This is going from memory from events that happened 1-1.5 years ago, so some of it may not be in exactly the correct sequence of events.
When I was getting ready to build the transmission in the dumpster, I went to Jake's and bought all the parts he recommended as I was going to build it myself. After thinking it over some, I decided I would be more comfortable having someone with experience working on the 4L80 build it instead since I had heard so much about the transmission not being able to hold up behind a Duramax. I took it to Jake, and he put it together.
The first time out with it was the Texas NHRDA race. The thing was not working well at all. Come to find out, Jake had swapped the pan which caused the dipstick to read incorrectly (in the van, the dipstick bottoms out in the pan to set the depth). Once this was fixed, it was much better.
I took it to another race a couple of weeks later, and it shifted pretty good but not what I would call perfect. You could see in the logs where some of the shifts were very drawn out. He pulled it apart and replaced some clutches. I think at this point he also took the converter to have it cut apart and inspected. He found that the converter was a stock converter with a billet triple disk cover (which I knew). He blamed that for most of the problems I was having.
Anyway, he put it back together and I went and picked it up and took it straight to the track. I made maybe half a dozen passes, and I could tell the trans was slipping already. It also was skipping over second. I took it back to Jake and they found a busted intermediate sprag and some more burnt clutches.
This is about how it went for about 5-6 months. I would take the whole van to Jake, it would be there for about a month. I'd pick it up and go straight to the track and take it right back to Jake. Over the time period this was happening, we had Jake install one of his trans brakes, and we took the converter back to Chris at CircleD to have him lower the stall. He ended up reworking it and tightened it way up using some Dodge diesel converter parts.
The last time I went to pick up the van from Jake, the trans brake wasn't holding. I tested it out before I loaded it on the trailer and as soon as I started to build boost, it would roll right through it. I told Jake and he said it was because the pressure wasn't coming up enough and that I needed to cut the power wire to the pressure force motor. I took him at his word and loaded it up. I went to the track that weekend and I couldn't do anything to get the trans brake to hold. I was having to stage and launch with the foot brake and the parking brake. Not what you would call and optimum scenario. The next Monday, I called Jake. He said to bring it to him and he would fix it. My dad took it up there on Tuesday with the promise that Jake would have it fixed by lunch time. Lunch time came and went, and at 5 Jake said he needed to keep it overnight but would finish it the next day. The days went by, and I got no call from Jake saying it was ready. On Monday, I called the shop several times trying to get in touch with Jake about when we would get it back. I needed it because the NHRDA World Finals were coming up that weekend or the next, I don't remember for sure, but they were close. I never got a call back from him. At 9:30 that night my dad called me up very upset that we didn't have the van back yet from Jake. He was the one who was paying for it all, and he felt like he was getting jerked around. I told him to calm down, and I would call Jake on his cell phone. I called Jake at about 10 that evening as soon as I got off the phone with Dad. He answered not so politely. We talked for a couple of minutes. I called dad and told him he could go get the van the next day, dad then called Jake and they talked for a few minutes. I got a text from Jake at about 2 am saying the trans brake was working.
The whole time we had the transmission from Jake, the data logs showed the shifts were not very crisp. It just kind of slid into gear. Over the off season, I talked with dad, and we decided we were going to go a different route on the transmission. I called up Rossler and ordered a new valve body with his trans brake in it. I went through it and replaced all the clutch packs and installed the VB from Rossler. When I opened it up, I found every clutch pack was burnt (some worse than others but none of them were reusable). I also found every pan bolt hole in the case was stripped, one of the valve body bolt holes was stripped, and the OD clutch bolt hole was stripped.
The first time out on the track, the thing shifted better than it ever had. It was as close to perfect as any transmission I'd ever driven. I was for once very happy with how it was working. It wasn't my imagination either. We picked up 2 tenths over the fastest pass we ever had with Jake's transmission.
As far as breakage, the only hard part failure I have had was an intermediate sprag (34 element). The rest of the carnage (as far as I know) has all been clutches. Here's a list of what is in my transmission:
Billet input
Billet forward hub
Billet intermediate
Rossler TB VB
CircleD triple disk converter
Alto Kryptonite frictions with Kolene steels in the overdrive clutch
Alto Red Eagle Power Pack in the forward clutch
Borg Warner Hi Energy frictions with stock steels in the direct clutch
Borg Warner Hi Energy frictions with stock steels in the intermediate clutch
I do burnouts on every pass, but I have it setup to start in 2nd. I also do use overdrive, but I launch it with the shifter in 3rd to bring on the over running clutch in the OD section to take some of the stress off the roller clutch in overdrive, but I have launched in overdrive a bunch of times without breaking anything.
