gametech

iTrader: (1)

I'm bored, so I will pile onto this pissing match. No matter how good you build the internals of a 4l60, at some point the tailshaft will rip loose from the rest of the trans. My neighbor did this twice in his turboed Escalade before swapping to a 4l80. Unfortunately the first 4l80 used a 4l60 adapter tailshaft to mate to the transfer case. This tailshaft also broke. The only way it held together was after removing all 4l60 bits from the equation. This all happened in a matter of months, which was mostly downtime. Since going to all 4l80 bits, it has only burned through one transmission in over 10 years.

BCNUL8R

iTrader: (2)

I'm sure the weight of the escalade played into it. For example a friend of mine had a built 4l60e in his corvette for a long time up to 1100+ rwhp. He broke the differential and went to a 9" irs and powerglide after that, never did hurt the 4l60e it was a level 7 rpm build. Very low 5 second 1/8th mile car.

I personally like having over drive on those long high way drives since it is a street car even though it doesn't get driven daily. Just like power adder choices every one has different goals. I certainly understand if you've broke a couple things you are going to be disgusted with it and not use it again. Personally I've had good luck with 4l60e's, but if I keep pushing my power level higher in the heavy GTO I'm sure to eventually have trouble and decide where to go from there at that time.

stevieturbo

All those damn automatics sound like a nightmare !!

Game ova

Between the expensive clutches, and the oiling issues with a manual, I'm good with a solid auto (sans 60). That t56 I had before I pulled it, whined TERRIBLY from being starved on pulls.

stevieturbo

All these built autos dont sound cheap. And what oiling issues ? Never had any with mine.

Clutches can be hit or miss, but then it seems so can all these many parts/converters etc required for an auto.

Only issues I've had with the T56 is chewing up 5th gear on high speed runs, but even that was after 10 years of use.

Game ova

When making long hard pulls with the t56 in car that makes decent power, the gear set often gets starved for oil and will whine after some time, at least that's what happened to mine. And I agree, some of these autos, ESPECIALLY these 6-10 speeds can get very spendy, the older stout trannys (pg/350/400/80) can be garage built by novices, to withstand big power on the cheap. A decent converter for one of those I mentioned is roughly $1000, but it's there from now on though.

stevieturbo

The problem with autos, is they seem very task specific.

When I searched, it seemed difficult to get an auto that could be geared to run say 200+ as those with overdrive, said overdrive would not be strong enough to do this.

Which meant gearing it for 3rd gear ( or top in a PG )

But then that would mean very tall gearing for the lower gears. And all of this would make the car pretty useless for say road course type stuff.

6 speeds have potential....although most say 1k is the upper limit for these, and lack of standalone controllers meant it not viable, although there seem to be a couple on the market now, although no idea on their abilities.

But biggest killer overall is their size. They're ******* massive lol I'd need to cut and rebuild a lot of my car to fit one. Some day I might try a PG, as it's probably the cheapest and easiest unit for a test, but then a lot of people seem to say a PG is not suited to a heavy car ?

It really sounds to me as is manuals are a doddle by comparison. Almost fit and forget even if they are not best suited to drag racing.

tblentrprz

Comes down to application. One size surely won't fit all. Trans, rear gear, tire, not to mention engine power band, etc.