4L80e conversion

Well, ordered the flywheel parts for the 80e conversion today. I guess that makes me commited.

12551367 flywheel
12563533 (6) bolts
12563532 spacer
Precision 447 U-joint (1.188 & 1.125 diam caps. See later posts for more details.)
Precision 492-10 U-joint straps and bolts

The flywheel is flat and has 6 holes to match up to the stock convertor
The bolts are longer for the spacer
The spacer goes between the flywheel and the crankshaft

All the GM parts were bought through CrateEngineDepot, best price I could find on short notice.

I'll be able to make that harness for you.

All my parts just came in, well they are scheduled to show up today.

Driveshaft?
Cooling lines?
Re-pin connector?
Tuning?
All I can think of.

Awesome, Allen! What do I need to do to the tune to make it work? Driveshaft will be shortened and the slip yoke removed. My trans uses the bolton u-joint and I have two piece driveshaft so that won't be too pricey of a mod. The crossmember will be interesting.
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...t/P1010061.jpg

where did you get the 80e from? mileage etc?

I'll have to send you a file to overlay on the current file, then the pcm can control the trans.
Say goodbye to rebuilding transmissions, good choice,
allen

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Originally Posted by duckysbht

where did you get the 80e from? mileage etc?

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Not sure of the mileage. Came out of a 97 farm truck that was beat to hell. Cost me my life savings, $200. plus driving 200 miles round trip to pick it up. Picked it up off of Craig's list.

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Originally Posted by RedHeartbeat

Not sure of the mileage. Came out of a 97 farm truck that was beat to hell. Cost me my life savings, $200. plus driving 200 miles round trip to pick it up. Picked it up off of Craig's list.

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It wouldn't suprise me if you got 2-3 years use out of it without any upgrades.

Well, pulled the old 60e out in under 2 hours in the driveway. I'm too familiar with that. :laugh:

Installed the new flywheel, spacer and longer bolts. Went very easy, no problems. :thumb:

Me and the fiance went to the storage unit to retrieve the 80e, damn that thing is heavy! Good thing she's strong since she volunteered to help me load it in the back of the 07. The 2" lowered rear suspension sure came in handy.

Got it home and unloaded it using the engine hoist, much easier. :rolleyes: Tried to install the thing and it's too wide with my headers. I had to break out the sawzall and cut the ears off the transmission, the sections that stick out about an inch wider than the engine block. All is good now, got five bolts holding it on the block.

Problem #1, transmission mount. The 60e mount I have is modified to fit the dual pipes, cats and old transmission and won't even get close to working with the 80e plus I want to keep it as-is in case I change my mind and want to go back to the 60e in the future. I'm going to check salvage yards and see if I can find and OBS 80e crossmember to modify. If I dont find one I guess I'll fire up the torch and build one. (built a custom crossmember out of 6" x .5" x 4ft of steel and a 15" long piece of 3" x 3" angle iron)

Problem #2, hydraulic line fittings. The 80e I bought did not come with the factory cooler line fittings. I suppose they're available from GM but some Russell fittings may be nicer and then I can run some -4 line from the trans up to the coolers. Anyone got a line on these? ( fixed now using stock fittings, see post )

Problem #3, driveshaft. Gotta measure and get the shaft shortened. Hate to do that but these shafts are a dime a dozen in salvage yards. ( fixed, no cutting require. See update post. )

Problem #4, wiring. Got Allen working on that one. :thumb:

Problem #5, convertor. Heavy stock convertor for now. I'd like to get a Vig in the near future. May have to call and see if they'll do a trade-in.

Problem #6, trans pan is dented bigtime(thanks to the guy I bought it from). I'm going to try just hammering it down flat for now and see how that works. Maybe I'll replace it in the near future with something shiney. ( pan is now flat, filter and fluid have been changed. )

Problem #7, linkage. Going to see if I can get the 4L60e column shift stuff to work on this in the morning. (stock 4L60e linkage bolted right to it)

Sounds like other than those 7 problems, things are looking good. What did that 80e come out of since it was a 97? Oh and why do you want to go back to a 60e?

tehetehe,sounds like besides those 7 problems it going ok.the same old problems ,over,over,over.good luck red let us know how you make out .

Found out the trans was out of a 98 model 3500 pickup, 2wd, 5.7L engine.

