing/ Cracking) still occur.
I will say that the Input-Drum no longer fails in the Location where the Support Collar is installed...
But they do fail above or below the Support Collar with enough Torque.

Sonnax now offers a Second Support Collar (Forward Sleeve) to be used in conjunction with their Overrun Sleeve.
At this point, I would rather just have new Drums made up a superior Alloy!

I am guessing that this is their subtle attempt at admitting that their Overrun Sleeve is not much of a Solution for Drum Fracturing.
It is not really a solution if the Drum still fails... just not in the one location where the Overrun Sleeve is installed.

HA HA HA!!!

 

Been saying this for years in multiple posts on this forum. My comments were quite often met with disagreement or disbelief.
I do not like the collar at all and believe it causes more harm than good for the DIY guy

 

wait a min....let me post some other tom foolery .....

 

I have used a few of those Sonnax sleeves. I will say I have never seen the bub spline area split or broken. I have had the drum shatter in different locations this is one of them. It is from a 2005 GMC Envoy 4.2L. It made it 18 months on a 12 month unlimited mileage warranty. Older/retired customer stated he was merging into traffic. He stated it shifted to 3rd about 65mph and he heard a pop/bang. He limped home and said it would not back up. The other two the lower hub broke at the very bottom where the 3rd piston fits into the drum. Both of these were stock trucks, 1 was a 1998 5.7L and the other was a 2002 5.3L. Both customers said that they had started the truck cold and put it into reverse to back up and heard a bang/pop and it would not move after that.

 

do you press your input shafts in/out on each build?
I've seen more of these types of failures after improper press methods. Not throwing any shade, just a learning opportunity for everyone here.

Otherwise...fluke failures happen and I don't see the sonnax sleeves being any sort of real fix for this issue

 

I agree with You and Vorteciroc, I don't see a real use for these Sonnax part's, I do use my share of Sonnax OS P/R valves, o-ringed end plugs and abuse bore plugs.

I do press them in and out. I use green loc-tite to reassemble them. When pressing out I support the aluminum drum with a #73 selective and a 4L60E converter hub I bought off of eBay. To press it in I support the drum with a stack of three bushing drivers. Improper pressing doesn't fly on the 2 OE drums that were in service when they broke. I ground the broken flange down and I use them as a stator bushing checking tool.

 

I have never Pressed a Sonnax Input-Shaft into the Input Drum...
I normally purchase the Assembly (Drum and Input-Shaft).

Do they provide any instructions on how to properly support the Input Drum while the Input-Shaft is being installed or removed.

The way in which I see others installing the Input-Shafts, just causes unnecessary stresses on the Aluminum Drum...
Usually later resulting in a Drum Failure.

We should share the information that supporting in or around the Splined area,is ideal...
And not on either outer most surface/ side of the Drum.

 

Long story short,
A few years ago I looked at having a new input drum made. Most are aware I'm not a fan of the 4L60 series trans. The power flow isn't ideal even if all the hard parts were not an issue.
I've said it a few hundred times but nobody has ever addressed the real issue with these units living at moderate to high power levels. That being the 3-4 clutch pack. It will always be limited. The biggest issue I see is the small piston area.
I was looking at making a new drum to help solve this.
By not having the undercut from the reverse input spline portion of the input drum, I think we could have increased the O.D. of the apply piston 3/8-7/16" which is fairly significant percentage wise.

We were actually looking at making this an aluminum forging instead of a casting.

Several issues. One being production cost. We would have needed to make 1000 pcs to be feasible.
Second, an improved drum similar to Sonnax or 4L79 with the end being more secure is patented. No point making a new drum and not doing something here.

I spoke with several big players in the industry to see if anyone wanted to partner up, and nobody was willing.
A couple said that everyone talks big until it's time to spend the money. Then they want stock parts.

 

I hear ya!


Thank you.

 

Just a thought, with the aftermarket Holley Terminator systems or carb setup isn't it more feasible to run a different transmission than to throw a boat load of money at a 4L60E?

 

Yes in some cases. Some cars aren't feasible to swap.
Terminator Max will run a 4L60E fine.

More options coming.
It's not cheap to build anything for big power.

 

"Old man garage" on utube seems to be having good luck with his Malibu/nitrous/700R4 ..... I wonder what his trans is running.....

