🔧 BUILD Queen: 4T80e Turbo 2001 Park Avenue

[Turbocharged400sbc]

Oh fer fucks sake, just cover it with loom, please for t he love of the car gods

 

[turtleman]

Oh fer fucks sake, just cover it with loom, please for t he love of the car gods

I guess that would at least create one less piece of split loom for me to step on in the garage and pucker because of the crunching noise

 

[sktchy]

If I left wires hangin out like that my car would instantly find a way to torch them to punish me.

 

[turtleman]

If I left wires hangin out like that my car would instantly find a way to torch them to punish me.

My thing is the minute I wrap something up like that and pronounce it fixed/finished, the universe comes along with a diagnostic problem and I rip it off again. I'm trying to trick the universe by never putting the bow on it so to speak.

 

[sktchy]

My thing is the minute I wrap something up like that and pronounce it fixed/finished, the universe comes along with a diagnostic problem and I rip it off again. I'm trying to trick the universe by never putting the bow on it so to speak.

God I feel this too. If I had the time I'd tear my entire damn car apart to get all the bullshit out of it and start over from the shell.

 

[v6buicks]

Holy sheeeit. Turbocharged400sbc you have any interest in making another set of those coil mounts? I'd have to reroute my downpipe again, but it would be worth it. Otherwise, I'd probably have to weld standoffs to a set of ZZP covers.

 

[bs009]

Holy sheeeit. Turbocharged400sbc you have any interest in making another set of those coil mounts? I'd have to reroute my downpipe again, but may be would be worth it. Otherwise, I'd probably have to weld standoffs to a set of ZZP covers.

Pending costs I'd definitely be interested too, I'll need a set for the Cutlass and this would save me a few hours of cutting, grinding, and welding

Edit: actually might not fit as well on mine since I have that upper engine mount in the way here

 

[sktchy]

Turbocharged400sbc out looking for a job when dudes be tryin to hand him money.

 

[turtleman]

Pending costs I'd definitely be interested too, I'll need a set for the Cutlass and this would save me a few hours of cutting, grinding, and welding

Edit: actually might not fit as well on mine since I have that upper engine mount in the way here

If you feel confident about what changes need to be made for it to fit, I can edit the design. But it's hard to be 100% sure of everything working out. I'm made a few before that had some annoying problems because of things I overlooked with the first drafts. If you're close enough to me, you can test fit mine. I only have the front one installed at the moment.

 

[bs009]

I'll have to think about where the #1 coil can go, definitely not close enough haha

When it comes time I think I may just end up building something but I'll need to do some more test fitting though

 

[turtleman]

I don't know what made it happen right when I did the valvetrain upgrades but I have a cracked flexplate now...
Between this and loosing 4th gear over the summer, I guess the universe really wants me to pull the motor and trans out of the car and spend more money as if I hadn't done enough work on it.
At this point, I'm thinking i'll bite the bullet and get the meziere billet flexplate since I have two cars that probably should have one now. I never broke one in the old riv.
And I suppose I'll get another 4T80e. With victory wrecker gone, I'll probably just get one on ebay with reasonable mileage on it and swap it in with the billet torque converter and whatever other little odd modifications. That also gives me a spare transaxle to see if I can come up with a way to franken-machine an f-body torsen differential into the 80e carrier. This is an idea that james threw me and I'm still not sure if it was serious or joking but until I have all the parts in my hands and start thinking about machining stuff, I'm never saying never.
ps I hate this car

 

[turtleman]

Got one of those VX Diag things and obviously the first thing I did with it was write in a new remote user name exactly as one would in 2001 aol instant messenger complete with primitive emogies
merry christmas tree

 

[turtleman]

Got some time to kill at work so TCG time!

