After I had mine installed for about 2.5 weeks the tranny went out in my car. It couldn't handle the stronger shifts! So now I'm going to rebuild the damn thing! Oh......and it will be much stronger than stock! i'm also going to install a pi tc while i'm at it!

Like I said alread......be very careful if your going to put in a VB UPGRADE! don't run into the same problem I have!

 

Just to make this a little more useful to others

What brand vb upgrade?
Who did the install?
How many miles on your tranny /car in total?
What fluid did you run?

 

SRT upgrade
My tranny shop that does many rebuilds for my work! Highly trust them!
57K miles on the trans and car total
Only toyota type 4!


sorry I didn't include this before!

 

was told the torq conv is bad on the tranny also

 

not from what I've read and talked with many people! they say it won't effect it!

 

i duuno my mech said it can if the tranny got miles on it .. i hope u right cause i plan on getting it soon! lol

 

Aftermarket Torque converter can definitely negatively impact the life of your transmission. It generates more heat and heat = death to transmissions.

That's why you put an aftermarket tranny cooler in with your TC.

 

yea the VB upgrade wont do this, it's actually easier on the transmission as the car shifts faster, less time between shifts = less heat. Heat is what kills the auto's. A couple of things you should know, I learned about this when I had my auto shop / dyno center. If you have a higher mile tranny and the fluid has never been changed the tranny pros will tell you not to change it, if there is any sludge something could come loose with a new fluid change and destroy your tranny. Also if you just did the 3 rod upgrade the 1-2 shift isn't effected, your still going to have some slipping on the 1-2 shift and that will generate heat too... also did you add a tranny cooler? You really need to have one if you are adding power to your Lexus. Are you sure he added the correct fluid? Our trannys take a very specific fluid I forget the letters but its not that easy to come by, if he added Dextron III that might be why your tranny is dead. I ran a VB upgrade for awhile with 450RWHP and the tranny held up fine.

 

As dave and adam have pointed out in earlier posts, installation and proper maintance is key to keeping a healthy tranny. I don't believe the VB has anything to do with the premature tranny failure. I've beaten on both of my car with VB upgrade for years and never have I had any problems. The biggest thing to watch out for when you purchase the rods for the VB upgrade is for the length to be correct. And then you must make sure that the rough edges around the rods have been machined down so no sharp edges are left. If sharp edges are left, what happens is that over time, the pressure from the tranny fluid will round off the edges on the rods and then metal shavings will get into the solenoid inside the VB causing it to be blocked off therefore heat will build up in the transmission because of inconsistent flow of fluid. This was one of the problems that Lance from Toyomoto had in the beginning when he first did the VB upgrade for the A650E transmission.

 

tranny cooler already installed before hand! My car had all the correct service done at the dealership. I also purchased the right fluid from the toyota dealership and watched my trans guy put it in........so it wasn't that. The sprags went out from shifts being to hard. I used the upgraded vb with the 3 rod upgrade.....so this wasn't the problem either! I will check the rods when I pull them out to make sure they are rounded off and there isn't any metal in my vb.

 

I can promise you now that when you pull the rods out that the ends will be rounded off due to the high fluid pressure. You would want to check this prior to installation not after. The only way that you can inspect to see if there is any metal shavings in your VB is to completely disassemble the entire VB to see if any shavings have built up inside the vains of the VB. I strongly suggest against this if you do not know where each bearings are inside the VB. The only people that I know of that has done it successfully is PFS due to them having to do some drilling for the 1st to 2nd gear shifts.

 

Ok lets clear some things up, in order to get "quicker" shifts you have to have a HARDER shift... causing more heat which would easily lead to failure. Heat is not the only thing that would take out a transmission. It was not desgined to do this really..

 

exactly! the harder shifts killed a couple of my sprags which means tranny rebuild!

 

Talk to Peter Farrell or SRT, they will tell you a VB upgrade is easier on the tranny not harder, the stock GS tranny is designed for smooth shifts as its a luxury car, it takes close to 1 second to shift between gears, while this is happening the clutch packs are slipping and creating heat, this is why you want the clutch to engauge as quick as possible to avoid the slipping. Heat is the #1 killer of trannys. This isn't much different from slipping a manual clutch, what hapens if you ride the clutch and slip it? It heats up and glazes up the disk and the flywheel destroying the clutch. I had a VB upgrade in my tranny for about a year and the tranny shifted fine, no issues and I was boosting 14psi with a PTE 74mm turbo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFVJNZ5n2YI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHTZE-cZ3ak

 

I totally understand what you said.....it's already been said earlier in this thread, but i didn't have a problem with my clutches the problem was the sprags! now that they are out my car has no 3rd or 4th gear! I'm not trying to argue with anyone on here! I'm just stating what happened in my case!