4r100 upgrades

PABowhunter · May 13, 2015

Thanks for the info Jennifer. I know everything you guys make is top notch with great customer service. Looking forward to seeing some reviews of your transmissions.

m j · May 13, 2015

you can buy all the machined bits to increase clutch counts.
I am guessing the only thing we cant get is the math involved in figuring out what mods need to be done to match the apply pressure requirements to clamp the clutches hard enough to not slip, and gently enough to not snap shafts.
which is all valve body stuff not hard parts.

every transmission thread gets full of nutswingers and no useful info gets passed along.

cbf9703 · May 15, 2015

Arisley said:
Unless you have the resources to machine stuff in your garage, or take it to a machine shop that will machine stuff to your specs, it would be really hard to build a 4R100 to hold up to 500HP in your driveway.

There is a guy down the road from me that builds transmissions. There are always heavy duty trucks in his parking lot. I have heard a lot of good things from his shop, I have talked to him. If I pay somebody to rebuild my trans, it will be him. Shop is close, warranty is good, and turn around time is fast.

I know John Woods and Brian and Twisted build a good transmission, but like the guy said, this aint rocket science, there are a lot of good transmission builders out there. While they may be known close to home, they don't have and actually don't want the notoriety of BTS. If they did, they would be in the same shape as Brian, no room to grow and taking on more work than they can put out.

Agreed. I went local on my last one.

dieselmandustin · May 15, 2015

m j said:
you can buy all the machined bits to increase clutch counts.
I am guessing the only thing we cant get is the math involved in figuring out what mods need to be done to match the apply pressure requirements to clamp the clutches hard enough to not slip, and gently enough to not snap shafts.
which is all valve body stuff not hard parts.

every transmission thread gets full of nutswingers and no useful info gets passed along.

The valve bodies and flow plates are not as complicated as you might think. When my Bts cracked the case my buddy and I tore it apart so it could be put in a good case. But in the mean time my buddy wanted to build his trans. He went with alto red eagle as far as clutches and a transgo tugger kit for the valve bodies and flow plates. After he had put the tugger kit in his valve bodies and and drilled the required holes in the flow plates. We decided to take my Bts valve bodies apart to see what makes it a Bts. What we found was every valve, every spring in my valve bodies were the same as the ones in the tugger kit. The tugger kit had us drill out all the same holes in the flow plates that Brian did but Brian went bigger than the tugger kit. I have the specs wrote down for every single custom part in my Bts. Some day I plan to build my own Bts as a back up for when mine breaks again.

cbf9703 · May 16, 2015

dieselmandustin said:
The valve bodies and flow plates are not as complicated as you might think. When my Bts cracked the case my buddy and I tore it apart so it could be put in a good case. But in the mean time my buddy wanted to build his trans. He went with alto red eagle as far as clutches and a transgo tugger kit for the valve bodies and flow plates. After he had put the tugger kit in his valve bodies and and drilled the required holes in the flow plates. We decided to take my Bts valve bodies apart to see what makes it a Bts. What we found was every valve, every spring in my valve bodies were the same as the ones in the tugger kit. The tugger kit had us drill out all the same holes in the flow plates that Brian did but Brian went bigger than the tugger kit. I have the specs wrote down for every single custom part in my Bts. Some day I plan to build my own Bts as a back up for when mine breaks again.

