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Running a 4l80e without EFI

M

mattycakes

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Location
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Hey all,

I'm looking at doing an engine swap in a late 90's GMT400 and I'm considering a couple of options for what exactly I'll be using as the body. I have a J code 6.2L diesel with a banks kit that would be going into it.

Now, I've read some articles about how the 4l60 can be wired to work without the engine, provided that the RMP signal, throttle position sensor, coolant temp, and vehicle speed sensor still feed the PCM. My question is, does the 4l80 work in the same way? Does it operate vastly differently between the gas and diesel applications? or would I definitely need something like the trans-go to run the 4l80 after the swap?

Thanks in advance
 
There is bailing wire rigging that will make it work poorly, or spend a few hundred and get something like the optishift. The cash layout is never fun, but having perfect control and the ability to change it later at a whim is worth it.

Leroy @ leroydiesel.com is a highly respected guy here and hummer forum for a reason, call him.

Please turn this into a build thread. I Love to see trucks getting improvements that make sense.
 
How do you mean work poorly? The 6.2 has a TPS that can be easily swapped with the corresponding one from a 5.7, although I imagine if the truck was a 6.5 it would be a little more difficult. Only problem I've come across in my planning would be generating a proper tach signal, but I've seen converters or homemade controllers that can be used to deal with this.

Bottom line I guess is I'd prefer to have the ECM run things unless something like an optishift is going to be that much better.

Will L. said:
There is bailing wire rigging that will make it work poorly, or spend a few hundred and get something like the optishift. The cash layout is never fun, but having perfect control and the ability to change it later at a whim is worth it.

Leroy @ leroydiesel.com is a highly respected guy here and hummer forum for a reason, call him.

Please turn this into a build thread. I Love to see trucks getting improvements that make sense.
Click to expand...
 
Not all bad,
Poorly on the set ups where you go to manual shifting, electric switch shifting, or the full pressure shifting.

If you get all the parts like a 93 or older pickup, or 95 or older hummer you hat had the 4l80e, it is a nice but stock set up. It works good. But price out all the parts before buying anything. When you are e done you have a system that works, but relies on multiple components to work and tou cant set parameters to your liking worth a darn. Thats what I have now.

So instead of spending the money on all the separate parts, just spend it on the controller and be able to do that- control it. If I could hit my shift points 100 rpm sooner, my rig would like it much better. But im stuck.

I see nothing wrong with the stock components. I have put 4l80e into 3 speed rigs before and done jury rig set ups, and stock controlled set ups- stock was better. But there were no aftermarket one worth a crud back then. Given modern options, i know which way I would go now.

And yes AK is right, as I said before, Bobbie Martin is a genuis for his book to eliminate ds4/pmd.
 
Ok. I can see while reading Bobbie's guide that an aftermarket controller is pretty well a must when dealing with a 6.5 setup. I'm curious as to how necessary it would be if the truck body originally had a 5.7 with the 4l80. He basically says that the problem is using the TPS from the 6.5 and also converting from drive by wire back to a cable, but the 5.7 wouldn't have that problem.

Basically I'm trying to decide whether to hold out for a crew cab short box 2500, or just to pick up a K1500 with a the 5.7. I know I can get the half ton and 4l60 up and running with the factory ECM running the trans, but the ccsb is what I really want.
 
Well it's not going to be a tow vehicle or anything like that. Turbo is mostly there for a little more guts and that's it. I'm fairly sure my dads old 93 K1500 6.2 had the 4l60 behind it, and the motor gave out before the trans. But yeah I would prefer a little more peace of mind in having the 80 instead. The unfortunate part is the half tons are the ones with the 3rd door, which is the bare minimum amount of doors I'll settle for in this build, and they're the easiest to find in decent shape.

ak diesel driver said:
If your going to tweak the HP on that 6.2 then you better stick with the 4l80
Click to expand...
 
mattycakes said:
.....I'm fairly sure my dads old 93 K1500 6.2 had the 4l60 behind it, and the motor gave out before the trans.....
Click to expand...
more than likely had a 700R4.
you can put a manual VB, install a floor shifter and run no PCM.
i used a kit that replaced one of the solenoids in the 4L80 with a billet plug. it allows full manual control but can't kind the kit online anymore. it cost less than 50.00.
 
There were a few 4l60e's used behind non turbo 6.2's, and we have a member here with a non turbo 6.5l that said his had one in it too. The 5.7l's shift pattern will be complete garbage behind a 6.2l. By the time you get the stock stuff to work, then pay somebody to set it up to shift half way decent, you're stuck with whatever shift points you have, so why not just spend some money up front, and get a stand alone controller that you can adjust yourself, or spend a little more and get one with multiple shift patterns/modes and tap shift. Do some reading and you will find more than a few who spent close to what an optishift cost to make the GM controller work just to hate how it shifts, and then end up buying an optishift to make it work right.
 
Very interested in what you are doing as I am basically planning on doing the same thing. Swapping the 6.2 into a 5.7 1996 tahoe. Still in the engine tear down/rebuild stage so I have not done anything on the tahoe yet but am leaning towards the trans controller. Might possibly go with a manual transmission if a good one turns up.
 
If you go with an alectronic trans controller, then theres no need for vacuum. If you go with a manual shift conversion, most all of them reccomend running the transgo vacuum line pressure control setup as it's not good for the trans to run full line pressure all the time(stock tuning doesn't even max out line pressure at wot under most circumstances). Gas shift points would be downright awful for most diesel engines, and vortec ones would be even worse.
 
So , he wants to run a 6.2 Banks 4L80E and needs to run a vacuum pump . Anyone run one these ? Where do you get the RPM signal and vacuum from ? I have 2 of the pump/sensor deals and hope this will work with the TCM . If not , then what ? I do know that the van series runs the vacuum pump on the left side and out of the way of the turbo . Stacks the power steering , vacuum and AC comp on top of each other . My backup is to run the van setup with just the sensor for the oil pump drive . This is not a plug and play deal , a lot of thought needs to go into this and a serp setup adds to this . Not saying it can't be done , just need to check some things out .
 
I would consider an electric vacuum pump so you could mount it out of the way and not mess with the belt mounting system.

There is the old vacuum pump that mounted on the oilpump drive also, but then you need an ess signal.

For tcm signal you could use the ess that is mounted on the oil pump drive then. Or if you can add a reluctor on the crank like ds4 6.5 does you can use the 2 wire sensor there for the tcm.
 
Will , the vacuum pump I have has the ESS sensor on it . Thought these were Cal TH700 pumps but I got ahold of 2 of them . Hopefully this has the correct signal for the TCM .
 
EWC said:
Will , the vacuum pump I have has the ESS sensor on it . Thought these were Cal TH700 pumps but I got ahold of 2 of them . Hopefully this has the correct signal for the TCM .
Click to expand...

The ESS output from the diesels is a sawtooth waveform from what I've read, that isn't directly compatible with a gas tach/tcm, which requires a square wave. A signal converter can be purchased for around 100 bucks, but having to pay for this is another reason I'm heavily leaning towards using an Optishift for the project at this time.
 
EWC said:
Will , the vacuum pump I have has the ESS sensor on it . Thought these were Cal TH700 pumps but I got ahold of 2 of them . Hopefully this has the correct signal for the TCM .
Click to expand...
Why do you need vacuum for the tcm? You only need vacuum if you don't run a tcm and want to add in line pressure control. Or are you talking about providing an engine speed signal to the tcm from the early oil pump drive/vacuum pump with speed pickup?
 
Yes , second one Ferm . Mine is an 86 , vacuum to run the vents .
 
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