 

His THM700-R4 has a TCI Fixed Line-Pressure Valve-Body, Billet Input and Output, an okay Torque-Converter, and some other misc. items...

THM700-R4 can be built for a good 1,000+.
However doing so is far from ideal.

ONE
The THM200-4R has a superior Power-Flow compared to the THM700-R4...
The THM200-4R is more similar to the 4L80E in this regard.
I Call it the Baby 4L80E.

TWO
The cost is excessive when a 4L80E can be build for less Money and handle more Power!

 

Yes, they provide instruction. I use a stator shaft I pressed out of a junk pump.

 

i use a reaction shaft to support the drum and I machined a tool to press on the collar.

 

I'd like to inject my .02 here. And I want to say in advance, to the fellas that aren't in agreeance with me, I apologize and mean no disrespect, but we all have our own opinions and do things "our way". SO Don't hold against me what I'm about to say. Now, with that out the way.

I see no point in the collar in question, that this thread is about....HOWEVER, no one will ever convince me that the original collar does not help. I had a truck that split the hub right there, no collar. I knew better, but didn't put it (my vehicle so it didn't matter). Well i pulled it apart, put another drum but then did the collar. Never happened again. Matter of fact, I've installed DOZENS of those collars on anything modified (or if they tow) including several 9 and 10 second cars.....NOT ONE failure at that point nor any other point in the drum. It'll twist and/or split the reaction shaft before I've had an issue with an input drum.....which I've not had. I do not set my units to shift hard and I do not eliminate torque management. I've preached this time and time again, its EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to not turn torque management off. I DO NOT block and accumulators or install super stiff springs. If you make the thing shift hard its going to break ****.

In conclusion, I've seen at least more than have a dozen split hubs in drums with no reinforcement ring installed and NOT ONE failure with them installed. I'll continue to install them until I see a reason not to. I 110% believe without a doubt that if I didn't have one in my GTO trans, I would have split it long ago. Also, Mason at 4L79 includes the kit with his drum and so does sonnax..... I feel like both of those comapanies know more than i do..... and with what i've seen personally.... I'm pretty sure they are correct.

 

If you decided not to put a lucky penny in one pan...and that trans died
but then put a lucky penny in every other trans since that one...and they didn't fail
Was it the lucky penny that kept them from failing? or were the pennys just happenstance?

Sonnax HAS to put the collar in stuff they sell.
They can't in good faith sell the product and say it corrects an issue...then sell a drum without that issue corrected can they? Talk about putting your foot in your mouth.

Mason is basically in the same boat. It doesn't hurt anything. And he sells a high hp/premium product. It's worth it for him to install it just to not have to hear about it from a customer, or moreso that he doesn't risk a customer trying to do it themselves and butchering the install which would ruin his nice drum.

But sonnax coming out with another collar basically confirms what I've been saying for a while. Installing the collar is OK if done right...but it doesn't fix any problem. It just moves it. If that wasn't the case...why even make this collar.
And think about this 2nd collar...what area is it supporting? it's way wider and thicker. And it's not supporting a splined area really. It's supporting the smooth press area for the oiling holes. Why would you need to support that area? Can't make an argument in that area that the splines will somehow twist and create an expanding force on the drum that will spread it apart and cause it to break. It's just an oil hole press area.

I think these sleeves are hooey

To be clear again...I don't have anything against someone installing the collar if they want to. It doesn't HURT anything (except a negligible amount of overrun hydraulic area)
But I don't want to preach across this forum or any other that its a NECESSARY part for any high HP build...that's all I want to let people know.
I have many out there in full size trucks, camaros, TBSS, etc running 450,550 up to 700+ hp with non sleeved drums...and i'm not spitting drums out left and right.
I don't think this is a HP issue. I've seen stock stuff break the drums in about every feasible way. Transman's post in #4 is a good example. Here's another example.

 

Well obviously the sleeve will not prevent that problem. I've never seen that problem. I've only built maybe 100 or so units in the past 23-24 years I've been building them. I suspect there are inferior or defective castings running around and thats a FAR less occurrence than a hub splitting. If there was a way to go back in time and put a sleeve in my drum that split in my truck, I'd bet my whole months salary that the hub would not have failed and it would not have pushed the issue elsewhere, it was a stock 5.3 with a 212/218 cam and bolt ons. That truck is still going and that was back in 2015-2016 when that happened. No matter what anyone says, I'll never be convinced that the ring does not bring more reliability. Please explain to me, how I could have prevented the hub from splitting without the ring, I'm curious. Its a thin, splined aluminum hub. You push it past its torque capacity, it will split. The ring will not allow it to split. I agree that it may move the problem to the next weakest area..... but what if that area is stronger than the hub? And that area happens to be stronger than the torque being applied to it....well then it'll be fine. But if you do nothing, chances are, it's likely to split. I wish I had deep enough pockets where i could buy another drum, pull my trans and install it and then break it with making no changes to the car or tune. I don't know if these people are taking it easy on these transmissions with no reinforcement, but I don't take it easy and i know I'll split that thing in short order like a hard taco shell.

I've mentioned this one car before, it weighed 4000lbs with driver and ran 9.xx and left sometimes on the back bumper. The car was one of the most violent leaving cars i've ever seen. he had like a 300 shot direct port kit on the car with a big stroker motor. He ran the car at he track pretty much every weekend. We'd get about 8-9 months of hard abuse out of it until it broke something. He broke almost every part in that trans except the sonnax smart tech input drum. Of course it had a ring in it. I was alot less experienced and informed (bout 8-10 years ago) and he had disabled the torque management. Had he left some in, it may have survived even longer.

Also I took advice posted on here about the 4 pinion vs 5 pinion planets. Because of that advice, I chose to skip 5 pinion planets in a hipo build a while back, the guy I was building it for is a friend of mine. He asked if his trans came with 5 pinon planets in it. I said no. He said well go ahead and order them. I told him they werent needed. The reason is because we had a big discussion on here about it and a couple trusted, experienced members claimed the 4 pinions were stronger. He even asked if i was sure, and almost insisted i put them anyone. Well I ended up looking like a damn idiot because he shattered the 4 pinion planet in it. I felt like a ******* jackass let me tell you. I almost felt like it was a sick joke on me. Well I ended up giving the guy his money back for everything. Lost my *** badly on that, because I let myself get convinced of something i knew better. I knew better than that. I had far more 4's fail than 5's. I should have let that be a hint, because I knew better beforehand. I'm sure I'm pissing in some peoples cherios, but truth is truth. Whoever is reading this, if you want to skip the reinforcement ring and use 4 pinion planets on your 500+hp build, do at your own risk. Me, I'm gonna add the extra insurance and piece of mind....because I know for a fact, from experience, that they add strength.
If said this before and I'll say it again..... every major High end builder uses 5 pinion planets in their top tier builds. I'd think if the 4's were stronger, they would explain that to the customer and use those. Including RPM transmission which is touted as being one of the best in the country. If anyone on here knows better than them, why don't you own a shop thats highly regarded as they are? Seems like you could put them out of business...no?

 

not peeing in anyone's cheerios
I think I mentioned a bunch of times the ring won't hurt anything. If it makes you feel better or you're confident in it, go for it!
I don't feel better with it and I'm not confident in it...so I don't. But I won't knock anybody that does.

You seem to maybe occasionally have bad luck! And it seems you like to take single instances and apply them broadly as truth.
We've all had drums break if we've been doing it long enough. We've all had planets break. And reaction shafts. And sun shells. Etc Etc.
We've also had 4 pinions live for a long time at high hp. and drums without sleeves live as well.
And I've taken broken drums or planets. From other builder's units, or my own, replace them with an unsleeved drum or 4 pinion planets, and that thing goes out and lives for years.


Look critically at the drum. If it was a tq issue, do you believe splitting the drum would be more likely, or stripping the shallow aluminum spline?
I have no intention of arguing, from your posts you seem to build nice stuff that lasts! So there's no need for any frustration, I would just entertain a friendly discussion about the way you think these break

I'll come back to you in a few days with spline data. Because if memory serves I believe the spline diameter on the 60e is quite similar to what aftermarket aluminum drum th400 input setups use. And I've put 2500+ hp through those type setups. So it's hard for me to believe the spline or press area is as weak as what's being discussed in reference to the sleeve.

 

I was hoping I didn’t come off as being a jerk. You know, typing stuff on the internet can’t really convey demeanor. Lol.

min the instance of aftermarket aluminum drums, they might be billet? Or a stronger, better type than the sometimes bad factory casting we get?

o yea…sometimes I do seem to have some bad Luck. Lol