I figured while I'm waiting around for stuff to arrive to fix the car, I'd finally throw the bazooka powered sub in. easy job right?... right...?
I got it a long time ago for the saabaru and eventually gave up on trying to make it stop rolling around in the trunk and ruining wiring harnesses because it'd roll somewhere and pull them apart.
So now after some pondering, I found a place to fasten it in the trunk of the park ave and it seems secure. As my luck would have it, that spot seems to make the sub totally inaudible once the trunk is closed. It's actually amazing because I've never had that happen before - it's usually the opposite. Normally it always sounds really weak and then you close the trunk and you've suddenly got bass! I already tried reversing speaker polarity. Anyway that's a separate issue.

So now the real problems start.

I just did a quick and dirty wire-up and it has power and ground right from the battery since it's right there in the trunk, I was planning to use the retained accessory power feed provided by the unused cd changer plug to be the "turn-on" lead but for some reason that seems to be powered all the time. I don't know what the deal is with that but that's a pretty simple fix - just have to use another less convenient circuit to turn on with. Fine.
The main problem that I'm hoping somebody has experience with is that when I connect subwoofer's high-level audio input wires to the rear speaker leads (coming from the factory trunk-mounted amp) it seems to just shut off that speaker channel on the oem amp, as in it doesn't like being connected to the subwoofer. If I unplug the speaker input/turn on lead harness on the sub and plug it right back in, it all works and stays working. But it never works without me unplugging and plugging back in.

What else can I try?
The only other thing I can think of is to tap into the input side of the factory amp (coming from the radio) to use that as my input. At that point I'm not even sure if that would be considered a hi level or low level input to the sub but I could try both once the rca-plugs arrive from amazon tomorrow.

easy-e & bone thugs just don't sound right

 

[turtleman]

I got the slab of steel with springs in it.

I'm looking through the instructions for this and they want you to surface the gears down, particularly if you have like a raised lip on them that wouldn't work as a mating surface with the clutch block. I don't but any surfacing of the gear will give it more surface area so I guess I'll surface grind them down a little bit. Looking at the prominent tool marks on the block pictured above, I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to grind that really smooth too or do we want the texture? I would think that's just gonna wear down to a lapped finish over time anyway.
Any thoughts?

 

[Turbocharged400sbc]

Billet aluminum and ss map sensor brackets...

Buys shitty diy posi/lsd

 

[turtleman]

Billet aluminum and ss map sensor brackets...

Buys shitty diy posi/lsd

I hope you didn't think for a sec I was gonna just put that perfectly adequate thing in and go...
It's already pretty much reverse-engineered and I'm gonna do the opposite of the chinese and make it better. I'd really like it to actually work but I guess nobody really knows, at least nobody that has looked at this thread.
All the google research I've done is full of smart-asses saying "just spend the extra few hundred and get the real lsd" to people with miatas and hondas and so fourth that have that option. If I could spend $600 and have a torsen t2 like those guys or double that, I would in a heartbeat. I'm taking a shit idea and trying to make the best of it now I guess.

I figure at the very least, mine shouldn't deposit material into the fluid in the first few hundred miles from all the rough surfaces bedding against eachother.
I'm going to grind the "clutch" surface and it'd be made from hardened tool steel to match the hardness of the gears or at least close. The die springs used puts somewhere i'd roughly estimate between 700-900lbs of total pressure between the two axle gears so that's gotta do something
I really have no idea what I'm doing but I do want to make sure it's not worse off than without it.

 

[turtleman]

As for the f-body torsen rear differential franken-fit, I have a few major snags but I'll post about it and see if anyone has ideas

4t80e with the diff cover and the diff portion of the diff removed. I think it's a give-in that I'm not gonna be modifying that planetary gear set in any way. There's the output shaft and driver side axle gear in the center.

