Author Topic: Higher Performance Clutches/POLL (Read 4380 times)

Jeff M · « **on:** April 20, 2004, 01:34:17 AM »

Need to get some feedback from everyone I can, so I can convince some suppliers to make up some Higher Performance Frictions for the 4T60 family of trannies. Though the upgraded high-statics work very well and have not shown signs of letting go in the ones I have tested, I would love to be able to use the power of many to convince the suppliers to get us (and other 4T60/4T60E/4T60E-HD owners) some serious clutch upgrade options. I would like these so there is absolutely no chance of slipping clutches from those who are very hard on their autos, and those that seem to have to go NATO on the highways, those that race a lot and/or those looking for a larger hp turbo upgrade setup. Now all you with manuals can keep being shifty ;-) that’s cool, but the many very fast GNX, GN, T-Types, TTA, Syclone, Typhoon and others run an auto for good reasons, build some boost at launch, no spool down during shifts, consistency that is easier than with a manual so you can play to win very close to your dial-in. So to the auto guys, vote not just because you think you need it now or would like it now but if ever in the future you might have a breakdown or a planned upgrade and would like these Higher Performance frictions around to complete a good rebuild! Again I will have to fork out the initial work talking the talk to get these, and of course the dough, I just hope people do follow through when I need to get these sold, but I won’t even try to ask for cash now as I have seen too many such offers fail on other message boards. I expect the cost of a complete friction setup like this to run around $100 to $200 from what the suppliers tell me of other Higher Performance Clutch kits.

Thanks for your time guys, back to work for me!

Jeff M

maximage · « **Reply #1 on:** April 20, 2004, 08:05:58 AM »

You already know where I stand on this matter!

god910 · « **Reply #2 on:** April 20, 2004, 09:00:37 PM »

I run a 282 at the strip because it won't blow up. This damn bowl of cereal we call an auto tranny is crap. I have a spare auto tranny (Jeff read my new post in 1/4 drag racing, you'll know what I'm talking about) that I am about to tear into. I drove the auto today and the tranny is fine. I think I just got her a little hot. But it has got me thinking... I need to have a tranny ready that I can occasionally beat on, that WON'T break. HOWEVER!!!! I'm NOT gonna spend $3000. I think it should be doable for 500-1000 (parts only) Considering I can make a 700R4 damn near bulletproof for that much (less TC) we should be able to do it too. We already have special parts that won't break, we need other parts that won't wear so easily. I don't mind getting a concusion when my head snaps from a 1-2 or 2-3 shift. Like I said, I'm gonna be cracking open the case on this muther soon, and I guess we'll see when I get in there. When it goes back together it will hold the power I can make (ESPECIALLY for only occasional beatings) That's where I stand, if we had an auto that would hold (and not 3x the price of the car) I would run it. But we don't. (And manuals are SOOOOO much fun!) I wouldn't own any TGP's right now, if the first one I looked at wasn't a manual. Now I own 3

Jeff, bring em on.

TGPilot · « **Reply #3 on:** April 21, 2004, 03:34:14 PM »

copy and paste from W-Body.com

Quote from: "TGPilot"

In all honesty I would have gone with higher friction tranny parts if they were available when my tranny cooked. The reason I went with a 5-speed swap was because to have a reputable tranny shop fix my tranny it would have been at or close to $2000 R&R. To me that was rediculous for a tranny I am not convinced is "bullet proof" for any forms of HP/Torque gains with simple modifications.

Being able to build boost sitting on the line is a great advantage, but the lighter weight, the much lighter rotating mass, and the gains of "direct drive" of the 5-speed I think makes up for it as soon as you get everything in motion.

But then the loss of boost between shifts is an issue also. Obviously if you have constant power to the ground instead of loss during shifts you will get to the other end much faster. If you have a good tranny that will allow you to speed shift then the losses are much less of course.

Me personally I am a Turbo and Manual Tranny fan...auto's are much too expensive to fix! :wink: If I knew that the higher friction plates would DRASTICALLY reduce operating costs of the daily driver/weekend racer...I would be the first to pay if a TGP was in my front yard... 8)

god910 · « **Reply #4 on:** April 21, 2004, 05:09:14 PM »

A-f@#%$-men brother.