Only reason to go back to the 60e is because I lost too much speed at the track due to the drag on the transmission or there is something wrong with the 80e. There was no gauranty the transmission is good, just that it would drive the truck the guy bought on and off his trailer. The fluid is a little dark and I will be changing it out along with the filter when I take the pan off to fix the dent in the bottom.

Got the 4L80E conversion U-joint today from Orielly's, its a number 447 made by Precision(Federal-Mogul)http://store.summitracing.com/partde...5&autoview=sku . If you have to go from a 1.188" cap U-joint(snap ring outside or not used) to a 1.125" cap U-joint(snap ring inside), this is the one you'll need. This can be used for rearend swaps to a 1 ton rear and allows you to keep your original driveshaft without having it modded. My stock driveshaft is going to fit right on the 4L80E output yoke. I had already bought a Denny's Driveshaft urethane carrier bearing support, so now the driveshaft should be pretty solid. The transmission I have came from a 1 ton 2wd truck and the output shaft has a bolt-on yoke which allows me to just remove my stock 60e yoke and U-joint, install the 447 U-joint and bolt it back in place. :thumb: If someone has the 80E similar to mine and needs new straps and bolts for the output yoke, the PN for Precision replacement parts from Orielly is 492-10.

So far I've removed the transmission pan and pounded it back flat. Inside the pan was perfectly clean, fluid was dark though. I replaced the filter and the filter seal that is driven into the case. Who knew that the stock transmission pan used a captive seal on it similar to the ones they use on the LS1 engine gaskets? Not me. I replaced both cooler line fittings that were missing. I found out the rear fitting is special and has a guide tube in it if you have a 98 or newer 80e. If you use the short fittings on both locations you will burn up the rear section of the transmission. I had to cut the return/rear line to extend the connection to the new fitting location. I bought my rear cooler fitting from transmissioncenter.net for $8 but the damn shipping was $10! :eek: The pressure side fitting is one from my old 60e. For rear mount, my stock 60E urethane mount is going back in.

Tomorrow A.M. I will be bolting the driveshaft back in and seeing about putting the dipstick tube in without buying a custom unit. After that, all I need is an 80e wiring harness from NelsonPerformance and to build a crossmember. Getting close to being complete but we all know what a pain in the ass details can be. :rolleyes:

Okay, I've never used a transbrake or seen how they work. Rossler sells one for the 80e. 4l80e trans brake What would I be getting for the money? Would I not need a stall convertor if I got one of these?

Well, found out that it locks both drive and reverse gears in and then when you push the button all the load goes to the drive side. Interesting.

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Originally Posted by RedHeartbeat

Well, found out that it locks both drive and reverse gears in and then when you push the button all the load goes to the drive side. Interesting.

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The transbrake locks both the drive and reverse gears? Which button are you talking about? Does the wiring harness from nelson change everything that you have now since its an OBS your putting the 80e in? Or I guess I mean how much is different?

The transbrake solenoid activation button.

Waiting for Allen to let me know when he can get me the 80e harness. I'll keep you updated on ease of install. The PCM has to have the 80e trans control programming overlayed into the LS1 PCM to shift it. If it gets too difficult I'll just buy the Transgo stage 3 kit with vacuum shift pressure modulation and full manual shifting.

Red, do u have any pics of the new ujoints that will allow the use of ur stock DS to the 4l80 yoke?? Very interested in what ur talkin about!

Oh, im doin the manual shift kit for my 4l80 in my OBS, the shifts will blow ur mind!

It is posted in the previous post, a link to a picture of it on Summitracing.com. http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?autofilter=1&part=PCN%2D447&N=700+1 15&autoview=sku

What made you decide to dump the 60E finally? 3-4 go again?

Broike something internally. Reverse still works and the clutches seem fine. It broke something in the forward drive about 60' off the starting line. This was after installing the Caltracs and I was running my slicks. The rear chattered a little and BANG! After the blue plates and the 3/4 mod the 3rd gear apply has been nice and solid. I can't complain one bit about that mod. :thumb:

What is the 3/4 mod? Are they different clutch packs or just a servo? What all are you going to be doing to the 80e? Are you just gonna keep it simple with Shift kit, and servos?

It's the highest quality 3-4 Blue Plate Special clutches and then you drill a tiny hole in the input drum housing to bleed the oil out from behind the clutches. What happens is that at high RPMs the clutches get the oil slung to the outside of the input drum by centrifugal force and the oil packs in tight and pushes on the clutches creating drag and wear. Eventually the clutches wear out because of this. In the mod a small hole is drilled so that the oil can sling out of the drum. I detailed this in a previous post and posted a pic of the instructions on how to do the mod.

