are the 700R4 and the 4L60 the same transmission if not whats the difference, and what year did they start using the 4L60? I have a 1990 GTA is it 4L60 or 700R4?

 

They are the same. GM changed the name around 90 or 91. Of course from year to year there are internal differences as GM upgraded and modified things.

 

They are the same.

Internally, they are. The difference is the 4L60 is electronically controlled, the 700R4 is not. And because our ECM does not control transmission function in any third gen year, only the 700R4 was used.


[B]GM changed the name around 90 or 91.[b]

If this is true, the 4L60 was not used in the third gen F-body.

So the general answer is no 4L60's were used in third gen F-bodies. They were all 700R4's.

 

Willie,
I think you are thinking of the 4L60E. Those were in 4th gens. The 4L60 and the 700R4 are the same.

 

'90 was the year they changed the name or at least that's what it says in my Chilton's manual and yeah 4thgens had 4L60E.

 

speedo is driven differently isn't it?

 

Yeah they are electronic and not cable driven.

 

The 4L60 started in either 90 or 91. It is the same transmission as the 700R4. You are thinking of the 4L60E, which was not used in the F-body until 94. Even the 93 4th gen F-body did not use the "E" version.

 

That doesn't make any difference to the rest of the transmission.

 

So there is no real difference to the transmissions but their names and they started calling it 4L60 in 1990 instead of 700R4.

 

try swapping them

 

The difference is the electronic pickup that mounts in the tail shaft instead of the traditional cable. The tranny itself is the same. As I stated before, there are some internal differences from year to year, but it wasn't until 1994 when GM put the 4L60E into the F-bodys that they were computer controlled, and in esence a different tranny. Case in point, I have a 1992 4L60, and a 1985 700R4 that have both been in my 1987 Camaro. Externally I can't tell the difference, and both will mount in the car. Now they are 7 model years apart, and there are internal differences, the biggest being the 92 has an auxillary valve body that the 85 doesn't have, and the input shaft on the 92 has more splines than the 85, so you can't interchange torque converters between the two, but they are the same tranny.

 

You can quite easily, remove the cable driven housing and stick in a VSS, or vice versa.