6R80 in Place of 4R70W

Zep5.0 said:
@CDsDontBurn, r we talking Pearl or the sand buggy? Daily drivers don't need to be fun, but if it was mine, I'd saw off the mufflers and put long tips on it. It will give the impression you have more power at least. Then if you get Pearl up and running you could start looking for a trans to swap.

As stated, if you have 2 project cars neither will get done.
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The sand buggy, lol. But yes, that one. And the idea didn't cross my mind for a "fun" DD. It crossed my mind because I'd like a more competent DD. It's the slow shifting that's getting to me. The broken O/D button probably doesn't help. Otherwise, it's working as intended. Doing the J-Mod might help with my shifting "issue".

Having two project cars isn't going to happen either..... maybe, lol. All I want to have is two working cars so I can drive to work without problem when one decides to stop working for whatever reason. Case and point, the catalytic converter on my Honda (haven't fixed it yet either).
 
1997ThunderbirdLXV6 said:
I have owned a car with an 8-speed before, and I have driven 10-speeds. They shift all the time. It's annoying. I will admit that I think 6 is the perfect number of gears.
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My work truck has an 8 speed automatic and I dont really notice the shifting. 🤔

My SC has 6 speeds ( if you count reverse ) 😉

CDsDontBurn said:
Before I was born either way, so no difference to me 😂
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Same here, but I own a 1973 truck so its relevant. When I first started driving in 1996, I still had to smog it - not sure how it passed; there has never been a catalytic converter on it - the rules may have been less strict at that time.
 
Your best best for now, and cheapest is get the Jmod kit. Seriously, it works WONDERS for the 4R, it’s immediate the difference it makes. You can tell as soon as you go from a complete stop how much more direct it feels and the shifts are a lot faster. I also have my trans tuned with the proracer advantage tuner which kicks it up a notch but the Jmod puts in work no doubt.

I’d say you should read in the 6R swap some more. While I really want to retrofit my bird with it, it just makes sense, 6 vs 4 gears means you won’t drop as much in the power band and obviously it’s way newer so it’ll preform alot better than the 4R. I think the 6R is able to lock the converter in 1st gear which the 4R only wishes haha. On top of all that I’m sure you’ll gain some MPG, which isn’t the sole reason you should do it.

Side note, ever since I moved out here to Arcadia there’s been this guy in a 2 mini coopers, 1 baby blue and an orange. Both of which would dust me consistently 😅 1. Obviously the stock power train is by no means a power house and 2. The trans simply doesn’t keep you in the power band.

So today I got to run into him again, and he definitely got to taste the 4.6’s furious vortech powered punch today 😤 I bring it up because the transmission. Since I’m running a centri, the 1-2 shift is pretty decent it doesn’t drop much, at the end of 1st I may about 55-60MPH and about 11-12psi at 6500 then dropped to about 5psi going into 2nd which tops out at about 90mph. The shitty gear is 3rd as soon as it tops 2nd and go into 3rd it feels like it looses all of its spunk. Pretty much a waste of gear. That’s the main reason why the 6R would be a vast improvement over the current one, keeping it in the power band. I’m sure N/A engines would benefit from more gears. Excuse the lil rant 👍
 
Chingon1 said:
Your best best for now, and cheapest is get the Jmod kit. Seriously, it works WONDERS for the 4R, it’s immediate the difference it makes. You can tell as soon as you go from a complete stop how much more direct it feels and the shifts are a lot faster.
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I'm pretty sure I'm going to get the J-Mod at some point in time for this car.

Like mentioned earlier, I don't need a fun DD. I just want it's transmission to perform better.
 
The 4R70W has much better gearing than the AOD guess it’s not good enough. 1st gear on AOD is 2.4;, going to a 4.17 1st gear must be a massive upgrade.
 
Personally I like the quiet crusability think a shark gliding thru the surf. And then bam. Hit'em hard like a manual allows. So driving in manual mode is a blast till 3rd. I'm not a tuner (yet) but I think a quarterhorse (back in supply) with some thoughtful tweaking might help, but not as much as the J MOD allowing shifts to firm up and speed the process. You won't regret the J MOD!
 
Jonathan:
One suggestion on the JMOD. Don't go too nuts with the drilling out the holes. There IS such a thing as too harsh a shift.
For our first lemons race years ago, I just drilled everything out to the max settings even though our tired V6 didn't make 140HP under the thinking that would minimize heat getting into the ATF.

The result was a car which was miserable to drive on the street.
 
CDB, do you have the tuning package? It's possible to fix the trans in tuning. You do need to j-mod it first.
 
Grog6 said:
CDB, do you have the tuning package? It's possible to fix the trans in tuning. You do need to j-mod it first.
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Negative.

What's the tuning package? Like an SCT XCAL-III?
 
SCT PRP tuning package. And an xcal2 or modern equivalent.

lasotaracing.com

SCT Pro Racer Software

Use Pull down Menu (above) for options.. Prior to ordering, click here to submit information about your vehicle. The best option for tuning for most people is to tune their own vehicle. It is not brain surgery and once you 'get it' you will be forever free of dynotune costs. 99% of the tuners...
lasotaracing.com lasotaracing.com
Yeah, you will need to see what they allow. If they won't allow a manual swap, nothing else tuning-wise will fly.
I did more reading. Ca passed a law in '21 apparently in response to the rolling coal bs, that led to the lawsuit, which led to us taking emission classes to keep our prp working.
It's exactly as Matt said, eec checksums.
 
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KevinVarnes said:
Are you running a 4R70W or 6R80 behind your DOHC?
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4r70w
But it will run 6r80 as well, just need the correct harness.
That's the beauty of the Holley-
I'm using it to run my 4v, but it will run a Coyote, an LS, or a Hemi engine
Just need the correct harnesses.
 
All of us with the prp had to take online classes about emissions about then.
I saw an idiot roll coal on a state trooper, lol. I saw him later removing his tint with a razor blade, while the trooper supervised, lol. He put his tuner on the hood, like a drug bust. We don't have inspections, so idk if they took his tuner. They've stopped me with the tuner and laptop; he just wanted to make sure I wasn't watching a movie.
 
massacre said:
The rolling coal dicks sure put performance tuning on the EPA radar.
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It was the VW dieselgate scandal, that put diesel emission “defeat devices” at the forefront of the EPAs radar. They were looking hard at any other manufacturer trying to game the system, be it other car/truck companies or aftermarket parts/software suppliers.

Coal rollers got SCT in trouble, BUT ironically only because just a few years prior to dieselgate they had merged with BullyDog which was a name much more synonymous to diesel tuning than SCT ever was.

Grog6 said:
All of us with the prp had to take online classes about emissions about then.
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I went straight to the test on my first go thinking I’d ace it, but then there were like 3 easy broad questions pertinent to gasoline engine emissions, and the rest were specifically diesel shit like DEF tanks where I needed to skim the stupid lessons.

I stored all that Diesel emissions knowledge alongside 3rd grade kwanzaa lessons in useless waste of time education I’ll never use again in my life.
 
Wait; you got kwanza lessons? Everything I know came from futurama, lol. I'm not sure it existed in the 60's. Civil rights sure didn't. Well, here anyway.
EDIT: It didn't exist until '66. I guess "Duck and cover" was more mainstream then.
 
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Grog6 said:
Wait; you got kwanza lessons? Everything I know came from futurama, lol. I'm not sure it existed in the 60's. Civil rights sure didn't. Well, here anyway.
EDIT: It didn't exist until '66. I guess "Duck and cover" was more mainstream then.
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Yep, Kwanzaa and the next year D.A.R.E. 😆
 
I put a stereo in a dare car in the 90's; they used confiscated drug money to pay. I think my markup was over 500%, lol.
 
We did, and a keg!
That was the party we got a call from the County cops, telling us to quit shooting fireworks; I replied" We're shooting guns, not fireworks!" They said, "nothing illegal with that." and didn't hassle us all weekend.
 
So US shift finally released thei 10R80 controller!! It’s $1475 from their website. I thought they were going to ask close to $2000 for it, really good on them for being so affordable.

To me it totally makes sense to switch from the 4R, it has a way better spread. And if you havnt driven the new 10 you really don’t know what you talking about it’s crazy good in any condition.

Here are the gear ratios, which are Str8 stupid.


10R80 vs 6R80 vs 4R70
4.696 vs 4.17 vs 2.84
2.985 vs 2.34 vs 1.55
2.156 vs 1.52 vs 1.00
1.779 vs 1.14 vs .70
1.526 vs .87
1.278 vs .69
1.0
0.854
0.689
0.636:1

That first gear looks like it would really help with getting the bird off the line, which would improve MPG correct? Since it’ll have that much more of a torque advantage.





www.usshift.com

Quick 10 Clutch-to-Clutch Transmission Control with Remote Display

The Quick 10 controller allows the 10R80 Clutch-to-Clutch transmission to be implemented in a wide variety of vehicles, including ones not originally equipped with electronic control. It also allows customization of the transmission's behavior with an intuitive, user-friendly UI. The compact...
www.usshift.com www.usshift.com
 
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I have driven both F150s and the Camaro with the 10-speed, and I cannot stand it. It shifts way too much, skips gears, then decides that was a bad idea and shifts back to the gear in between. I could see it being useful if you had some highly tuned engine with radical cams that only made power in a very narrow powerband, but for a V8 with a broad torque curve, the 10-speed is totally ill-suited. Maybe you could customize the tune to effectively lock out certain gears, and effectively make a 6 or 7 speed out of it, but the 6r80 swap would give plenty of performance advantage while still behaving like a normal transmission, so I really don’t see the point of even entertaining the 10-speed.
 
MadMikeyL said:
I have driven both F150s and the Camaro with the 10-speed, and I cannot stand it. It shifts way too much, skips gears, then decides that was a bad idea and shifts back to the gear in between. I could see it being useful if you had some highly tuned engine with radical cams that only made power in a very narrow powerband, but for a V8 with a broad torque curve, the 10-speed is totally ill-suited. Maybe you could customize the tune to effectively lock out certain gears, and effectively make a 6 or 7 speed out of it, but the 6r80 swap would give plenty of performance advantage while still behaving like a normal transmission, so I really don’t see the point of even entertaining the 10-speed.
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100% this.

Our cars would much better benefit from the 6R80 over any other transmission if staying in automagic format.
 
I never fully tallied it but I know with some degree of certainty I did my 5 speed swap for less than $1,450 even if I had to buy my tuning package to do it again. That’s including the transmission. Actually if that was my budget I probably would have bought a better driveshaft lol

This is such a weird hobby, every other guy claims they have a van LS swap with a eBay Turbo making 700 horsepower they put together for $500, but then a bespoke $1,450 trans controller is “affordable” 😆
 
How many guys running 10 seconds or less are running a trans with more than 3 gears? On all honesty a 4 speed with a 0.60 OD gear would be just fine for the street. You could run 4.10- 4.30 gears all day and be happy cruising the highway. I never understood the need to be so close to 3rd gear.

I'd rather put $1450 more into my engine.
 
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