Jeff M · « **Reply #5 on:** May 02, 2004, 10:57:30 PM »

Well, did I see this coming

, god910, quit it :roll: :) you are making a few bad apples/trannies spoil the whole bunch (everyone out there with a tranny that is doing just fine), quit freaking out so much, we get the point you are not happy, you are going to make everyone else start to worry about their car, and perspective owners shy away from getting one of these great cars, and make more owners junk theirs :shock: . Its going to take a while to say enough for you and others to grasp the reasons and benefits to all this but here goes 8) . Like any part out there, performance or stock, the more that can be made, the cheaper the price. Billet Steel cranks for 350 engines are cheap to buy and everywhere with thousands sold, but one for the Typhoon I have ran $2,100 and after about 50 made it still runs this much, as do any custom steel cranks (until someone calls them production pieces, AND lowers the price), or any custom part, or even limited run production “Performance” parts. The 700R4 that is in a ton of GM vehicles for years now can be properly rebuilt to handle more power than the vehicle it came on for $1,200 to $2,200, and that is parts alone, no labor or fixing anything else that wore out or broke, and that is cheap even with so many out there being rebuilt, lots of parts in an auto. As said in this post regarding aftermarket companies testing parts for what is needed to fix all the weak links in the chain: http://www.w-body.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15660&sid=04fd203d57fcf7ca3651e2af97367838 Costs are going to run higher than most until the investment and company operational costs are recouped. Talking with the guys who did the 4T65E behind the 1,200 hp+ Ecotird motors, they ran stock clutches for a while to find out how they lasted (they did last and that is surprising!!), they even found a number of hard parts lasted, but still made up some custom clutches )and took out 4th gear

), but the point it this is not a lot different than the 4T60 or 4T60E, about the same number and size clutches. NO, I don’t mean to say our tranny or any of the 4T6x family will do this and last a long time/100k miles, it just proves (with someone other than me doing all this type of testing all the time) that the 4T6x trannies can be made to work without vast amounts of custom (expensive word!) parts and hold onto a lot of extra power. For the TGP tranny, or any 4T6x tranny, 100k miles is a long time to last (and is about where most TGPs are at now!), and is about what the manufacturers design into their life cycle, shorten that with a lack of regular fluid changes, and from this the results of a lack of fluid flow from a plug/partially plugged tranny filter, plugged tranny coolers, sticking valve body etc can do, as well abusive use and such and that 100k miles is never going to be seen, and when rebuild time comes, there are going to be a lot more parts to replace. When doing a rebuild to any tranny like this, there is the need to get better parts, hardened and such that will provide a longer life with extra power, those parts add up quick, added to bearing and washer upgrades, high performance clutches and steels, and a host of other working parts, as well a fully tested and tuned valve body setup. In the end a full rebuild with just parts on a 4T60 can run around $1,200, maybe less, about the same/cheapest cost for a good performance rebuild to a common 700R4, but this rebuild is damn serious, and will go a very long way to ensure higher power handling and longer life. Now knowing that there are tons of TGP autos out there that from the 3,000+ owners I have talked to since 1996, the percentage of failed trannies is still in the single percentile (no matter how mad any one or two owners here get, still a small percentage!)……I just wish there were this many manual TGP trannies with 14 years of age running stock or bigger power for me to say its proven its self better than an auto!?!?!? I hope these manuals do last, and the autos, and I want to make it clear first that I am not a type of person that says or thinks I have or anything out there is really all that better hands down, there are just to many variables, pros and cons to everything, and in life….great looking blonde, no personality, chunk-a-saurus but is as sweet to be around as southern comfort.

That was no so long, not as bad as my post in that link above

Jeff M

god910 · « **Reply #6 on:** May 03, 2004, 07:53:28 PM »

I think you misread my reply. I think $1,200 is a fair price to pay for a build that would be expected to hold to the awesome powerband that these trannies are expected to support. My auto TGP has 170K and the tranny is AWESOME. But after 1 night at the track I had (temporarily I might add) a studder from the 2-3 upshift. I am looking forward to ripping into this trannie, I think there were a few design flaws that had they been worked out, this tranny wouldn't be a bitch point for so many people. (Just image if they had tuned the chip and not cared about the tranny. Then you would have some serious bitching going on.)

SO JEFF QUITE TALKING SHIT, AND SEND ME A KIT!!!!

Seriously though, what's it gonna take? What's holding this tranny back? Friction material is obvious, but what is breaking?? Can we tighten up the shift (read reference to neck shattering shifts=good) to help w/ clutch life. When we do that what's gonna break? I don't want to tread on your trade secrects, I just wanna make/help make these some serious contenders, and I can't honestly tell you that I would ever attempt to do a 5 speed swap myself. Which means, auto is where it's at for the masses. Lemme know if there is anything I can do to help. If you want me to blow up my tranny I will do that. That's why I removed my w/g control hose at the strip the other night. I CAN FIX IT!!!! I would rather go fast and fix stuff than pussyfoot around making sure it won't break. Woot.

Jeff M · « **Reply #7 on:** May 04, 2004, 12:32:10 AM »

You are awesome 8) , I can give you a hard time and you don’t get all NATO on me, and you can give it back to me and I get a good laugh too, needs to happen more between members here, leave the emotions for my wife to specialize in :turn-l: .

