[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by 78w72

with all the mentions of 200r's on this thread & quite a few guys saying they run one... have any of you had any problems or reliability issues behind mild built 400/455s? i know the 200r can be built to handle a lot of power, look at the fast buick GN guys & most are still using the 200r, but i read on here recently from one guy that said they are absolute junk & will blow up if you look at them wrong...

LOL you had to go there

There are quite a few of us here that have done enough overdrive swaps with various setups that can comment on how they like it and what worked or what didn't. Steve loves his 200 and it's worked very well behind his 505 for years.
I've been talking to Dave off the forum about 4l80 swaps as we were both doing one at the same time, and he had a hell of a time with 700's in his car. Now completely thrilled with the 4L80E.
I'm more of a stick shift overdrive fan and have done a ton of those. When it comes to auto overdrives, for anything with some power, I like my 4L80E and never considered anything else for this car. I'm more of an electronic transmission fan when it comes to auto overdrives because it allows me more precise control of everything, including lockup functions so I tend to steer away from the TV cable stuff, although it can be made to work well. Part of the reason that Art Carr, and Steve mentioned this, they don't like running the lockup converters in a performance application is because it's very difficult to gain precise control of the lockup function with very little adjustability, and won't play well with engines that have rambunctious camshafts. With the 4L80E I can lock the converter at any point in the rpm range, throttle position, and speed that I want, giving me complete control of it, even including how harsh I want it to engage.