Early Version 4l80E
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
you might be better off getting a late model one in good shape, and save the cost to try to upgrade an older unit.
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