Ha-ha :) , the part I did not misread that made me reply that way was this quote: “This damn bowl of cereal we call an auto tranny is crap” YA KNOW :evil:

! AND: “this tranny wouldn't be a bitch point for so many people” what is this “so many people” stuff??? I said it’s a small number verses the many owners with all these 100k mile trannies, and those we know of here (here is not the world/USA) are more those who insist on 100+ mph and lock up 4th gear no matter how hard I try to save them this costly headache for a cheap thrill :roll: . The others I cannot speak exactly for but know there is some hanging of valve bodies from shit in there/dirty old worn out tranny fluid, or a drain/new oil and filter that still leaves shit in the valve body and a few quarts in the TC and lines! This hanging of valves allows clutches to slip and not fully engage, slip means heat, heat means glazed clutches and warped steels…..I hate to be the meany but a lot of it is once again, lack of simple maintenance! And GM knows not all people maintain their cars, if they thought/found better of its customers, they may of setup the TGP to run a T3 :!: :shock: :D .

Your 170k miles is good to hear still holding, might be a valve in the valve body handing from old grungy/dirty oil, even a partially plug filter, but I know its no worry for you 8) , just a possible reason.

As for the price, $1,200 is a good guess until I finalize a few last pieces and finish up the 25 page tips and tricks book There are a ton of parts to do it right, especially since many are 14 years old, and anyone taking the time to get this fat ass out of there would like to do it once and only once, and that knowledge of reliability falls right into place with your respect of the time and money I have spent and others who have used their trannies as test mules. 10 trannies jobs to date, with many experts pulled in from across the USA (not bragging, took me some time to talk them into this, and cost me money to fly out to those places/shops/suppliers). 5 of those rebuilds were on 2 TGPs test mules I have here, researching, negotiating parts, customizing parts, testing valve body/pins/springs/balls and other items to balance, then test them hard, make lots of notes, take the tranny back out and tweak and tweak. It is much more than just a fast/hard shift as the pedal gets further down, it’s the proper timing of the gear/clutch pack letting go in relation to the next one coming in, getting the perfect window takes work. Then up the pressures obviously but for testing we ran them too high just to see how might wear or break or let go, had a few there so as you can see, it’s a lot of pushing things to make sure the final pressures and parts and settings will not wear out in a year or two, very tricky and is why I found it so hard to get any tips from shops and such, they spent some time finding their tricks for things, some had to be paid cash, or other favors, others an assurance they would be a Recommended TGP Tranny Shop when the time came…..so much more behind the scenes that I won’t get all into, but this info lets you and others know its like anything I do, slow to come but for a good reason, and costs some money because its done thoroughly and testing over and over on many TGP trannies. So what is weak, think back on those neglected trannies (dirty/worn out fluid) and dirty oil, it’s the clutches that are slipping most of all in those few failed trannies, then there are a few things like the stove pipe/reverse reaction drum that can come apart, places like MACKO offer cheap Japanese replacements, but all the good tranny shops that have used them say they are worse than stock, but there are upgrades that runs a bit more like close to $300 but this is why I was asking in this Poll how many I can get sold so I can negotiate the price down by buying more!! There are other cheap Japanese alternatives, but the tranny shops all tell me do not use them or you will have come-backs (unhappy customer, loss of profits for the shop!). The Red Eagles are pretty good at first but tests have show they do not hold that way for long, need better and I have those, working on some excellent 3rds and those custom clutches are supposed to come out by the end of this month. 1st gear/input is already taken care of, not a ton of custom needed there since we have no power shifts going into 1st/drive :) . Lots of other upgrades and better parts, and updates alone that cost me $300 to get the inside scoop on, more than the stuff the internet or shops will give out ($300 for a CD from ATSG). I could go on and on, but said I would shut up, so I will :crazyeyes:

Jeff M

god910 · « **Reply #8 on:** May 04, 2004, 05:00:39 PM »

What I meant by "so many people" is just that. All the people complaining are "the people" The bowl of cereal comment came due to the fact that I had JUST gotten home from the strip and my tranny was shuttering. I was mad at it. :cry: Not because it may have been broken, but becuase it may have been broken AFTER 5 RUNS. Trust me, I know all about what it takes to tune a valve body. Actually, I know NOTHING about what it takes, because I wouldn't try it.

After driving my car I believe they did a pretty good job w/ the valve body/timing, so if I do modify it, it'll probably be parts only. (For now, tuning later perhaps) Have you looked into how we're gonna plant both tires? Or a transbrake? I think both of those will be big help on the strip for all of us (along w/ a higher stall T/C)

And as far as the manual discussion goes. I haven't heard one person bitching about the 5 speed.

