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Full Manual Valve Body AW71

IfUrNotFirstUrLast

IfUrNotFirstUrLast

New member
Joined
Jan 27, 2010
Location
FL
Has anyone converted an AW71 to a full manual valve body? My Google searches are comming up with nada so any info or links would be appreciated. I just started working at a transmission shop and a cheap AW71 popped up for sale the same day, boss man is down for a project. I have already done the accumulator mod to mine years ago but would like to be able to upshift earlier and hold a gear.
 
IfUrNotFirstUrLast said:
Has anyone converted an AW71 to a full manual valve body? My Google searches are comming up with nada so any info or links would be appreciated. I just started working at a transmission shop and a cheap AW71 popped up for sale the same day, boss man is down for a project. I have already done the accumulator mod to mine years ago but would like to be able to upshift earlier and hold a gear.
Click to expand...

Let us know how to do it, with pics. A lot of us have wanted this for years.
 
My friend built a "simple" manual controller for one. It unplugs the transmission controller and allows direct control of the solenoids to change gears when you please.
 
Thanks linuxman51, should work now to just figure out how to do it.

35f88e7779b86b0a657deb80a5c910c5.jpg
 
This is one of those threads where four years from now someone will be earnestly searching for information about aw71 full manual conversions, they will come across this thread...and there will be one or two informative posts and the rest ends up being about cat sex.
 
> zombie bump <

Not wanting to start another thread, but curious as to whether or not anyone has finally gotten this done on the AW7x...

Cheers --
 
Broke4speed said:
It's honestly not worth it. The transmissions are ancient now, and there are better options.
Click to expand...
Please tell...

Apart from trolling the boneyards for a clapped-out manual or going bananas and ripping sheet metal to put in a similarly ancient TH400 or the like, what practical options might there be?
:???:
 
a th400 wouldn't be the first thing I'd grab for the average 8v, but I guess you could do that.. Ancient or not, there's a HUGE aftermarket for those, th350's, and glides. it don't get much older than a glide. I personally wouldn't use anything from the th350 tree of life (so, no 700r4, 4L6xx, etc). Fact of the matter is, with a basic rebuild and some fairly easy modifications, an AW71 will do quite well in the average brick.

for a manual valve body, I still say you'd need to figure out how to loop governor pressure, and you'll probably want to determine which way the cutback valve needs to be locked at to maintain full line pressure. OD will need to be switched to being off by default, and you'll probably want a known good od solenoid.
 
200r4 has been good to me with a little work,and there small so they fit without pounding things. BUT they are getting hard to find like any 40yo trans
 
curiousCat said:
Please tell...

Apart from trolling the boneyards for a clapped-out manual or going bananas and ripping sheet metal to put in a similarly ancient TH400 or the like, what practical options might there be?
:???:
Click to expand...

The sky is your oyster, ultimately. An AW71 is great for the 4cyl turbo stuff, and you'd never have issues until you started pushing the limits. When you hit that level, you'd want a platform with decades of performance research and support behind it, IMO.

On Summit or Jegs, you can buy brand new GM automatic transmissions, of any flavour, of any year, that will hold any amount of power/torque you want them to. You'll also pay less than an experimental build on an AW71 would cost, if you can find one that doesn't need a rebuild first. I understand the allure of the path-less-travelled...but financially...it isn't cheap.

As far as practical goes, a re-clutched/re-sealed AW71 with the accumulator mods is as good as it gets for a 4cyl Volvo turbo...IMO.
 
Broke4speed said:
The sky is your oyster, ultimately. An AW71 is great for the 4cyl turbo stuff, and you'd never have issues until you started pushing the limits. When you hit that level, you'd want a platform with decades of performance research and support behind it, IMO.

On Summit or Jegs, you can buy brand new GM automatic transmissions, of any flavour, of any year, that will hold any amount of power/torque you want them to. You'll also pay less than an experimental build on an AW71 would cost, if you can find one that doesn't need a rebuild first. I understand the allure of the path-less-travelled...but financially...it isn't cheap.

As far as practical goes, a re-clutched/re-sealed AW71 with the accumulator mods is as good as it gets for a 4cyl Volvo turbo...IMO.
Click to expand...


stock parts for the aw71 aren't any more than stock parts for a 400 or 4L80e. it's not cheap either way... gm transmissions that hold a lot of power are not particularly cheap, it doesn't take much to have 5k tied up in a 400 before buying a converter. upgraded frictions and all new seals for an aw71 would probably run you...eh $300ish. I have a breakdown somewhere else. Custom stall speed converter, probably 500.

what you're up against is size. An aw71 is like a pocket 4L80 that uses additional clutch packs instead of brake bands. the guts are just half the size, so you're up against less friction area, smaller shafts and drums, that sort of thing.. so while you might get it to hold (and I've gotten them to *hold* over 500whp) it just won't hold on shifts for very long (like.. 5 times total). at that point the labor input far outweighs any cost savings by running oem-ish stuff. Even though 3rd gear clutches are like $10, it's hours of miserable work to pull and drain the transmission, take it apart far enough to get to that drum (which actually isn't THAT bad), swap guts, and know that about 5 passes later you're going to be doing it all again.
 
Glad to see there's still some interest here.

@linuxman51:
I share your favor with regard to the TH400. I had a Pontiac 400/TH400 setup many years ago; and the combination was utterly indestructible in nearly incomprehensible Arizona Summer use. Some place, in another life, I hope to revisit this land ;-)

You also mention a couple of things which could be looked at to move an AW7x toward manual use; and include running line pressure at max. From what I recall of Green Book lore, this would place things in the near 200psi range.

What would the implications be with these little units running at that level on a daily basis? Picking your brains further, is there a known max continuous pressure which would allow a good 7x box to fully engage behind a mostly stock red mill without pushing the line limits so high?

BTW: Belated congrats on your 9s project; despite the pressure-cracked block...

@freevolvos:
Great savvy; and there is hope here for some in the under 450bhp crowd:
https://www.summitracing.com/int/parts/pma-pa20102

Can't imagine much in the way of durability problems with a box like this for a setup in the 200-300bhp range.

@Broke4speed:
Have been jealous of the old iron crowd for years; but haven't the capital to put things like these into proper context. Looking at just running a basic red block in a car the wife can use, too. That said, there would be nothing like a crate motor and trans project to set a fire which no man could put out :)

Cheers --
 
consequences of running the pressure that high? not sure. you'd eventually probably beat the splines off the clutches. if you left the kickdown cable hooked up, that'd bleed some of your pressure I'd imagine, so ymmv for the most part.

A lot of it depends on how much power you're making. Anything under about 300whp and just an accumulator mod will get you a long way, stack up a 4 clutch direct and use high energy frictions everywhere, and that's about as far as I was interested in going with mine before skipping over to the gm side of life.
 
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