New tranny rebuilt stage 2 with Transo-Go and vette servo, extra kevlar clutches, ect and a TCI 2400 stall. I have put maybe 800 miles on it. This was the first time I tried a 100 shot on the tranny but only engaged the nitrous in second gear at 3K. This was only the 3rd time I used the nitrous. The other two times were a 75 shot and were only test runs while installing the nitrous.

The car hit hard, continued to search for traction and started to pull very nice. Car always shifts at 4900 on its own. As it hit 4900 it flashed just like it was in neutral. The tach shot up to 5500 before I got my foot off the gas.
The guy that rebuilt the tranny can't look at it until Monday. Does anyone have any ideas??? Line pressure not set properly??? Error in the rebuild???? What did I possibly screw up internally and will I be looking at another rebuild???? While driving the car back it still felt firm and would still bark/spin the tires on the 1-2 and chirp on the 2-3 shift N/A.

 

When that happened to mine, the 2-4 band burnt up and shortly after, I lost 4th gear, then 3rd gear, had to get towed home from the track. Not trying to jinx you. Now my line pressure is way up there close to 300 psi. See if your tranny dude knows what he is doing or not, everybody says they can build a 700r4, but most can't.

 

Thats what my stock 700-r4 would do then i didnt drive it for a week to save so gas got back in it and 4th was gone then shortly down the road 3rd went out now i have a th350

 

Yep..After I put my big block in I noticed a "flash" tween 2nd ~n~ 3rd under full throttle...kept doing it until one day it never hit 3rd or fourth again. Got it rebuilt, kevlar band, redlines, daryell young super servo..(this thing almost hits the floor it sticks out so far) no problems for three years now..Oh yea nine inch non lock up stall too Sounds like it needs more attention with you using that gas

 

300psi? Crap. Transgo told me it should be about 170-185 @WOT

 

Check your pressure in 1st, 2nd and reverse, not drive. That is where the pressure is higher and gets close to 300.

 

Yeah the original tranny died a horrible death at the track when it refused to shift from second gear without letting off the gas and I refused to let off the gas

This new tranny has had no hard use and I have yet to put my ET Streets on and lauch it hard. It was supposedly built to handle a little abuse but damn this was the first time on a nitrous run with my regular radial tires and not really pushing anything hard.

89gta383 you say the line pressure is close to 300 psi. When do you see this reading??? Is it at WOT near the shiftpoint??? If you have a certian psi on first gear can the reading be different on second gear????

 

edit....double post

 

I did, and it was around 215, and transgo said that was high.

 

from what i hear and have expericened is that the 700r4 is a very weak tranny. i had one built it had all the special stuff beat sun shell special clutches the super servo harned input and out put shafts and some other stuff but i broke it the first time i did a full throttle up shift into second it grabbed for a sec then made a loud bang and only reverse worked after that. sent it back got it warrenty and got a new one im gunna put it in a v-6 truck and hopefully it will hold up to the power of a v6 ha ha. i wasn`t even useing nitrous or anything. saving up for a t56 from ddperformance.

 

That is sooo not true, you just don't have the right person building your tranny. 700R4's will hold upwards of 600hp, there are several guys running 10's on these tranny's, with over 80 runs on them. They will last, if the person building it knows how to do it.

 

It is true. The 700r4 isnt as strong as a th350 or 400. not in stock form. Then if you start building it, the cost is gonna kill you compared to a well built th350 or 400.

 

www.pro-built.net


ask dana, he will tell you everything you need to know about building a 700R4 and the cost difference verses the benefits.

 

I know the cost differences, I have experienced multiple destroyed trans. Not gonna happen to me again. I am into drag racing, and the 700 just isnt the best choice for that.

 

The way I see it, there seem to be 999,999,999.999999021742 different ways to build a 700R4.

Every person I've ever met either tends to build them "standard GM rebuild/overhaul", or their own, "special" way.

