I have a 700r4 in my 87-iroc that I'm pulling out this weekend.
it have 40k orig miles on it. converting to 5spd(for now).
You can have it for $850, but i would know how to ship it
so you can come check it out and if you like you can take it with you,
I'm in northern NJ.
LMK. - email me

 

I think the 700r4 is fine if you don't have much added power. I just know many people that have broken them, even "heavy duty race ready" ones. I love it that you like the 700r4. That's what America is all about. I just think there is a better route and I took it last spring by going the th400/Gear Vendors. I wish somebody would have pushed that idea on me before I wasted $2600 on a "600 h/p capable best of everything" 700r4. That one only lasted me 5000 miles. I'm certainly not suggesting that you all do what I did, on the contrary. I only offer it as a suggestion from my limited experience. Good luck.

 

Gosh this is a tough one being through this myself, however with so many psots you may have made a decision.

My 2 cents, I'd shy away from the dealer. I had my 700 rebuilt and 3 months later it stuck in first gear. I took it to William L. Morris Chevrolet in Simi Valley and they wanted to rebuild it again for 3,800 dollars. I asked them if they could just please take out the valve body and blow out the passages as the trans had been rebuilt 3,000 before. Debri afer a rebuild can cause a stuck valve. After hours of arguing they did it (said it wouldn't work) and charged me 250.00 and the trans has been running just fine for the past 3 years.

AAMCO is another one I would shy away from as well as Leon's Transmission "(805)522-0230" those ones with franchises tend to pull scams. If you need the owner's or manger's names I can provide them they know me. The people who work at these establisments tend to bounce around between shops, so the manager of AAMCO might be the manager of another shop franchise in 2 months. This same car (mine) was taken to Leons (who now work for AAMCO) with 17 miles on a fresh rebuilt trnasmission that needed an adjustment. And in this case I did get bitten for another rebuild of almost 1,800.00 with only 17 MILES. I am just too old to deal with nonsense and when you take a vehicle somewhere expecting qualityyou get crap. We all have our own jobs to do and expect honesty...not. This ended up in court They talk a lot about the minimum rebuild the law will allow and that is what just what you get, the minimum (sometimes nothing) for high dollars.

I have had the best luck with local shops who need your business and want you to return as they are just like you and me. If you have the knoweledge or the time it works better overall to remove the trans yourself and drop it off. Or pay someone to remove it in your garage. Not to save money, but there is less damage to your vette that way. These clowns don't give a darn about your car. One shop said to me just after a rebuild "It runs fine, I tested it myself on the freeway at over 100mph... Great pal, duh, I'll be back next time I have a problem. When I said OKAY, let's go for a drive, we did, he drove. My 84 did in fact drive up Los Angeles avenue Simi Valley CA while I sat shotgun in a school zone at 100 mph, he wasn't kidding. The transmission did not function properly, but we did drive that fast, so he must have been right. Jeeeez. We had to go that fast to get the car to shift into 4th gear, WHICH was the original problem I sighted to him. He still didn't get it. Local shop is my choice, not for the money but for the longevity of your trans.

thanks

joe

 

This is not the same thing as your nail example.

The clutch plates are stacked one after another so EACH plate have the same clamping force.

Buy two bathroom scales.

Put them side by side and stand with one foot on each. Like your nail example they will both show half your weght.

Not stack them one on top of the other and step up onto them. Both will now show your full weght.

 

:skep: You're right, it's a bad example. What IS true though, is that adding the clutch plates doesn't make the tranny appreciably stronger without increasing the line pressure.

There are two sets of clutches at work, the flat plate clutches mentioned here, and a band clutch that wraps around the outside of the shell assembly. Neither have a LOT of clutch material on them (like a standard tranny), they tend to fail when they're applied slowly, generating heat and scraping off the clutch material. The object is to improve the tranny such that it has increased friction AND increased clamping power so that it'll live.

Another oddity is: Bunches of Tranny people can make the 700r4 live behind 450hp or so. Fewer claim to make trannies that live behind 750 hp. There are only two or three weak points that seperate the two ranges. So if you build a tranny to take more than 450, it should be good to go for anything less than 750 or so. IF you've got a guy claiming 800 hp, he's lying. It take a BUNCH of work and expensive bits to get it to run past 750. (Which Brian can do, but it costs cubic dollars.)

Good thing mine's good for only about 500hp. :rolleyes: There are some folks out there making SCARY Crazy horsepower.

