I don’t believe any recent threads have touched on this lately, has anyone done this conversion yet? I’m knocking on 9’s in my M6 procharged Camaro and want to auto swap when I finally get that single digit pass. It seems like a blower car would really shine if rpm’s between shifts could be kept between 6k-7500. I know th400 or 4l80’s are the transmission’s of choice for a reason but a 10 speed swap would be super freaking cool.

 

I'd like to bump this thread. Anyone swap one in yet?

 

im on here and fb a lot and havent seen any , ive only seen a handful of older cars with it done .

 

Chrs1313 has been working on it. Follow him on his FB page.

 

There's another guy on the 3rd gen forums attempting to swap a 10 speed into his whip. He's got a whole lot of work to do but he sounds fairly confident it's gonna work

 

I'm not sure that's the best idea. Ford is facing a class action lawsuit over that transmission and it's the same as the GM version or very similar.

 

I thought that was the 8 speed transmission.

 

Yea pretty sure it's the 8 speed too. There's a thread floating around here on it

 

Yep. That would be the 8-speed. I posted that thread a while ago:

GM must face big class action over faulty transmissions

Even still, I wouldn't want to swap a 10-speed into anything either. Not worth it when the 4L80E is such a proven and durable unit, and with an OD + lockup + optimized stall speed I just don't see any real advantage to 6 more gears.

 

Haha yea that's the thread!! Funny I just watched this $5000 grudge race between a 6th gen ZL1 with a built 416 with a ported 2650 blower, built 10 speed and a 2002 camaro with an SBE LS1 with nitrous and 4l80e. The 2002 Camaro was here, there and gone before that 6th gen had a chance. I don't even think I've seen guys in Vegas lose money that fast

That's the entire reason I built a 4l80e for my car. It's just proven. Over and over again

 

There's a lot more to getting to the finish line first than just the transmission. I think, in general, the 4th gen is going to get there before a 6th gen. The 4th gen is just better suited for straight line racing than a 6th gen. The straight axel, lower drag, and lighter weight give the 4th gen a good advantage.

Either way, I think the 4L80 gearing is not ideal for anything. The 6L, 8L, 10L etc. transmissions have better gearing to get you moving. Without a transbrake and lots of boost, the 4L80 is a dog off the line. It's only a popular swap for most 4th gens because it used to be the only option. Now that there are companies making swap parts for the 6L, 8L, etc, transmissions, I think you are going to see fewer 4L80s. The cost of a 6L80 swap is much higher, so that might deter some people from doing it.

 

Definitely a difference of opinion here. It's still proven itself over and over again. Transmission in ANYTHING isn't what's gonna win for it you it's the whole package that's gonna do it for you

 

I'm not sure about the 10-speeds, but there are ways to swap in 6L and 8L transmissions. I recommend calling Zero Gravity. They have controllers for the 6L and 8L transmissions. Maybe they are working on one for the 10L.

 

If your 4L80E is a "dog off the line" without a T-brake and tons of boost, then you may have the wrong axle ratio and definitely the wrong stall speed (or poor quality converter) for the application. Remember, the TH400 has been an extremely popular and successful automatic drag racing transmission for decades, and it uses the same 1st gear ratio and 1-2 gear spacing as the 4L80E. The advantage to the 4L80E (over TH400) for a street car is the integrated OD (unlike having to use a GearVendors for TH400) and lockup converter. Optimize your stall speed (with a quality converter), select an axle ratio around 3.42-3.73, and the 2.48 1st gear of a 4L80E won't be holding you back by anything significant compared to a 3.06 1st gear 4L60E. If it's still a "dog" at launch, then you likely don't make enough power to need anything more than a well built 4L60E in the first place.

If you ARE making enough power to need a 4L80E in the first place, then I see no reason to need the super aggressive 1st gear ratio found in most modern multi-speed autos, unless you have a very (numerically) low axle ratio in a very heavy vehicle. I guess if you really want to cruise along at very high speed for long distances in OD at ~1000rpm, then maybe you're better off with a very (numerically) low axle ratio, multiple OD ratios, and a very aggressive 1st gear, but I'd still rather have the proven durability and simplicity of the 4L80E - even with only one OD gear. But I don't do coast-to-coast road trips with any of my toys, so the difference in MPG is irrelevant to me. I guess the other exception (or advantage to the multi-speed modern autos) might be 1/2 to 1 mile racing or anything else that requires a very high top speed capability.

 

Big power drag racers don't need the extra gearing, they do just fine with a cheapo built TH400 or 4L80E.

For the road racers, an automatic is not that attractive...most just use T56s or other manuals.