Technically, a "stock" overhaul with a trans-go shiftkit seems in my OPINION to be the best "all around" idea, there are no "un proven" or "un tested" "SPECIAL" tricks to deal with or worry about.


I knew NOTHING of the internals of a 700R4 transmission when I opened it up 6 months ago. With nothing but a Haynes manual, and a cell-phone to call DANA at PRO-BUILT.NET with, Ive rebuilt my destroyed 700R4 to what I would consider "Dana's special rebuild" which I thought would be the BEST way to do it.

Well, Twin Turbos, 12PSI of boost, 3 pairs of drag radials later, and some hard, 2.73' Geared, 3000 stall Launches later, everything is under control in my daily driven Camaro. It appears Sir DANA has his Chit down pat, even from over the phone.

You would be surprised at the ATTENTION to DETAIL he pays to his transmissions. Before actually ordering a rebuilt kit from anywhere, I researched myself to death. local shops, 700R4.com, raptor700R4, etc... Dana has his "own" clutch stackups, his "own" methods for block-off's and re-routes in the valve body, and YEARS of experience to back his transmission's. EVERYONE (not MOST, not NEARLY ALL... EVERYONE) On this message board that has bought a transmission from DANA (including me who got a rebuilt kit from him and did it myself) has nothing but GOOD things to say about both him AND the 700R4. FIRM CONSISTANT shifting, and a 1 year warranty to boot. I dont work for him, but after seeing Thirdgenner after thirdgenner blow his/her 700R4 because they got it "built to the max" by the local tranny shop get screwed over, well you get my point </rant>

It took me 2 months to build it "properly". Not 2 days. There are pieces that get polished, there are pieces that need roughing up, there are components that need to be installed backwards, and some that need to be reversed or drilled. your 700R4 CAN HANDLE the POWER, you just need to talk to the right man.

 

for twice as much

 

If you want it to last yeah, just depends on what you want to do with it.

You get what you pay for.

 

Couldnt be more truthful.

 

What do you guys think about BowTie Overdrives?

 

Well I got the car back today from the shop. They did some work on the valve body and throttle valve and bumped the line pressure to 200. The car didn't feel as tight and responsive but I figured if second gear held that I could live with it. This time I had the rev limiter set. Well it still slips at the end of second and will not shift into 3rd.

How badly fugged are my clutches going to be?? Is it worth trying to salvage or is it better to just rebuild????

 

Time for a rebuild. I wouldn't let that shop touch it though. Get one from a 'known' 700 r4 builder and save your self future trouble.

 

Jay that's what happened to my tranny at first. About 50kms later it won't even go into 3rd at part throttle. I also now seem to have a 4000rpm stall in there.

 

Jay that's what happened to my tranny at first. About 50kms later it won't even go into 3rd at part throttle. I also now seem to have a 4000rpm stall in there.

 

Yeah its too bad because the tranny has over 1700 dollars worth of parts in it not including labor and my new torque converter. When I had it rebuilt last fall I tried to do it right the first time. Ah well back to the drawing board

 

That sucks Jay. Don't know what to suggest now.

 

no warranty? Even Dana at probuilt gives a 1 year warranty with his 700R4s, which from everything Ive ever heard, no one has had to cash in on yet.

save the torque converter, if its any good. and if it isnt a 9.5" lockup vig/yank/edge converter, I wouldnt bother with it.

 

Yeah the converter is your usual TCI 11 inch converter. I rebuilt the motor last year too and started to run out of money. I figured I could always swap converters if I needed to but I didn't want to mess with the tranny rebuild so I put my money into it instead. As for warranty...no mileage or time. I talked to the shop and hopefully we are on the same page. They will get the car back on Tuesday knowing that I intend to put little or nothing into the repairs. It worries me to think that even if they remove the tranny and find the problem that they might feel complelled to put it together just so it works. I would rather have the option of paying another 200 bucks or so to see that correct NEW quality parts were used for the repair. The tranny works flawlessly N/A. If its something that was installed incorrectly I can live with it. As long as its repaired properly. If not then I will see if I can get some/all of my money back as they could not deliver what they promised. But I won't hold my breath on that either

 

Beleive it or not, The 9.5" converters actually reduce the possibility of runing a trans during launches. being more efficient, and usually higher stall speeds, they tend to cusion the blow of of loading drivetrain, and apply more torque coming out of the hole at the same time. They are by far the most efficienct, best undiscovered mod for your thirdgen's drivetrain. GET ONE if you ever plan on keeping your 700R4. you will know WHY once its installed...

