i have been looking around lately at doing an overdrive trans swap in a 71 nova with a tpi swap. i have noticed that a lot of people are putting 700/4l60s in a most of the time but i have some bigger plans in mind and was thinking of the 4l80 swap with a full manual valve body and maybe an aftermarket controller one day.

Anyways my question is. is there any particular year trany that i should look for. the biggest consern is with the newer LS engines will the trans fit an older gen 1 small block ( input shaft and convert wise i know the bolt pattern is the same). for example can i just take a 4l60E off of a LS1 camaro and it bolt right up to my gen 1 flex plate with out any problems. thanks

 

4L80E is a very big and heavy transmission. Manual valve body? It's an electronic transmission and needs a computer to operate it. There is no "manual valve body" available for it although there is a kit that can make it into a 6 speed by splitting the gears with the OD. The 4L80E came out in 91 and a few had problems. By 93 the early problems were fixed.

The 700R4/4L60(e) is a popular swap but not the best choice for a performance OD transmission. The 200-4R is a better choice.

 

just so you know there is a manual conversion for these transmissions. look here http://www.txchange.com/tgp.htm go down until you see GM stick shift conversions or something to that nature.

Also what makes the 200R4 so much better than a 700R4 or a 4l80. and also they were/are still having problems with the 4l60 witch is just an electric 700. So to say that it has/had problems is not a very good reason not to do the swap, seeing how every time some one comes with this question it is almost answeared the same way every time. other than the fact that it is heavier and eats a little more power than these other two trans why should i not do the swap because it seems that these things are generaly stronger than some of the others i have seen, exspecialy in stock stock configureation.

 

I never said that. I said there is no manual valve body available for it. Because it's controlled electronically, there have been a few kits available to give it more performance. As I mentioned above, there's a 6 speed conversion to split the gears with OD for 2 more gears. There's also a shift controller that mounts on the dash to give 4 firmness of shifts. Stock, stage 1, stage 2, race. All it does is holds line pressures between shifts for harder shifts without removing the oil pan for modifications.

The 200-4R (not R4) is better than a 700R4 because it has a better gear ratio and doesn't use up as much power. The 200-4R is not better than a 4L80E but it is a lot smaller and lighter, uses less power, doesn't require a computer to operate it and doesn't require modifications to the floor pan to get it in.

You can put whatever transmission you want into your car but just because you want the biggest, heaviest, hardest to install transmission doesn't mean that's what you need. You can also install a Dana 60 differential under the car but I doubt you don't need that either.

The 700R4 is a great street transmission for any kind of older vehicle but has poor gear ratios for performance. The low first gear allows a heavy car to quickly get moving when it has highway gears in the diff then an OD to really bring the rpms down when on the highway. That low first gear and the spread between first and second make it a poor performance transmission. Put a deeper gear ratio in the diff and first gear can easily overpower the tires with too much torque multiplication. A WOT shift from first to second drops the rpms down too far below the power curve.

The 200-R4 has roughly the same gear ratios as a TH350 but also has an OD. The 4L80E has the same gear ratios as a TH400 but also has an OD. About 80% of the internal parts of a 4L80E is the same as a TH400.

 

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well the biggest reason i was looking at a 4l80 was reliabilty. i want something that i dont have to pull out every so many months to have it rebuilt. i have seen numuroes times. tranny goes pull it rebuild it with some better stuff put it back in and in a matter of a year had to pull it three times for different stuff. i know the tech could have made a mistake but 3 times in the matter of a year.