 

Thats wrong. Listen to what Joby said once again:


It makes a dramatic improvement in torque capacity. If you want to argue against the 25% increase in torque capacity here, you may as well be pissing in the wind.

I can see where you may have a differing opinion on it...especially if you ever had a bad experience from a BS rebuild con-man who promised the moon simply from adding the extra plates, and then ended up with a POS trans....but in reality, it's a real improvement in durability of the trans.




[Modified by BBA, 9:51 AM 12/21/2002]

 

Dude, reread what I posted. I AGREED it was a flawed analogy. :rolleyes: IMHO, there are two problems here:

1. there are a bunch of people working on transmissions that don't REALLY know how to make them live with more than OEM power levels. The throw parts at them until they stop breaking and call it done. If they CAN'T fix the tranny that way, they give up and take the TH400 route. There's a small group of people who aren't giving up on the700r4 and are continuing to develop for it. Why? Because a 700r4 is a hydraulically actuated 4l60e. and What do ya think is in the C5? Yup, a 4l60e. To give up is to consign yourself to a gradually smaller and smaller share of the market.

2. A transmission that can handle 10 hp more than you make will live indefinately. IF you have such a beast, and you never cook the tranny fluid, and you service it at regular intervals, you'll be a happy camper. But if you've got MORE hp than most tranny builders know how to build for, it's a friggen crapshoot trying to find one that is worth throwing your money at. If you buy one from an out-of-towner, You're pretty much screwed when it doesn't live. Even if they do support their warrantee claim, you're out that second R&R, time, and shipping.

If you don't LEARN about how the transmission is supposed to work (which I'm doing now) then you're stuck with whatever your tranny guy throws at you as 'normal' until it dies on you, stranding you somewhere and costing you another couple of grand...

 

There's an outfit which makes beffed up 200R4 trannys. Greg's putting one in his Project No Flight C2. I've sent him an e- so that maybe he can reply with the specs and their contact info. I don't recall the company names which does them. Also if you're looking for a qualified shop to do a tranny swap, you won't find one more qualified that Tony's Corvette in Gaithersburg. :yesnod:

 

There are people claiming to make the 700R4 to hold up past 650 HP and live. As a rule 625-650 HP seems to be the realistic limit with whats available now, there are always "exceptions", but examples are few if any that I have seen. I have built a few that run in the mid to high 10's & low 11's over the past several years. I'm sure if you took out your HP calculators that they are not putting out anywhere near 650 hp and probably somewhat less to run these times (mid 10's to low 11's).

 

I'm glad we are having this discussion. I think it's important and very relevant to many people with Corvettes. Good to see Probuilt here too! Again, it seems that most of this talk is concerning drag racing. Don't forget about road and autocrossing. That's where the real strain comes to your tranny (as well as everything else).

 

My small opinion is that the 700 R4 is underrated. With the later cores and a simple quality rebuild utilzing 100% GM parts they will last a long time on a 500 hp car or less, which covers 99% of Corvette owners.

My history report on my personal experiences with the 700R4 are....

bought my vette with 150,000 miles on it.... raced it apprxomiately 600-800 passes over several years and put 40,000 miles in it before the 3-4 clutch pak decided it wasn't shifting at wot anymore. This was in a 12 second car with a 2500 rpm converter. This was an early core... I have no idea how long that tranny was in before I got my hands on it.... with all I know it was the orginal untouched 700R4

At 190,000 miles put in a new later core 700R4 built to stock GM standards. Put in a 383 and 3000 rpm converter and small tranny cooler.... have now put over 600 11 second passes and over 30,000 street miles on this transmission and it still runs exactly the same as when I put it in..... I changed fluid in it once.

My tranny pretty much gets beat on as hard as anybodys... it sees 50 miles of stop and go traffic everyday on the 405 freeway.... and then is forced to go to the track most weekends to be beat on..... and it has never cost me a race. Has a loose converter which builds up heat too.... but still keeps going.

The only time I have touched it.... I put in a transgo shift kit that didn't work out.... shifts were mushy, so went back to the stock valve body 2 weeks later where it shifts fairly firm.... but wouldn't call it hard hitting.

As another note, forum member LT401vette in his 550-600 hp LT-1 that runs mid 10's @ 125 + mph rebuilds his own 700R4's.... his trannies typically last 15,000-20,000 miles between needing to be freshened up..... very reasonable considering the power.