 

Well I finally got the car back tonite. I have not tried it on nitrous yet so I can't really comment on if it works properly or not. They did a complete tear down. When I brought the car in I offered to pay for any parts that needed replacement as long as labor was paid out by the shop. They said on the teardown that the sprague gear (sp) was the culprit. They also said that no clutches ect. needed replacement as they had not ever slipped. They mentioned that the sprague gear was not machined to proper tolerances.

Does this sound correct??? I honestly did not know if this was a line of BS or an actual cause.

 

I couldn't have said it any better. I can tell you have talked to Dana a few times. lol

 

Don't know if it's the problem or not, the spelling is sprag gear, if you want to look it up.

 

the SPRAG in the transmission is basically a small one way gear, it allows the outer ring to turn one way but not the other. if they are not using an upgraded sprag (such as the 29 element in Dana's kit) then it is a very weak point in the transmission. there is no reason it should have failed, however, if it was indeed a high performance sprag, then chances are, the sprag was damaged because of something else in the transmission not working properly. I dont remember EVERYTHING from my build, but I think there are 2 sprags in the transmission, one in the low-reverse clutch section (VERY bottom of transmission) and one in the Input drum (Under reverse input drum, shaft the converter rides on). I beleive the one in the input drum would be the weaker of the two, but if I remember correctly the forward sprag doesnt hold if you are in MANUAL 2nd gear.

when you slipped 2nd gear, were you shifting manually? According to the manual, the forward sprag only "holds" when the tranny is shifting in D or OD. However, the OVERRUN clutches hold in manual 1-2-3 so did you notice the lack of engine breaking after the incident? If so, it probably was the sprag. but if you could be in manual 2nd gear, and still had engine breaking, I beleive that would mean your sprag was fully functional... Correct me if im wrong, though, just trying to pick apart the manual.

On the other hand, If the clutches were glazed, or "slipped" as you said, they dont "come back to life" once clutches glaze they dont hold worth a $@#&! any more, so if they didnt replace any clutches (as you say) and the transmission seems to be shifting normally now, and not slipping anymore, then the clutches are probably just fine in that respect.

ANother thing, I hope you have a trans-go kit, and if you do, do you remember if they used the part-throttle accumulation setup that transgo recommends? If your part throttle shifts are always hard / jerking shifts chances are your accumulators are blocked off, OR the valve body holes have been "over drilled" so fluid passes to through too fast. this can beat the living crap out of the internals of the 700R4...

 

Try an N2O run yet Jay?

 

Haven't even used it yet. When I brought the car back to the shop I noticed I could not pull the shifter back far enough to get 1st gear manually. I just thought the cable was adjusted wrong. Well I went under there last nite and noticed a bunch of frayed wires from the outside of the cable. They were stuffed into the bracket that bolts to the tranny. Looks like the tranny guys either forgot to fully unhook the cable or they caught it on removal and pulled the cable apart There is nothing in Regina until Tuesday for new parts so I am hitting the salvage yards this morning.

 

damn the shop screwed your cable, that sucks.

 

Well hopefully this ends my streak of bad luck. I finally got my cable tonite and was able to try the car out. I had just regular street tires and a 100 shot. Damned if it didn't shift I hope infact it was something as simple as the sprag like the tranny shop had told me. The weather is crappy here tonite but if the sun is shining tomorrow nite I will put the ET Streets on and give it a well deserved beating.

 

I love beating on my car. I built it with that purpose in mind.