Here's the 4t80e diff on the left and the f-body torsen diff assembly on the right. The vertical alignment is a rough approximation of where it would ideally sit in the 4t80e (the 4t80e spider gear pin aligned to the middle of the torsen gearset) to have the output shaft slip into the corresponding gear like the f-body axle would. So straight away, it doesn't seem at all possible to get that to work. The only way that f-body diff is going into my transaxle is if it gets moved outwards about an inch and a half which presents some issues although maybe fixable ones.
I would need to:
*modify the diff cover and basically extend it out (by eye, it seems like there's room to do so) - tricky but not a deal breaker
*make a billet press-fit extension to use what was a press-fit taper bearing seat to hold a neck to seal and hold the end of the diff in the case and have a new billet vss ring - I would have to add a relocated sensor mount - all reasonably easy
*make a billet adapter ring to mount the f-body carrier to my 4t80e planetary gearset using the f-body ring gear flange - straightforward work (thankfully it's machined nicely on both sides since I would be using the wrong side of it)
*to make the above happen, i'd also need to machine away the taper bearing bit from that side of the f-body diff - very easy
* the big problem I don't have a solution for is how do I fit the 4t80e output & passenger axle stub splines to the f-body 28 spline axle gears? Even if they happened to be the same, I still have a certain length problem on the driver side. The output shaft is too short since I must move the diff away from it to mount it. Basically i'm pretty sure I'd need both axles to be custom made to a specified length and external splines on a both sides.
*side-note, I can potentially recut the larger 4t80e axle splines into the f-body gears (or another larger diameter spline) if that helps but I still need custom axles.

ideas, geniuses? Turbocharged400sbc

 

[Turbocharged400sbc]

Wanna look at my minty barely used 4t65ehd quaife?

 

[Turbocharged400sbc]

Maybe the 8.5" t2 has correct axle spline dia n count where the 7.5" t2 doesn't.

 

[turtleman]

The nicest 4t80e redneck LSD ever has started - A6 tool steel is surface ground on both sides
The original pieces were made out of 4140 hardened to 45Rc according to my tester. Not bad - they could have just made it out of shit cold rolled steel and it'd look the same and probably wear in no time so it's at least not a total gimmick.



On the real LSD front, I've gone a little further with thinking... god it hurts
I'm actually thinking I could get this tucked in closer if I just cut off the ring gear flange, turn/mill up a new one that directly bolts up to the 4t80e gear reduction assembly and get somebody awesome to weld it together. I don't see why that wouldn't work fine. Then, what would have been my adapter spacer thing is reduced to being a thrust plate which can be way smaller. I would replace that carrier cover piece with it. I'm not sure yet but I feel like I might be able to even eliminate those four bolts since it will already be held against the other part and doesn't have to support itself there with the taper bearing anymore. Those bolts are largly the reason why it has to be so far out.
I'll have to work through this more - measure lots of stuff
I don't know, yet, if that change would get the driver side axle gear close enough to the output shaft to avoid needing a custom made but if there's a chance it's worth looking at.
Diff cover not needing to get half-remade would be a huge plus also because that would be incredibly hard - not a simple round thing at all

yo dawg, i heard you like gears


I thought a lot about the idea of adapting the 4t65e gmr torsen into this too but that would only be worth it if I could use stock 80e or 65e output shafts. The other thing is I would have to burn way bigger internal splines into the 65e sun gear because the 80e shaft is much bigger. There would be about .170" of solid section left between the inside splines and the outside helical gear teeth which is probably enough...? I'd also need to machine an adapter ring for the internal ring gear (the one that stays in the trans) to accommodate the, again, way smaller 4t65e diff. It'd be kinda hard to do the outside of that. The advantage is I probably wouldn't have to do anything with the diff cover except relocate the VSS - still need to add a machined something-or-other to hold the end of the different diff but that's a give-in no matter what goes in there.

 

[Turbocharged400sbc]

Turnbuckle bolts in between work?

 

[Turbocharged400sbc]

Thread case after flange removal, thread id of new flange and pin it?

Cryo fit that shit, dry ice case and heat ring

 

[Turbocharged400sbc]

I gots dibs on new posi setup if you steal that queef off me

 

[turtleman]

Does anybody have a loose 4th gen f-body axle laying around that could measure the OD somewhere in the middle?
Mook Is that top chat feature gone now? Sorry, I'm loosing more of my tech saviness by the day.

 

[Turbocharged400sbc]

Should be 28 spline so around 1 1/16ish i'd say at the thinnest where the splines are rolled