1969 GTO Judge Clone LQ4 turbo 4L60e by 2165 Turbo Rail

10 minute(s) of a 148 minute read

this is my dads car so if the car gets sold.. I"ll be the one buying it  we took it out after the dyno today.. and WOW... it had a miss under a load so it only made 400 the first pull. we figured it out and made a few more pulls... ended up at 535 hp and 558 tq not too bad for a truck motor (LQ4)

1/29/2011

Oh and I just broke it. Rear end broke

Prob going to hold off on the 9" for now just because I don't want to dumb another 2 grand on it right now. I'm going to get this one rebuilt for a lot less. Now if we have this prob again. I'll deff be doing a 9"

***EDIT***
went ahead and bought a 9" keep reading for info

1/30/2011

yea I bought it thinking it was an 8.5 but either the guy honestly didn't know.. or lied about it..I'm the forgiving kind of guy so I'm going to assume he just didn't know since I didn't when I bought it. but it was an upgrade to my 7.5 non posi 2.73 rear end the car had

I'm leaning toward the 9" I'm just having trouble convincing myself to pull the trigger and spend that much money.. I have spent so much more money then I planned on this project already.. and I still have the tubular upper and lower control arms for the front, the 13" disc brakes, new springs, and spindles that aren't even on the car yet haha

surely someone has the hook up on 9" rear ends

I just talked to Bryden (sp?) at quickperformance.com and I tell you what.. he is top notch! we talked for about 20 mins going over what I have and what I should get from him.

I think I'm going to end up getting a 9" with GM ends so I can use my existing drum brakes (for now) this will save me about 200 because its 300 off for the brakes but cost about 100 to have the GM ends... 

Then we talked about going to a nodular center section to it would be stronger. Then we started talking about the posi and I think I'm going to go with the detroit locker so I don't ever have to worry about the clutches in the posi unit.

I probably would have left the normal posi in it but since he was so cool and helpful I think i'll go ahead and spend the little bit of extra cash with them to get it all built up.

he said with this set up I'd have no issues ever more then likely 

oh and I'll probably have the rear end be about an inch wider then normal because right now I have 1/4 spacers and the tires still need to go out about another 1/4 inch

and the price would be pretty much what I would have spent with him if I would have just bought the ebay unit I posted.

2/1/2011

well I did it.....

I just placed my order for a new 9" from Quick Performance

I don't remember everything but what I know is:

NEW housing with GM housing ends so I can use my existing brakes

31 spline axles

Detroit TrueTrac posi (after research this was my best bet for street and strip)

3.50 gears

Nodular 3rd member

1350 yoke

oil fill and drain plugs with jack pad

adjustable lower control arm mount

I know there is more but he was reading it so fast I didn't catch the rest!

now its hurry up and wait for it to get here... its a brand new rear end so its going to be bare... now I have to decide if I want to spend a little extra and get it powder coated or if I should just paint it

2/9/2011

I decided to go ahead and take it to get powder coated tomorrow. There is a local place that if I drop it off at 8am they will have it done for me by 5p!!! Quick turnaround!

2/10/2011

I got home tonight to find ONE eibach spring for the rear... I started looking at the box and it says 1 of 1. So I get on Summit's site and sure enough they are 81.99 EACH... to add to that I paid for 2nd day shipping... on the 4th! so it took a week (weather) I called tonight and they waived all shipping cost except for $17 because I want it here Saturday.. so I'm happy.

who the hell orders ONE spring!?

2/11/2011

I will tell you this. I put airride on my 4 door 59 Galaxie and it road like a Cadillac. I loved it Sooner or later the judge may get bags but that will have to be after I ge it from my dad because he would doe if I bagged it while it's still his haha

12/17/2011

Got the car put bak together and as I pulled out on the street the car shifted I to 2nd and popped. Then I lost drive. dumI can put it in 1st and take off and manually shift it even went on the highway fine in OD but won't take off in D. dum We assume that when the rear end broke it must have taken a part of the tranny out. dumWe are thinking maybe the sprag but we aren't tranny guys so looks like we will be pulling the tranny soon too see what happendum

12/20/2011

we are pulling the transmission tomorrow

this weekend all I did was get the tach working and wired up the electric cut out.

I put the cut out switch in the glove box

2/25/2011

Put in the new bad ass rear end. Pulled out of the shop and BANG. Tranny popped. Pulled it apart to find that the sprig broke. While we were I there we saw that the guy that supposedly installed my transgo hd2 kit didn't do anything at all. So I upgraded a bunch of stuff. The tranny is back together and ready to be bolted back in the car. Jut have to find the time

3/8/2011

OK... so its been a while since I've updated this thread because nothing GOOD has happen lately... 

so we know the tranny broke when the rear end did.. and we know that the original tranny guy didn't install the shift kit (which he finally gave me $200 back) 

so a friend of mine that isn't a transmission guy, but has rebuilt several and knows a lot about what to do to make them last, said he would help me out. Since we were going to be in the tranny to replace the sprag there are other week points of these 4L60e's so he suggested going ahead and upgrading those while we were there.

I bought a new sun shell, case saver, another transgo HD2 shift kit, forward clutches and steels, torlon check balls, new double cage sprag, aluminum 1-2 accumulator piston, seals, 3-4 z-pak, hardened rings for the pump, a transgo no yo yo kit (to help the pump when in higher RPMs, and he also had me get some other valve things but can't remember right now what they are for

so we put it all together and put it in the car. I took it for a test drive and it ran and shifted great. We went back to the shop to let John drive it and the first time it shifted into 3rd it slipped.. but the 1 and 2 gears were still fine. he brought it back and we called it a night. 

pulled it the next night to find that the new z-pak was toasted... so the next day we went with a different set up and put in the 3-4 clutch stack like a 4l65e has (8 or 9 clutches instead of just 6 like the 4l60e)

put the tranny in and first time it shifted into 3rd it slipped so went straight back to the shop and pulled the tranny out again and pulled the pump out because it was making some noise and we figure it HAS to be something pressure related. 

The pump did show some signs of wear so we went to a buddy's house and got another pump that was apart. We cleaned it up and put it back together. put the tranny back together and put it back in the car (twice in one night we did a shallow rebuild and install)

backed out of the shop and put it in D and 1 and 2nd both slipped. So I went straight to the bay door and we put the car up for the night (this was 3:30am this morning)

SO... now I don't know what I want to do next...I really thinking I should just buy a built 4l60e and see what I can get out of mine seeing how it has all these good upgraded parts.

UGH.. the life of a hot rod I guess, but I HAVE to get this thing going because Good Guys is in 10 days!

any suggestions?

oh but the good news is that we can pull the tranny in about 20 mins.. I guess thats good... sucks that we have to be that good at it though haha

3/16/2011

Just got the trans back tonight. I'll be putting it in tomorrow. Hopefully everything goes well and I'll be at Good Guys Friday - Sunday

3/18/2011

IT'S ALIVE... got the tranny in and new front springs and its good to go for Good Guys Fri-Sun... nothing like waiting until the last minute

http://s75.photobucket.com/albums/i2...t=14014606.mp4