I've had good results with the Transco Tugger kits that we've used for stock and mild build applications... it made a big difference in the wheeling rig, that's for sure. Some of the holes had a range for drilling, are you saying that Brian's specs are larger than the top end of all the ranges? It's been a few years since the last time we did one, but I remember the kit having a couple different spring options depending on your goals for the trans too. Doesn't seem like it's just get a Tugger kit and drill everything out larger across the board to get to a BTS... :shrug: but I'm no transmission expert.

dieselmandustin · May 17, 2015

Not all the holes are larger. But the ones that are are a good bit bigger.

elrodalexander73 · May 17, 2015

A 4R100 can be built at home but you need someone who has an eye to detail, Overtime racing in G.R was building hot C6s and T400s for monster trucks years ago, and Keith showed me alot when I used to bring stuck valve bodies and bits and peices I needed him to inspect.. I've built several E4OD's and 4Rs that haven't needed drums machined down, the E4ODs especially since their drums are cast steel and not stamped steel. The transgo Tugger kit is exceptional, they have been fixing engineering glitches in many other transmissions for years and I mean like 35 years. Use either Red Alto, or Raybestos clutches, and Kolene steels, inspect the front pump very closely, and follow all tugger directions very carefully, the billet shafts will mean jack crap if your tune is ****, hard shifting will break stuff easily, and the tugger kit with the holes drilled out will cause hard shifting. And when going through every drum make sure all your relief holes are spotless clean, I used either to assemble transmissions with, leaves no film on parts that you are about to assemble. Your TCC lockup on the E4OD is not pw modulated so you have to becareful how big you drill the orifice out or when 3rd gear locks it will snap your neck.. The 4R100s are pw modulated so fluid flow is regulated, and can be tuned in to your favor. Billet shafts are nice, too many good companies building converters, but I like Transtar by far as they do offer a tripple disc billet converter and will warranty it no questions asked. Hope this helps.. P.s I've got a few trucks with my transmissions running around in them, one is using 350/200s and an S468 and no breakage so far..

earlybroncoboy · Sep 7, 2015

elrodalexander73 said:
A 4R100 can be built at home but you need someone who has an eye to detail, Overtime racing in G.R was building hot C6s and T400s for monster trucks years ago, and Keith showed me alot when I used to bring stuck valve bodies and bits and peices I needed him to inspect.. I've built several E4OD's and 4Rs that haven't needed drums machined down, the E4ODs especially since their drums are cast steel and not stamped steel. The transgo Tugger kit is exceptional, they have been fixing engineering glitches in many other transmissions for years and I mean like 35 years. Use either Red Alto, or Raybestos clutches, and Kolene steels, inspect the front pump very closely, and follow all tugger directions very carefully, the billet shafts will mean jack crap if your tune is ****, hard shifting will break stuff easily, and the tugger kit with the holes drilled out will cause hard shifting. And when going through every drum make sure all your relief holes are spotless clean, I used either to assemble transmissions with, leaves no film on parts that you are about to assemble. Your TCC lockup on the E4OD is not pw modulated so you have to becareful how big you drill the orifice out or when 3rd gear locks it will snap your neck.. The 4R100s are pw modulated so fluid flow is regulated, and can be tuned in to your favor. Billet shafts are nice, too many good companies building converters, but I like Transtar by far as they do offer a tripple disc billet converter and will warranty it no questions asked. Hope this helps.. P.s I've got a few trucks with my transmissions running around in them, one is using 350/200s and an S468 and no breakage so far..

Full billet internals... seems alot of guys suggesting billet imput. Cryo treat the rest

mandkole · Sep 8, 2015

elrodalexander73 said:
A 4R100 can be built at home but you need someone who has an eye to detail, Overtime racing in G.R was building hot C6s and T400s for monster trucks years ago, and Keith showed me alot when I used to bring stuck valve bodies and bits and peices I needed him to inspect.. I've built several E4OD's and 4Rs that haven't needed drums machined down, the E4ODs especially since their drums are cast steel and not stamped steel. The transgo Tugger kit is exceptional, they have been fixing engineering glitches in many other transmissions for years and I mean like 35 years. Use either Red Alto, or Raybestos clutches, and Kolene steels, inspect the front pump very closely, and follow all tugger directions very carefully, the billet shafts will mean jack crap if your tune is ****, hard shifting will break stuff easily, and the tugger kit with the holes drilled out will cause hard shifting. And when going through every drum make sure all your relief holes are spotless clean, I used either to assemble transmissions with, leaves no film on parts that you are about to assemble. Your TCC lockup on the E4OD is not pw modulated so you have to becareful how big you drill the orifice out or when 3rd gear locks it will snap your neck.. The 4R100s are pw modulated so fluid flow is regulated, and can be tuned in to your favor. Billet shafts are nice, too many good companies building converters, but I like Transtar by far as they do offer a tripple disc billet converter and will warranty it no questions asked. Hope this helps.. P.s I've got a few trucks with my transmissions running around in them, one is using 350/200s and an S468 and no breakage so far..

