I picked up a 4l80E out of A 93 2500 for short change. Looking @ freeshening it up and installing a transgo manual vlave body and A 4k stall. I have read post about the earlier versions no being as good as the later versions. What will I need to do to bring this earlier version up to the later version standards. BTW it's going behind A 346 Cam only G5X2 and A direct port in A 69 Camaro. Thanks in advance. Larry

 

Larry,

It depends on how much updating you want to do... The early units had failure prone shift selonoids (from what i gather from other builders the filters became clogged easily) and the early wiring harness/plug was failure prone. There are retrofit kits available for the harness and the selonoids. Ive never had to update the electronics since Ive only built a half dozen or so 80Es that were 95 and newer (94-up had the updated electricals).

If youre going for durability mods then updating the unit with later 85E hard parts is a bolt in deal which the ATSG manual talks about in the last few pages of the book. If you dont have an ATSG manual they can be had for a few bucks on fleebay and its worth the read unless youre not interested in tearing into the trans yourself.

There is a ton of info out there on the below listed forums about the 80E that are worth reading (IMO) and should answer about any question you could come up with....youll just have to do a little searching and wading through some worthless posts.

http://www.performancetrucks.net/for...splay.php?f=22
http://www.syty.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=33
http://fullsizechevy.com/forums/

HTH

 

the biggest thing between the early and late is the case/valve body. you will notice on the late model case the cooler line goes straight into the rear of the case. this is done because under heavy loads in overdrive (uphill w/ a trailer) trucks would have reduced lube to the rear of the transmission. That is why you are supposed to leave them out of o/d when towing. the other major change is the lug in the case for the o/d clutches is a 3/8 ish size dowel that is pressed in the case. In the early's they use a pressure plate with one longer lug. In my suburban with a trailer that lug was tweek and bent, yes the pressure plate was bent! And finally a late model has the extra hole for the ls series of motors require. As far as what you need you will be fine with that set up, not optimal but... heck the trans is nothing more than a turbo 400 with an od. as long as it is built properly it will definetly hold up.

 

the early model had a weak input shaft and other internal parts that went from cast iron to steel and also had changes to the valve body
you might be better off getting a late model one in good shape, and save the cost to try to upgrade an older unit.

 

I didnt think about this before but this tranny is A Jasper rebuild, is it possible this is a later version? Besides the trans lines is it possible to tell the diffrence in the later vs earlier version possibly by part number?

 

The early version the cooler lines were both near the front much like the 4l60e , The late version one of the lines is near the middle back of the transmission ,
However the early one is still a pretty strong unit the addition of a transgo shift kit for it and unless your planning on making WOW! power lol it should serve you fine ,
Performabuilt