Hi. I'm new to the boards, only having lurked from time to time. Less than 6 months ago I bought a 1997 456GTA with just 5,000km on the clock. It came with a full overhaul and roadworthiness certificate, as well as full service history showing the typical costly maintenance such as service belt had all been done recently, so I was fairly optimistic about the running costs. I've so far only driven it about 1,000km. Then the transmission warning lamp came on, and wouldn't go off.. leaving the car unable to shift out of 1st gear. I took it to Cornes, which is the official ferrari importer here in Japan, and they're telling me the problem is twofold: 1- There is no power going to the transmission computer. I find this odd, as the car has just been serviced... anyway in the shop they hooked up power from another source and found: 2- Solenoid problem. I was half expecting this, as someone else mentioned it here on the boards, and when my light came on it was in response to bumping over cracks that join 2 slabs of highway, so it felt like something electrical. My big problem now is that they tell me they cannot source this part, and can't overhaul the transmission, so I have to stump up "several million yen" (several tens of thousands of dollars) for a whole gearbox. Before labour. They haven't told me the proper price yet, as the list price is about to change for financial year end, but that was the rough guide. Well.. this puts the market value of this car at effectively zero. Not great news for me, having driven it less than six months, and 1,000 out of just 6,000km or so! I'm looking for options. Does anyone have any advice as to how I could fix it?
All things considered getting a used transmission may be easiest. When I say that I am expecting them to be unwilling and unable to repair the one you have.
Rifle driver is right. A used box is the fastest way to get you on the road. What extremely bad luck. If you have done any searching on fchat somewhere you will find the original builder of the GTA gearbox was Ricardo who will be probably of zero help. Also, it is rumoured that the internal guts of the box are GM 4L80T which I think were in some caddys. The 4L80E is all over the place and most likely most of the 4L80T guts are E guts. I wish you were in So Cal, I'd love to try and fix one of these boxes but actually hear of few of them breaking but I'm not a pro either. If the 4L80 are the internal guts of the GTA box and you could find a small tranny outfit maybe they could take a stab at it. If the internal bands etc are good and it is just a solinoid you could get lucky and find that part in a 4L80 box for so cheap shipping the part to japan would be the most costly part. In So cal a 4L80 rebuild is about 1000usd. So maybe there is a guy around you who does the GM boxes you drop him the bare tranny and maybe you get lucky. Finally another solution is research Corvette C5/C6 gearboxes. The C5/6 vettes used a torque tube with rear gearbox and diff as a one unit transaxle. If your car is now worth zero why not spend the extra money to convert the car transaxle to a bullet proof one where parts and service can be had for cheap? A vette tranny will cost you maybe 1000usd? Also if you get the A6 tranny from the C6 you can get paddles which the vette aftermarket tuners are getting to shift at 100ms and work like a F1 shifter without all the ferrari reliability problems. Racers have been building custom driveshafts for years now in carbon fiber too. I think using a vette transaxle could be a great project and an upgrade over the GTA box. I've seen guys run almost 1000hp through vette slushboxes and 600hp supercharged vettes are common in cali and they are not blowing up the gearboxes.
I must disagree with one comment in that the original box designer is no longer with Ricardo and has his own company offering assistance - I've posted it before but cannot find it right now - found it http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showpost.php?p=138310341&postcount=9
I realise I am not supposed to "solicit", but I can repair the automatic transmission fitted to the 456 GTA and 456M GTA. Contrary to one of the posts I've seen, I am not the designer, but I did run the Ricardo business unit that co-designed and subsequently built this transaxle. I have some parts in hand and most of the special tools required, along with the complete production and fault finding process documentation and the personal contact knowledge of every single component supplier. Please feel free to contact me if you feel I may be able to help you. [email protected] or see www.dabsolutions.co.uk . BTW, the internals are not from 4L80.
Awesome!!! It is good to know there is someone who can fix these things. Can you tell us if the GTA box internals are all truely proprietary or if it really is a GM box of some sort? Maybe a 4L60? I doubt Ricardo invented the thing for a single application. I would guess that a company would use off the shelf parts for most of the box and make just a few propriatry items. Tell us more about this gearbox please!
I knew someone would come along sooner or later. You sound like the right guy for the job even if you are quite a ways away.
Quite honestly... considering the labour costs involved in pulling out the tranny out, shipping it over to the UK and back, and getting it reinstalled. that may actually be true. I have already spoken to Adrian via e-mail.. unless I can find a good quality used transmission at relatively low cost .. and very soon!.. I may have to go this route.
Well... lower than getting the existing one overhauled. Mine has only done 5,000km so with an overhaul it should be in pretty good condition. I'll have to see and compare costs. No way I'm paying for a new one. It's just not worth it. I'd be better off scrapping the remainder of the car!
There's only one official dealer. Cornes. I haven't heard the last word from them, yet, but I will shop around for sure to see if I can find a used one and/or relatively inexpensive service. The cost they're talking about, though, is the cost of a new transmission. Any dealer is going to have to source one and it is going to cost something similar.
adrian, If the internals are not 4L80 are they something else we can program to take Paddles and function like the C6 vette automatic tranny? Aftermarket tuners in the USA are tuning all the electronic automatics to use paddles.
agreed. This is a great find.... as for FBB's tuner .. that would be a nice attempt, but not a solution to the rebuild problems IMO, just a nice side step. rik
FBB- From Adrian's website: The transmission uses a number of components from a GM 4T80E. Used 1993-UP in Cadillac Allante, Seville STS and Eldorado and Olds Aurora with Northstar engine. This is a computer controlled front wheel drive overdrive transmission. Makes perfect sense. A high torque FWD transaxle that only needed to be reversed to work in a RWD transaxle car. Taz Terry Phillips
Well... the guys at Cornes went out of their way to find a shop that could do the job, even though they're not on their official supplier's list, so they gave me the number and I dealt with them direct. A company in Yokohama called TransTech, specialising in high-end and foreign(non-Japanese) cars said they can take out the tranny and do the full overhaul and fluid change no problem, and for around $6500 tax included. Adrian would have been a great choice if the cost were much higher, but if I factor the cost of labour and sending to the UK it's a no brainer, I can drive to Yokohama (in first gear!) in less than an hour. I don't feel I'm lucky having had to do this in the first 6 months, but hey.. it's got 4 wheels and a pony on the back, I wasn't expecting running it to be cheap, either. Thanks for all your suggestions... fatbillybob your idea of substituting a paddled corvette train sounds like a great idea. If I was more into the modding I'd give that a try. I don't think the paddles would be much fun on the existing gearbox, though, as it only has 4 gears.
Please update us as to what they find the problem was, and what they did you fix it. It will help out others in the future.
+1 : I'm REALLY guessing that shop will be way under the actual costs once they get into there....but, hope for the best, expect the worst And, better bring the check book when they state they ran over budget. rik
