47RE upgrade

[JKellis]

I am thinking of adding a smarty to my 99 3500DRW. Before I do any kind of tune I would like to improve my 47RE to handle the extra horsepower/torque. Not talking anything radical, just want to improve towing. Has anyone installed a Sonnax zip kit? From what I can tell, the entire kit can be installed with the transmission in the truck and it covers some of the known 47re issues. The transmission seems to be in good shape, the truck has 110k on it.

Thanks

 

[2ndgenrancher]

I am thinking of adding a smarty to my 99 3500DRW. Before I do any kind of tune I would like to improve my 47RE to handle the extra horsepower/torque. Not talking anything radical, just want to improve towing. Has anyone installed a Sonnax zip kit? From what I can tell, the entire kit can be installed with the transmission in the truck and it covers some of the known 47re issues. The transmission seems to be in good shape, the truck has 110k on it.

Thanks

Every 47re needs a shift kit and better converter. I prefer Transgo kits. If you add power then it needs gone thru. More clutches and other mods.

 

[JKellis]

Thanks 2ndgenrancher. I was looking at the transgo shift kit when I came across the sonnax zip kit, and I was wondering if anybody had installed one. I went through a lot of old posts about the 47re but found no mention of the zip kit. My short term plan is to install one or the other along with a good single disk converter with a lower stall. For the long term I will keep my eye out for a buildable 48re that I will build and reuse the 47re valve body and converter. I tow a 30ft travel trailer that weighs about 10k. The truck does ok but seems to struggle some from a stop and on long uphill grades. In a lot of posts people speak highly of the smarty jr for towing so that was what was thinking about. I have already switched to the fass ddrp fuel pump that should be enough for the smarty (I hope.)

 

[Monstermaker]

You should also look into the Quadzilla Adrenaline tuner rather than the very-obsolete Smarty.

I have a low-stall converter and I have mixed feelings about it. It makes the truck kind of a pain to drive when unloaded, it doesn’t want to stop. If you’re in heavy traffic you’re excessively dragging the brakes all the time. It really doesn’t want to go below 10-15 mph. It’s too tight.
If I had it to do over I’d keep the stock stall speed. When I’m pulling hard I have the converter locked anyway so stall speed makes no difference.

While you’re at trans mods, get yourself a valvebody (or modify yours, instructions can be found online) to allow manual second gear torque converter lockup. Then you can use second when pulling a steep hill without boiling your transmission. It’s amazing how hot it gets under that condition even with a big external cooler.

 

[bcbigfoot]

I agree with Monstermaker If you primarily use your truck as grocery getter, then stick with stock or slightly lower stall converter, even more so if you live in cold climates where the low stall converters can get very solid/tight on cold mornings. Also the trans. can tend to heat up in stop and go traffic. However If your like me and use your truck loaded or pulling 90% of the time then a tighter converter is a awesome upgrade and highly recommended.

I have both the Smarty and the Quadzilla Adrenaline, the Adrenaline is so much better, and you get so much more for the money (even if you don't plan on tapping the wire), like gauges and programming change on the fly.

I would tend to go with a entire transmission valve body from someone like Goerend, the previous owner had installed a shift kit in the truck but it just wasn't very good compared to the Goerend valve body I have now.

 

[bpjmartin]

I am thinking of adding a smarty to my 99 3500DRW. Before I do any kind of tune I would like to improve my 47RE to handle the extra horsepower/torque. Not talking anything radical, just want to improve towing. Has anyone installed a Sonnax zip kit? From what I can tell, the entire kit can be installed with the transmission in the truck and it covers some of the known 47re issues. The transmission seems to be in good shape, the truck has 110k on it.

Thanks

I was in the process of installing a Zip-Kit when I lost a spring a few days ago and the whole thing is now temporarily on hold. For background, my truck ('99 2500 47RE) is at ~274k and the transmission (DTT) is at around 200k miles and finally gave out again just recently so I'm fully rebuilding it. I purchased the kit because at the time I was uncertain of the condition of the valve body and the zip-kit is somewhere between a valve body rebuild kit and shift kit.

FWIW, the kit actually covers more than the valve body, but you don't have to install the parts that require pulling the whole transmission (bushings, shims and some seals). The installation and testing instructions were very clear and straight forward. I particularly found the page that showed wear areas and vacuum test locations helpful as I wanted to get a more thorough sense of the condition of it than what can typically be garnered from the other more common tests. The instructions are also available for download on the Sonnax website so you can see exactly what is involved. The instructions also cover which modifications and/or adjustments to make for adjusting the firmness of shifts, etc.

Its difficult to give an estimate of how long the install took because as I mentioned before, progress was interrupted by me losing a spring while separating the valve body halves, and I also had to plug the casting near the pressure regulator valve because it had been drilled through as part of the DTT modifications. So minus the vac testing and the above, I'd guess the rest of the install and modifications took about an hour after I had removed it from the transmission.

I can't give any indication of how its driving yet, I have a couple leads left to run down on hopefully finding a replacement spring,
but if nothing comes up in the next few days I'll just bite the bullet and replace the whole VB because I need to get it back on the road very soon.

Overall, I'd look at it as more of a means of restoring the VB with some added improvements vs "upgraded" valve bodies that address the solenoids and in some cases install oversize valves in addition to the more common things such as what is covered in the Zip-Kits.

 

[Timd32]

Hard to compare to shops like Goerend who do the full work up and testing of the valvebodies, there are a bunch out there who can do the fullwork up and get a test report, there are some other areas they want you to work on depding on how you want it built.

Bpjmartin, Have your heard back from Goerend or anyone on that spring? Also you can try Global Transmission Parts for that spring maybe a Transgo kit has something in there close to what you need. As you mentioned in another post someone has to have the spec on that one.

 

[bpjmartin]

Hard to compare to shops like Goerend who do the full work up and testing of the valvebodies, there are a bunch out there who can do the fullwork up and get a test report, there are some other areas they want you to work on depding on how you want it built.

Bpjmartin, Have your heard back from Goerend or anyone on that spring? Also you can try Global Transmission Parts for that spring maybe a Transgo kit has something in there close to what you need. As you mentioned in another post someone has to have the spec on that one.

I heard back from Transtar today and they looked through the various kits they have and couldn't come up with any that involve replacing that spring. They did have a used valve body in stock so I drove there to pick that up so I can swap the spring out and keep going with the rebuild. All told, I contacted 16 places, heard back from 14 and the answer most had was something along the lines of "yes there must be a spec for replacement, good luck finding out, so just replace the valve body" which is why when one was available an hour from me I grabbed it.

After this many days, I don't think I'll be seeing the original spring again but I'm still going to keep digging to see if I can come up with a spec and then a replacement spring for the second valve body so I can get rid of that.

 

[JKellis]

Thanks for all the input. I think I will be going with the trans-go kit and sonnax lube pressure regulator valve and manual valve. That's in my budget. I will do that first and make a decision on the TC after I tow with it a couple of times. I wish somebody would come up with a full manual valve body for the aisin..... there is one on c-list that is close and cheap!