Gear Vendors

[sy112]

First off let me apologize if this has been discussed in depth before, but the search is down and I haven't been able to use it all morning, the usual debug mode stuff.

I am looking into the Gear Vendors unit for the Sy. It is pretty much known throughout the board that even the best built 700r4 isn't really adequate for our use, even the stout ones can't handle repeated abuse.

So I am looking into a 350 or 400 with an aftermarket overdrive, and from all my hours on the net, GV seems the best. Seems like a fairly "simple" idea as well as installation, giving you a good reliable form of overdrive for a tranny that can handle our output and not need to be rebuilt within a year or two. Plus the gear splitting ability seems like a very good way to improve performance while not doing crazy mods to your engine, just making the most of what you already have.

I know the price is hefty, looks like about $2200 or so for the unit then whatever you dump into a tranny. But compared to what some have paid for getting their 700r4 built, then built again, then built again, it's seems like a fair price if it lasts. According to their website and other websites, these units have been working well on some very powerful and truly brutal cars. Even the Callaway Vette are now coming with built T350's and GV units cause they can't get the GM overdrives to handle their power.

Anyway, just wanting some other input, see if anyone else has SERIOUSLY looked into this. I plan on trying to get the e-mails of those who had testimonials and talk to them in person.

Just seems to me that a stout built T350 can be built/bought relatively cheap and then adding this overdrive gives you the added efficiency as well as the added performance when manually splitting the gears. A very promising idea, would rather spend a bunch up front and not be plaqued with all the problems many have had with our 700r4's.

Dare to be a guinea pig????? :wink: :lol:

EDIT: I saw a thread a while back talking about how long the 700r's last on 11 sec trucks (which I hope to be in the very near future) and it seemed that most had very low number of passes on them, can anyone remember the genral consensus of the average number s of passes? Once again, sorry, but search is down for me :x

 

[BigAl...]

I'm sure you know this but, are you aware you somehow have to install the GV unit between the tranny and the transfer case. It sounds like a great idea but it sounds like some major work.

BigAl...

 

[E-Rue]

it wont work unless you can get them to build one into a tailshaft housing.
the transfer case would be close to the back tires. lol

im curious tho.... call them up and see what they say.

e

 

[Sy769]

Maybe you should look under your truck and you will see why a GV unit won't work.
And if you tell me you are going 2WD I'll come over and give you the downpipe bitchslap.
Would be a good option for those 2wd trucks out there that want a 350 or 400

 

[Ty0279]

Maybe you should look under your truck and you will see why a GV unit won't work.
And if you tell me you are going 2WD I'll come over and give you the downpipe bitchslap.
Would be a good option for those 2wd trucks out there that want a 350 or 400

Patrick's alive!! :wink:

 

[sy112]

Maybe you should look under your truck and you will see why a GV unit won't work.
And if you tell me you are going 2WD I'll come over and give you the downpipe bitchslap.
Would be a good option for those 2wd trucks out there that want a 350 or 400

guess i could do that, looking under the truck not going 2wd. Just saw on Trucks where they installed on 4wd with no problem, just an idea floating through my head :roll:

 

[TURBO TY]

with the right amount of $$$$ anything is possible. that would be awesome to see installed.then you would get the best of both worlds, strength plus overdrive.

 

[ed hess]

so lets suppose you had a thm400 installed

then suppose you found you could get 15mpg highway and about 14 mpg
daily driving with a mix of highway and city.

would you thing that with this kind of mileage a pesron would be upset and go thru the hassel of a GV unit?

This is just hypothetical of course

ed

 

[E-Rue]

did you call them yet to see what they have?
im still waiting to see what you find out.

e

 

[sy112]

Alright, I just got off the phone with GV and they have nothing for us. Talked with a guy that seemed very knowledgable and friendly, these guys really are gearheads like us.

They only have units available to where it bolts to tranny or transfer case if it is only pushing rear wheels. We talked extensively about mounting BETWEEN the tranny and transfer case and basically he said they have tried with no real success. As he worded it to me, with bolting it to the rear of the tranny it is taking a power load only, but putting it between the two is making a power load and a structural load, which they couldn't come up with a unit to take the abuse of high horsepower. He said they did a lot of testing on 4WD trucks making gobs of power. Apparantly it kept tearing apart the seal inside the unit under both loads. They have tried different setups and gaskets, o-rings and whatnot to no avail. They finally gave up the project.

Naturally we started talking about our trucks and the tranny situation, and the gentleman I was talking to actually put me on a 3-way phone conversation with the dude who was involved in helping the Callaway Vette's use the GV units. Callaway had the same concerns as we do about power output and wanted something different, I was wrong in my earlier post, they are using the 400 not the 350 with the GV unit and has been very successfull in that project. Apparantly the gear splitting the unit does greatly adds to the performance of the vehicle. They are using the method of 1st, 2nd, 2nd over then 3rd and 3rd over for their performance runs, works best cause using 1st over apparantly shifts hard enough and stays in the power band of motor and they lose traction. I was talking about how that would effect our performance and he agreed that with our AWD setup we would have SUBSTANTIAL gains cause we could utilize every gear and it's overdrive. But that in itself is making the problem of putting to much power and structural load on the unit

Anyways, that is what I found out, even talked about the feasibility of purchasing a unit and trying to mod it, and he said he wouldn't waste his money, they have "been there done that."

The only thing he recommended was maybe the 480le conversion, that might take our power output regularly. That and the trusty 400 if you can live without overdrive, and the gas mileage problem.

So basically the unit is useless to the AWD crew, but for the 2wd crew, you should see some drastic time improvements in spliting your gears plus a little better mileage to boot.

Man wouldn't it be cool to have six forward gears 8)

HTH's anyone who was wondering like me

 

[ed hess]

>>>gas mileage problem<<<

Gas mileage problem?

ed

 

[FLSY2730]

Someone or a company could become very rich if they invented a new tranny , like the 700, strong as hell, hold 1200plus hp, would not be any bigger or heavy then our 700, and it has to be a 5 speed auto or optional anyway.

 

[TURBO TY]

hell yeah. it would be nice if Allison made a smaller version of the Duramax 5 speed automatic .

 

[sy112]

yeah looks like the 4l80e might be the way to go for the quick trucks, but hell this is a never ending debate :wink:

 

[ghettosled]

a small allison would be cool! The 5 speed auto is awesome, but they need to be upgraded to hold the power. We are about to go through mine and upgrade some of the parts b/c at over 500hp and 900 ft/lbs to the tire the tranny is starting to slip in the early gears.

 

[jwaller]

not to mention the baby allisons shift about as slow as the big ones do. and if you know what thats like. you cant feel a single shift and they take about 4 seconds to happen. kinda like a ford does...