T56!!!!

Hi
I know this is an old thread, but I have a few comments about the 200c. The 200c in my 82 Bird now has almost 100,000 miles on it. Before it was rebuilt by Ammco in 92, I had nothing but problems with it. The 200c is a very good transmission when it is properly built/rebuilt. The problems with my 200c was with stuff being put in wroug, inproper sized rebuilt parts etc.

I have recently read on some websites that the 200c is strounger and better then the th350 and 400. So before you start to swap out your 200c, take it to Ammco and get it built right.

I am thinking of upgrading to a 4-speed. If I do, it would be the 200 4r because of its better gearing.

200c? metric tranny I assume is stronger than a 400 Cant believe everything you read.

200C stronger than 350's or 400's ??? It's not April 1st yet- is it
I'm willing to bet, it's the 200C and 200R4 confussion (or is it 2004R ).

The 200C is a turd, plain and simple! GM was looking at cutting cost, and they achieved it with the 200T (T as in turd). Gas crunch - late seventies, early eighties + No power = 200T!!!
Hell they did the same with the rearends, in '82!!! Why the hell didn't they carry over the 8.5 from the 2nd gen? When the '82 made close to the same power as the '81. (Granted the '81 weighed in a little heavier, but not much)
PROFIT...

Ron

Ron,
The proof is in the quality of the products. I am still running my original ring and pinion set on my 82 Bird, with 256,000 trouble free miles. The 200c now have over 100,000 miles on its Amoco rebuild.

The biggest problem that I seen is bad service. They love to take your money and give you absolutely nothing in return but bad workmanship. The 200c problems were mostly due to poor workmanship then the design. We are all very familiar with the poor workmanship that all of the American automobile companies did during the 70’s and early 80’s. A lot the problems were due to environment issues and the gas crunch.

I believe that the trend toward electronic engine controls used in the late 70’s to clean up the exhaust emissions was a good thing. I can testified to the fact that the LG4 V8 and 200c transmission that came in my 82 were dogs. Amoco took care of the 200c and I replaced the LG4 with 350TPI. Except for the LG4 and problems with the original 200c my 82 bird has be dependable and trouble free. The problems with the LG4 were the marriage of old style carburetor with early 80’s computer control. When everything was right the LG4 ran great and provided fun experience with good economy. The first year I own my 82, I drove over 60,000 miles. The original 200c failed at 33,000 miles and GM rebuilt it for free. The GM rebuilt transmission went to over 100,000 miles and failed again. I had it rebuilt by a transmission shop in Charlottesville, Va.. In 1992 the transmission failed again at about 140,000 miles, this is when I had Amoco rebuild it.

When the transmission was rebuild in 1992, I considered at time of swapping in a TH350. The service manager at Amoco basically told me that the 200c had a bad reputation due to poor workmanship and not to the design of the transmission. Amoco rebuilt the transmission and I have not had any problems with it in over 100,000 miles.

The main problems with the LG4 were due to bad service personal. In about 1990, I had the engine tune up at a local Pontiac dealership. The LG4 at that time had about 120,000 miles on it. The Pontiac dealer performed a compression test and found that cylinders were meeting factory spec. At that time they recommended that the carburetor be rebuilt and recommended several people around the town who could do the job. I pick one of the guys and had the carburetor rebuilt. Little did we at time the canister purge value was defective. The person who rebuilt the carburetor broke one of the plastic vacuum T’s. Due to the bad purge valve and the broken vacuum T, raw gasoline went into the crankcase. The raw gasoline caused the camshaft to fail and missed up the compression on the engine. At that time being a student I did not have the money to fix the engine.

My girlfriend at that time(my wife) pad to fix the motor. So the failure of my LG4 was due to poor workmanship by the pig who rebuilt my carburetor and not by GM. After this incident the dealer dropped the pig’s name from their list. Oh by the way the dealer did not charge me any of the labor costs involved in repairing the engine. They had to pull the engine, replace camshaft, lifters, and timing chain. To save me some money, I was able to buy the parts though a wholesaler.

I'll jst pipe in with this. I am not a transmission specailist, I have a guy that does my transmission as well as many of the top racers in the country. www.oldanimotorsports.20megsfree.com
there is a reason the heavy cars with real hp run a TH400. How many high hp-and not no factory 200hp mills either-do you see running a 200c? I personally know of none. Now Aamco is a nation wide transmission rebuilding company, so yes they see alot of trannies. BUT depending on the tech rebuilding yours or whomevers most of these guys have little clue about little tricks that can be done as well as a working knowledge of what ever part inside does and how they can be modified for better performance and longevity. I know this becasue I took mine to my TH350 to Aamco in town and asked if they would rebuild it and what kind of tricks they use...the supervisor looked at me like I was from Mars and said we just throw a Trans-Go rebuild kit in it along with a B&M shift kit. This has last me 2 seasons of 2 races everyweekend and street miles when I can. But talk to a guy that builds race trannies and they'll always tell you they cant let the cat outta the bag for internal hop-ups. Alot of these mods are'nt limited to race trannies and could be applied to dailyu drivers for "bullet proofing" I'm being biased coming from a drag racing background, but sticking up for that fact drag racing is probably one of the most extreme forms of racing that severly punishes drivetrain parts. When your talking about planting 350+hp and 350+ft/lb of torque-these #'s are on the baby scale of things- and zero loss of traciton something is gonna give if it's not up to par. My car is a turd, but consider the fact I've gone through 3 ring gears-think about it. When you start seeing alot of aftermarket companies making parts to build up a bullet proof 200c I may have a hint that they are worth a chit for soemthing other than a stock daily driver. But you will not find these parts since these companies know the internal design is not even worth messing with period. For GM automatic trannies EVERYBODY caters to the Glide, TH350/400. Most likely because of weak internal design flaws of the 200c that put it in a class nowhere near the TH350/400. How come 1ton trucks never came with a 200c tranny? If they are stronger the factory would've installed them in these trucks that see nothing but hard work-think about that one for a minute. Most heavy trucks of old before the invention of OD as well as big RV's all came with BBC and TH400's not a 200c!

Sure a good rebuild will last. But strength is as simple as the size/stregth of the parts...

You could eyeball and slap together a 9" rear and build a 7.5" with the finest parts. Run 500hp on slicks and see which one holds up longer...

It's not all in the quality of the build.