For now the 80e will be stock. I'll see how it performs and then later I want a 9.5" Vig convertor to reduce the mass.

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Originally Posted by RedHeartbeat

It's the highest quality 3-4 Blue Plate Special clutches and then you drill a tiny hole in the input drum housing to bleed the oil out from behind the clutches. What happens is that at high RPMs the clutches get the oil slung to the outside of the input drum by centrifugal force and the oil packs in tight and pushes on the clutches creating drag and wear. Eventually the clutches wear out because of this. In the mod a small hole is drilled so that the oil can sling out of the drum. I detailed this in a previous post and posted a pic of the instructions on how to do the mod.

For now the 80e will be stock. I'll see how it performs and then later I want a 9.5" Vig convertor to reduce the mass.

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Yeah I saw that post about the small mod. That makes sense about drilling a hole to release the oil. Where does the oil go that is bled out?

The oil is slung out into the case with the rest of the oil.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RedHeartbeat

Broike something internally. Reverse still works and the clutches seem fine. It broke something in the forward drive about 60' off the starting line. This was after installing the Caltracs and I was running my slicks. The rear chattered a little and BANG! After the blue plates and the 3/4 mod the 3rd gear apply has been nice and solid. I can't complain one bit about that mod. :thumb:

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Interesting. Well I hope you get a chance to tear it down so I can see what has broken.

Finished the transmission crossmember up. It turned out pretty good IMO. I don't have to worry about it flexing too much with the angle iron bracing it and making the mount for the 80e. Wiring harness is on it's way. Allen is making these now and selling them for a much better price than anyone else.

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...t/P1010173.jpg
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...t/P1010174.jpg
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...t/P1010175.jpg

looks good red

Thanks. At about 40 lbs it's definitely overkill but 6 x 1/2" plate almost 4 ft long gets heavy in a hurry. My poor little 110v MIG welder worked its butt off to put a decent weld on there. The thing is only rated to work well for up to 3/16" plate. The angle iron was 3 x 3 x 3/16". There is plenty of rigidity in the design. The new crossmember isn't much heavier than the previous design that I had made for the 60e to go over the cats.

how heavy was the old one?

It was probably about 35 lbs. The 1/4" wall x 6" square tubing I used to go around the cats was heavy and didn't flex.
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...t/P1010057.jpg

Wow, a transbrake would be cool on the 80e. A stall would be necessary...Yeah, it locks up both D and R...then once you release the button--BAM--it all goes to D and you are off! Any more updates? Or are you waiting for the weekend to finish things up?

I work on it as the parts arrive on my doorstep. Today the wiring harness arrives, so tonight I'll most likely be crawled up under it again installing the new NelsonPerformance 80e conversion harness. After that I have to load a new updated PCM program from Allen to handle the shifting logic and off I go into the wild blue yonder. :rock: I can't wait to get to drive it and see how my $200 transmission works.

Sccchhhweeeet! Keep us updated Greg...

Received the 60e to 80e adapter today. Very nice work. I'll try working on it tomorrow. Had a little accident with a skill saw that tried to take my big toe off my right foot tonight so no workie on the truck for me. :cry: Kick-backs can be dangerous! Its a good thing I had a tight hold on the saw or I could have done some serious damage. Got lucky, only a leather shoe and part of a toe nail were damaged.:doofus: I knew one day I'd get to use that one. :laugh:

that sux, how.... never mind I think i know how you almost cut your toe off, i think.

Cutting a square hole in a sheet of plywood using the saw, slowly dropping it vertically in with the guard pulled back. I've done that hundreds of times and never had one kick back. I guess it only takes once to mess your world up. BTW, was standing on the sheet to hold it still.

its cool what your doing with the tranny, sorry bout the toe

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RedHeartbeat

Cutting a square hole in a sheet of plywood using the saw, slowly dropping it vertically in with the guard pulled back. I've done that hundreds of times and never had one kick back. I guess it only takes once to mess your world up. BTW, was standing on the sheet to hold it still.

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WOW! glad you are no hurt bad, that could have been :slice:

Well, got the transmission going and driving. I definitely need a stall convertor. First gear is SOOOOOOOO tall in an 80e. My truck doesn't like it at all compared to the 60e with the 3600 stall. I wonder why? :laugh: Its like comparing a 69 Yenko Camaro to a 73 Vega wagon. Oh well, lots of potential hidden there still. :thumb: