Greg's truck took a turn in both design and equipment this week. When the motor builder sent us the dyno information we humbly realized we had a weak link in the build. The 700R4. The little GM automatic was just not going to be able to withstand the abuse Greg will be inflicting to it. So the 4L80E stepped up to the plate and dropped its resume on our white board. Yea it is more then capable of the task so we called the Transmission shop and canceled the build on the 700, and ordered it's built up big brother.
The fly in this ointment is the new transmission isl a lot bigger. It is wider, it is taller and to our horror it is ten inches longer. Our Transmission cross member and its associated tabs on the frame are toast. That is just a matter of fabrication and we are fine with that,but the real tragedy is the crossover pipe on the exhaust system that had run behind the the trans mount would now be in front of it and the trans would be above it. That was going to make me hang myself. I have close to 40 hours alone just building this exhaust focusing on keeping everything above the frame bottom.
Here is a picture of the previous set up
nice and cozy and the distance of the crossover in relation to the header collector was optimum.
So with tears in our eyes we grabbed the mock up block bolted to the new 4L80 mock up transmission and lowered it back into the frame to see just how bad this situation was.
How is this possible?
How could the build Gods be so kind?
Sorry had to edit as I mislabeled this as a 4L60 when as I was correctly scolded, it is in fact the 4L80e