Sorry to hear about all of the 700R4 failures out there.... really shouldn't be happening.. don't know why it does, maybe some of the tranny builders try to get too fancy with them or something ?? Dunno.

good luck
Beach Bum

 

First let me say I am in a hurry and did not read the whole post, but from the first post it looked like you were looking for a 700r4 to replace your one that went bad.

I will tell you right now that pro-built trannies probably has one of the strongest most dependable 700r4 trannies out there. Dana is great to work with and his trannies are ~1300+shipping. They are built for racing and hold up to the harsh treatment we put them through.

Mine works flawlessly and would not hesitate to get another from him. He said he has several out there that have been turning low 10 sec 1/4 mile times and is yet to get one back. He said the one guy live near him in california and wanted to have it take the one apart and give it a once over during the off season. So he did, said EVERYTHING looked perfect, and this was after several seasons running 10 sec behind a 600+hp engine.

For the money I wouldn't even talk to anyone else. I only know Dana through buying my transmission, and a lot of research.

If you need anything let me know.

:cheers:

 

Dunno.......I have rebuilt a few TH700R4s......I would not go either route ........ In your case I would get a performance tranny from TCI, danstrans (THE best !!), B&M or others. They can set it up for your needs and you will not pay much more than the GM Goody-two-shoes tranny.
Check out Danstrans....they specialize in TH700R4s and build the toughest trannies

Ohh BTW ......LT401Vette with his 800hp LT1 has a danstrans in his car.....

http://home.nycap.rr.com/danstrans/
:yesnod:


[Modified by Alex D, 11:15 PM 12/21/2002]


[Modified by Alex D, 11:22 PM 12/21/2002]

 

His last several rebuilds were done by himself using select parts he chose. Also, his LT-1 only had about 600 hp..... however, that motor is sold and gone... his new project should make a comfortable 800 hp though. :D... in which he is using his recently acquired truck tranny 4l80.

cheers,
Beach Bum


[Modified by Beach Bum, 7:44 AM 12/22/2002]

 

This brings up another subtlety, once a tranny is built, if it fails, you have a much easier time with the rebuild as you're only replacing the two or three parts that were inadequate to task.

In order to afford this tranny rebuild in my Twin-Boy-Constrained budget, I'll be doing most of the gruntwork labor myself, _hopefully_ by the time I'm done with this, any future work can be done by yours truely. I've worked on damn-near every other part of the car, the tranny has always been a 'black box' that I was afraid to touch. Now it's just an assembly of parts with tolerances I don't know yet -- that'll have to change. :hat

 

Very good recap by Beach Bum.

Beach's Vette is a great example of a 700R4 lasting a long time. I bet most failure's are because of the builder.

In my area, Long Island, I have about 4 Tranny specalist that I would take my car to for a 700R4 buildup. There are also several hundered shops that I would never trust.

Vic

 

Bruce at PTS seems to be one of the most knowledgible trans people from the places I've talked to. He does a lot of development for the 200-4R for the Turbo-Buick crowd, but also does heavy duty 700-R4's. He is also the moderator on the trans forum over at turbo buick, and will answer just about any questions you ask of him.

His site is http://www.2004rperformancecenter.com/

The turbo-Buick trans forum is http://www.turbobuick.com/forums/for...?s=&forumid=12

I strongly recommend reading through some of the trans-talk stuff as their is a lot of good info and experiences that I've found there.

An as Julie said, I plan to use one of his Extreme 200-4R's in "No Flight" behind a 550 HP or so SBC (plan is to dyno the engine and dial in the EFI this spring).

-Greg

 

Read the post.
My two cents from a guy that run's mid 10's...
I went through seven 700R4 rebuilds.
My vote is to go with the 400 and live with the high rev's or spend even more $$$ an go with the gear vendors set up. I pound the &%*# outta mine and when we took it apart just to look how its holding up we saw no wear at all..
Good luck what ever you do. Got a lot of good advice in this thread! :cheers:

 

One large variable you guys are leaving out is the quality of the torque convertor. Since you can't inspect them, it is largly a crap shoot whether you get a good or bad one, even from the same manufacturer. Even if you spend big bucks, it is no absolute guarantee. A bad or marginal TC will eat up a tranny in no time. You know how I know.

good rebuild + lousy TC = bad experience

This also assumes you or the shop actually replaces the TC during a rebuild. :skep:

 

My votes with MJT393NO2 on this one. :yesnod: I'm going with a TH400