For the daily drivers/fun street cars (where you often seen autos and where more gears would be useful) price comes into factor. 4 speed autos and T56s are much cheaper and easier to find than the 6 speed autos, and much easier to adapt both physically and electronically

 

The A8 issues stem from the factory tuning more than anything. With a proper tune( I have tuned several) they work great. The point of a multi-gear automatic is the ability to have tight shift extension(<1000rpm) with a tight converter(<2400rpm). This improves fuel mileage and driveability. It also transfers more power to the rear wheels and improves towing. To have tight shift extension with a 4 speed auto you need a high stall converter. That makes the part throttle softer and requires more RPM to get moving. Not to mention the loss of efficiency. For a drag application only this swap probably isn't worth it. For a all around street/strip car it could be very worth it. I personally wouldn't mind swapping a A8/10 into my 2000 GMC Yukon someday.

 

I think the A6-A10 MPG argument is moot when it comes to a 4th gen used as a toy, even if used for the occasional road trip; it's not going to be a massive difference (especially once cruising in lockup) and won't amount to much savings unless the car is driven a ton. A quality converter will be efficient and feel reasonably tight around town even at ~4000rpm stall speed as long as axle ratio is in the 3.23-3.73 range, even with a 4L80E. MPG and converter tightness are no reason to give up the simplicity and proven durability of the 4L80E (if planning to swap away from a 4L60E in the first place), IMO. The biggest advantage that I can see to considering an A6-A10 swap in a toy is, again, higher top speed potential due to the ability to use a very numerically low axle ratio while taking advantage of the very aggressive 1st gear ratio to get moving. Beyond that, give me a well built 4L60E or upgrade to a 4L80E (when needed) any day over the A6-A10 swap.

 

I have a .323 rear gear, and the 4L80 had a Circel-D 3200 stall converter. It was a good converter for street cruising. Overall, it was slow off the line, and turned a lot of rpm's on the highway. The 6L80 is much better for my driving style. It gets me off the line much quicker, and dropped about 500 rpm's on the highway. I do have heads/cam/intake/exhaust upgrades, so the 4L60 would have been struggling to survive.

For a drag-only car, then I would agree with what you said above. For a mostly street driven car, like most of us do, then I think the 6L-10L transmissions are better suited.

 

Looking at the heads/cam specs in your sig, that's definitely not a max effort setup by any means. No need for a 4L80E in that application. Also no need for the complications of swapping to an A6-A10. There are several builders who could put together a perfectly fine 4L60E that would live for many, many years behind that setup (especially if it's primarily a street car).

3.23 + 25.66" tire diameter + a lockup TC of any stall speed should cruise around ~2200rpm @70mph with a 4L80E; I wouldn't personally consider that to be "a lot" of rpm. 3200rpm stall speed isn't "ideal" even for a stock LS1 cam, and I definitely wouldn't recommend it for your setup even if you still had the 4L60E with a more aggressive 1st gear (with the 4L80E it's obviously worse). I'd consider 3800-4000 to be the minimum for that cam, with 4200-4400 being more ideal. Not sure how you personally define "slow off the line", but more converter should have gotten that setup into the 1.6x range (at least) on a good tire without the need for another trans swap, and if it was a top quality converter you'd barely notice the difference at anything other than WOT. With that said, I would have never recommended a 4L80E swap for that application in the first place.

So in this case, it was just a mismatched setup IMO.

For a drag only car, I'd skip right past any of the OD transmissions mentioned in this thread and jump right to a TH400 (or Powerglide, depending on the setup). The whole point to a 4L80E is to have the durability and benefits of a TH400 while still having an OD and TCC for street driving. I would not pick nor recommend a 4L80E for a dedicated drag car.

 

Oh, I agree. It sucked. I just didn't know any better at the time. I hope other people will read this and avoid the same mistake(s) I made. If I could do it over again, I would just get headers and a 3k stall for the 4L60. I would have left everything else stock. It wouldn't be fast, but it would be fun. It would have saved me lots of $$$ too.

I have spent way too much $$$$ on this car. The 6L80 sure is fun though. I wish the 6L80 was an option when I did the 4L80 swap. I probably wouldn't have done the heads/cam. I just heard way too many stories of the 4L60 coming apart to leave it in there. I wanted to make the car more reliable, so I got the 4L80. I didn't know it was gonna make the car slower. oh well. lesson learned.

When I say slow off the line, I mean 2008-ish Mustangs got 1-2 car lengths on me before I ran them down. I usually caught up to them around the 1/8 mile, and won by 1-2 car lengths. My best 60' was a 1.9 sec. That was with amazing DA, 40 degree air temps, and really good track prep. My typical 60' with the 4L80 was about 2.2 sec. I haven't had the car on the track since the 6L80 swap, but I can tell it is much quicker. It only drops about 1k rpms or less between shifts. The 4L80 dropped way more than that.