good suggestions here-- I had similar discussions recently when the bts was refreshed by my local guy. The center bearing is said to be a weak point and will kill many a trans if allowed to blowup. Most of what Brian did back in 2006was advanced work then, but is said to be typical practice by most good shops today. For the 4R100, use the late model (02-03) components. Most of the machining mods done are basic improvements and tons of billet is really not required if you dip into the 5-600 hp only once in awhile. With the exception of the converter cover, there's no billet in my trans although its suspected that some of the parts may have been cryo'd.

Dflippin08 · Oct 6, 2015

Call MTS and they can hook you up with everything you need. Shafts, larger lump, all the upgraded part options. My advice i s get a deep aluminum pan. Not for the added capacity, but to help keep the case from flexing as bad. Will make the center support last longer. Order the valve body from John Wood. I get the convertors from rev max. Get rid of the PWM convertor control. It'll hold 500 just fine. I've heard of many of the built trans not lasting more than ten years. Yours may not last longer than that either. But you'll know how to fix it.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

Dflippin08 · Oct 6, 2015

Forgot to add MTS will send a atsg manual with the rebuild parts.

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old man dave · Oct 7, 2015

dieselmandustin said:
Not all the holes are larger. But the ones that are are a good bit bigger.

He varies the size of the holes to tailor the shift hardness to the customer's liking. When I wanted the shifting changed in my BTS, he told me which holes to change and by how much. Soft shifting trans will have smaller holes than a hard shifting trans and anywhere in between.

And yes, those holes are quite a bit larger than the Transgo Tugger suggestions.

elrodalexander73 · Oct 14, 2015

5-600hp...
Billet input shaft
Billet overdrive planetary
Billet Fwd Drum (holds 6 frictions and 6 steels instead of stock 4/4)
"NEW" hardened input shell (a must)
John Wood sells a cryoed intermediate shaft that "will work"
Use either upgraded rabestos or HD borg warner clutches. Kolene steels help.
Transgo tugger and buy a second shift tailoring plate, learned this the hard way..
If it's a 4R100 it's already got a 6 pinion Low reverse planetary, your coast clutch assembly needs a reallll groove machined to hold the snap ring in place.
The backing plates can be bought through a few places to add extra clutches to the direct pack and intermediate. Check your 6 pinion fwd/direct planetary very closely. There are a few ways to set the low reverse clutch pack up.. I've built several like this and they are still under plow trucks... BTW John Wood is thee absolute best option for anyone over 600hp, he puts plenty of real billet in his trans, not gonna get into other builders about this. And yes you can get him on the phone. Just have to be persistent.

powerstroke95 · Oct 14, 2015

I don't want to muck up the thread, but I thought there were a few parts from the e4od that were actually stronger than what was in the 4r100, that you could also swap in? I can't remember which parts or where i heard this, but is there any truth to this?

cjfarm111 · Oct 14, 2015

m j · Oct 14, 2015

late e4od had more steel parts that are used in a 4r100 build up to replace the stamped steel

DocBar · Oct 22, 2015

BTS gets my vote. There are more things to building a trans or motor for higher HP levels than measuring specs and replicating. Lot's of little tricks that are hard to identify and difficult to replicate. If it were easy, lots of shops would offer a BTS with a BTS warranty.