How necessary is it really to buy the HD transmission to do an l67 top swap?

Does it depend on the mileage/wear-and-tear on the stock tranny? Or is this pretty much something that everyone doing a top-swap has to do?


In addition, how difficult in the transmission swap? Is it more or less just a "bolt in where the other one was" kinda thing or are modifications required?

Thanks.

 

it all depends on how much your doing to the engine after the topswap... if your not going to mod it heavily then the 4t65e should be fine... if that trany has high mileage and has been beat on then it prob wont last as long as i would have.

to do the trany swap you need to make a hybrid axle i believe... the axles on the HD and non HD will not fit on one of the sides. so you need the inner HD section and the non HD outer to make the axle for the swap. i know this is true for the 5th gen... might not be so for the 6th gen like yours.

there are kits out there to upgrade your non hd to an HD trany... it is just the diff and cover that changes

 

So if I use one of these "kits," do I still have to do axle work?

How complicated of a procedure would you say this whole thing is? I'm not exactly a mechanical noob, but I don't work on cars very much.

 

Honestly the parts that differ in the HD variant of the 4t65e are not the parts that will break. I wouldn't worry about the upgrade, just make sure you have a good reserve for a transmission rebuild at some point

 

Will do

 

Throwing another 50 hp at the tranny wont kill it.

 

See I keep hearing that, and that's what I want to believe haha, but it seems like there have been just as many people who say "get a new tranny" as "dont worry about it"

 

No point putting in a new $2000 transmission if the other one still works fine.