justinsbad95z

I have a 1995 camaro z28 a4 with 150,000 miles. Its a lot but i love the car i have been slowly fixing it up. Now i finally have the money to get my motor built. I have been told that the transmission in my car is good and reliable. But the car has 150000 miles on it. I was just wondering how long you think the transmission will last is im getting my motor built to 450 hp. I know it will go eventually but any ideas how long?

blackztpi

soon is when. lol the frictions are probably on their way out already on stock power. you'll want a nice built trans with a stall. plan on 800-1200 bucks for a pretty good trans build.

Fatdog2

Previous posts have suggested that the stock trans can take up to 400hp.Might want to beef it up some.My02

12SCNDZ

The input sprag, and the 3-4 clutches will be the first places to look for problem, especially if you plan on running sticky tires. The weak SKF input sprags fail consistantly in these units, unless they're upgraded to the much stronger Borg-Warner sprag. We've seen output shafts break in 12 second cars. The aluminum input pistons are known for cracking. The sun shells break. The 2-4 bands will usually burn up with much power. It's not the most rliable transmission to handle big power in stock form. Fortunately, there are ways to make them near bullet proof.

Frank
CPT

caldercay

I have a 95 Z convertible (~152k miles, just like yours) and the sprag went bad (4L60E tranny), which is very typical for this tranny. My plan is to get to 400-450 HP. Had my tranny *not* gone bad, I still would have swapped it first before building the engine. Why? Because, based on the mileage, if I had a beefy motor, it wouldn't matter much because the beefy motor would strain the high-mileage tranny and it would break soon after.

Personally, I'd rather have a beefy tranny/converter behind an engine waiting to be rebuilt.

Face it, the engine relies heavily on the tranny to get the torque/power to the rear wheels, and if you have a sub-optimal tranny, getting the power to the rear isnt gonna happen.

Listen to others, but with your mileage, I would seriously consider looking to get the converter and tranny replaced. (My Yank converter arrived today and the FLT tranny is on the way!).

In the meantime, you should also consider improving the breathing at both ends of the engine before the engine build (CAI, headers, etc).