I think we're batting 1.000. :wink:

Jeff M · « **Reply #9 on:** May 04, 2004, 05:58:37 PM »

Ah its not life or death here

:) , its just the “so many people” and “bowl of cereal piece of crap” like I said, that the way is was written might make all those who own, want to own etc etc, start to get a really bad feeling about the TGP tranny when its not that bad 8) . As for your “bowl of cereal” (first time I heard that one

) if its got 170k on it, its not going to think nice about a lot of some hard driving, not sure how hard your driving was (or the past owner’s on it!!!) but…and to address your statement on higher stall converter (you actually thinking this? :o :) ) is brake torque makes a ton of heat big time, to address that and your converter statement, we flash boost so fast there is no need (yet) for brake torquing or a higher stall, actually if you lock the TC during WOT the rpms drop and the fricking thing just hauls ass, of course the TC clutches are NOT designed for this so will not last long (should of never mentioned this trick!). So maybe when we get some bigger turbos than some GT28R/S upgrade, we are all set with stock stall speed, but just some info on one TGP owner who went with a higher stall/performance converter that lost 6 tenths in his ets, bummed him out to have to yank it out again but it costs to prove or test things. And this last point I hope along with the rest, ever gets read AND remembered and that is the car is not aching for a LSD, just take a look at the 2 tire burn out on my web site’s chip page, both are working hard together, and thank god not having lane changing torque steer. After all this is said, you see why I think this TGP and all it has to offer is pretty damn good!!

One last point for the TGP tranny running a higher performance chip from the factory/since day one, McLaren did the Pace Car chips, and one of those 5 Pace Cars is owned by a friend of mine, and it HAD a tweaked /10 psi chip from day one, with a faster (too fast/whap fuel cut till I tweaked some areas) boost ramp-up that went 180,000 miles before 2nd gear started to slip, not bad, but he owned it since nearly new, and enjoys talking about Tom Cruise driving it during the shooting of the movie Days of Thunder and all that (yehaaa) but he did maintain the car very well 8) .

So, after re-reading all that, sounds like I am bitching and grumbling :twisted: , its not my real intentions, main thing is to go over good ideas, thoughts, questions and to clear up some topics, hope that got through :oops: .

Jeff M

god910 · « **Reply #10 on:** May 04, 2004, 07:43:55 PM »

Okay, as far as the T/C is concerned, I mentioned it because of the brake torqueing. We wouldn't have to apply so much pressure if the stall was higher, but hey, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. I know all about the TC lockup, most GN guys run it locked up so that's not news to me, but I didn't figure our fruit loops would keep the milk in the bowl if we did that.

I can assure you that my car will NOT do a 2 wheel burnout. I can go take a pic of the spot in the driveway of my 1 wheel smudge if you want me too. And (unrelated) Sunshine needs an LSD way bad. It's pretty nasty actually. Of course then I'll need a clutch to back it up. And some tires, and some brakes. Oh my!!! :shock: (sidebar: I went to my friendly neighborhood Tire Barn today and ordered a pair of Nitto 555R 245/45/R17's today (For Black Sunshine that is 8) Paid $162 each I figured they would be WAY more than that.)

idbeast · « **Reply #11 on:** May 05, 2004, 11:58:05 AM »

I also did a higher stall torque converter in the pink tranny, the car ran horrorable, and it came out 2 days later and my original T/C was rebuilt and the vanes brazed into place. :bag: :crazyeyes: :moon: :hockey: :drinking:

TurboGTU · « **Reply #12 on:** October 30, 2004, 11:31:59 PM »

So on theise tranny kits...you will have two available..one just clutches and steels (gaskets and seals??)...and the other full rebuilt kit with valvebody mods and hard parts. If not..what will be some options? I've been looking at raybestos and sonnax industries on hard parts and clutches. THen the many different companies offering valvebody "improvers" ...each has different methods of improment and parts. I don't know whos still using old remedies and whose tested and improved. So theres many options..not so many good choices. If you have the right recipie...then you just saved me a bigtime headach.

god910 · « **Reply #13 on:** March 24, 2005, 12:14:30 AM »

Alright people where are we on this? My tranny is gone and I need a car to drive (might as well fix one I can take to the Dragstrip while I'm at it) ANYONE that has ANY line on some upgraded friction materials holla back. I emailed Jeff, and understand that he's busy, so in the interim, I figured I'd shoot a reminder that we never solved anything on this deal. As it sits, it's either put an engine in the 'tona, or fix the tranny in auto car. I'm working on getting another TD, so I don't NEED to fix the Daytona. But I will only have 1 TGP if Josh and I work something out. So I NEED to fix it. :twisted: So, ANY upgraded tranny kits would be great.

TurboGTU · « **Reply #14 on:** March 24, 2005, 01:57:25 AM »

Heres something I found...http://www.altoredeagle.com/ib62756.htm

I would still like those high statics on all clutch packs. I don't think anyone makes a red clutch for our trans. Just OE stuff. Just bands are upgraded. But you would still have to track down your cause of failer.

Edit: Ok they do make reds for it. But a step up would be great.