Thread: My Transmission Finally Went

So on my way home from work I got into my car and got about 100 feet and the transmission would not engage. I could turn the car off then back on and it would do the same thing. I got a tow home and took a day to decide on what I wanted to do with it...

I wanted to get a transmission from Dave at TEP but I did not want to wait a month and have to have it shipped then finding someone to install it or do it myself. Book time on Removing and Replacing is 7.9 hours for the transmission. I have all the tools needed but after calling around to local shops (Milwaukee, WI) and guys that work out of their own garages that have their own transmission business said it was a very hard job to do even with a hoist. Given I am pretty familiar with a wrench and have rebuilt 2 engines, one out of my old 98 grand am with a 3.1 in it, I did not feel too ambitious about this project.

So I called around to see if anyone would do it for around $550 (What dave will do it for) and no one was able to beat him, the cheapest i found just for R&R was 700. I looked around locally to see if anyone would be able to do a performance transmission rebuild for around the same price as Dave. A lot of shops would not do anything to "Beef" it up so the same parts would fail again, like the TCC, the clutches, etc. I was recommended by a mechanic that has been working on transmissions for the past 30 years to give ATD a call and they answered.

Automatic Transmission Design (Certified Transmission Specialists) is the shop I ended up going with. After talking to them for about an hour on what I wanted specifically done they quoted me with a price. The guy Charles has personally done over 300 of these transmissions, that and with a 2 year 24k warranty behind him I felt I was in good hands. The build is expected to be just about the same as Dave at TEP but with a different shift kit. The price came out to be 2100$ installed and done in 4 days. I added in a trans cooler $200 installed, they are also mounting, balancing, and doing an alignment for an additional $90.

So that is where I am at now, I will keep everyone posted with updates as I get them!
Any and all comments/thoughts are welcome

Originally Posted by Pure2sin

Not bad. I would have him take pictures so you know what parts are going into it. Is he doing anything with the valve body? I know Dave has his own upgraded version.

Yes I believe so, I am stopping by there tomorrow

Is that place near ZZP? IIRC that's the name (certified) that ZZP uses to build their transmissions.

BTW, there's a write up here about how to install/swap a trans. It's pretty basic and simple.

Originally Posted by BillBoost37

Is that place near ZZP? IIRC that's the name (certified) that ZZP uses to build their transmissions.

BTW, there's a write up here about how to install/swap a trans. It's pretty basic and simple.

Where can I find the write up? Never mind found it !

It's super e a sy all you do is type the word ea sy without any spaces and toss my name in the sn field.

I didn't know you were ea sy Bill lol

I'm beyond ea sy and I always think fixes are eas y so therefore it seems to be the best way to find threads by me. If I type it w/o spaces though...this thread will show up too and cloud the results

[size=18pt]!!! UPDATE !!![/size]

So here is an update for everyone. Its been a week and a couple days. After waiting around for parts and for it to be completed I finally got the call saying it was done... well kind of.

ATD (Automatic Transmission Design) Took the car out for a test drive on Wednesday, Charlie said it was going into "lock up" shifting early, won't engine brake in third, and the transmission was having low pressure. He said I needed to come and put a tune on it because of the new gear changing (going from 2.93 to 3.29).

I kind of thought that it was funny that it would be doing that if the only thing that was changed is the gearing... I am no automatic transmission expert but it seemed weird. The only thing I would expect to be off is the speedo.

So I sent lew my files last night and he said he was not able to get to them until tonight, but the shop closes at 6 and I could not wait another weekend without my car. I sent my files to diablo sport trinity help center and they wrote me a tune. I took the tune and installed it with my trinity. He took it for a test drive and said the same thing, and also it would sometimes start in 2nd. Charlie did say that something could of been installed wrong or some other stuff I cant remember. He says it does happen but its very, very rare.

They are going to take the trans out and tear it apart on Monday and hopefully be done on Wednesday, by then ill have my tune back from lew and install his.

So that raises a few questions for me...

Would changing the gears cause these problems?("lock up", shifting early, won't engine brake in third, and the transmission was having low pressure)

Would the tune cause these problems to get more noticeable/worse ?

Has anyone heard of this happening?

Thats all that I can think of now but I am sure I will have more q's later and/or details !!!!

Not having the correct gear ratio in the trans as to what the computer thinks is going to screw things up big time.

I am not 100% sure on exactly what needs to be changed in the tune, but I am sure the info it out there and someone on here might know.

!!!! FINAL UPDATE !!!!

The problem that they had with it after they installed it and it not shifting correctly was they put in a wrong spacer I believe... they put in a non-tap shift one so the fluid was not able to flow through, that was 4 days ago.

Alright I got my car back 2 days ago and all I can say is WOW! What a difference. The shifting is almost instant. The car feels more rigid and tight all around. No more TTC oscillation and clutch slippage.

As for the shop Automatic Transmission Design, I want to say is that they are always there for customer service. Every time I called someone was there to talk to. I mainly talked to charlie who was there to ask any questions I had. They did not give me any run around they were upfront with everything. The whole shop there is nice and always busy, they always had 1-3 cars up on a racks at a time. They are also were very speedy too, charlie gave me an estimate of a 4 work day turnaround but that did not happen mainly due to waiting on parts because I wanted to add a few things and also the spacer they installed.

The reason I chose them over Dave is simply I needed my car and off of local recommendations from people I trusted. I also wanted to compare pricing to Dave and it came out to be about the same given my time to travel and cost.

Shout out to Lew for the awesome Tuning
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(Ill update this as more comes to me)

Incorrect gear ratio will most of the time set two codes
Incorrect gear ratio
Max adapt shift

Symptoms are harsh shifts. That's about all you typically should notice.

Glad they got that fixed up.