My Official 200r4 swap thread.

I thought I would start a thread on the 200r4 swap I did on my '66 Skylark. The car is a 340-4, ST-300 2 speed automatic, and 2.78 pegleg. The car would not do a burnout to save it's life and that was just not cool.

I located a BRF code trans and stock D5 2800 stall converter from an '87 GN from a guy on the Turbobuick.com board. Supposedly a good runner and it cost me $500 plus about $100 to get it shipped here.

Got the car up on jack stands. You will need 4 good 6 ton jackstands in order to get the car high enough to get the trans out from under the car. Everything was pretty straight forward with disassembly, except the bolt through the dipstick tube bracket on the bellhousing. The crossmember must be removed and the rear of the trans lowered a little to get the right angle to the bolt. Then a looong socket extension can be used to remove that bolt.

Now getting the new trans back in there was not so easy. I could not get the car high enough to roll the trans under on the floor jack and still be able to jack it high enough to mount it up. I drill and screwed about a 6"x10" piece of plywood to the jack to give it a bigger base, and keep from damaging the pan. I managed to tip the bellhousing down and under the frame rails while keeping the trans from sliding off the jack. I used duct tape around the torque converter so it wouldn't fall off.

OK, so now I've managed to get the new trans in place without it falling off the jack and pinning me.ou: The crossmember is just bolted to the trans for now. I'll deal with the frame rail mounting holes later. My crossmember cleared the pan just fine, no cutting or notching required. The Hot Rod mag swap on the '67 Lark required a Chevelle crossmember, so there must be some difference between '66 and '67 cars.

The speedo cable went on no problem. The shift linkage arm was removed from the old trans and mounted on the selector shaft on the new trans. Shifter seems to engage good in park, neutral, reverse, and drive. Can't get Lo to engage though.....o No:

Driveshaft slid back on, but rubs my H-pipe. The ST-300 is 3" from trans mount to output shaft centerline. The 200r4 is only 2", so it basically dropped the driveshaft 1". Sawzall took care of the H-pipe, which I had the muffler shop patch the holes today. Felt a few dirty looks from the neighbors when I pulled it out of the garage and roared down the street with it, open headers like.:laugh:

Had to use the 200r4 dipstick. Looks a little out of place, but is functional.

Now the little details that drive me nuts. I live in a small town where everything closes at 6pm and closed Sundays, so after work and supper is done, I get working on the car and have to shut it down cause I need something.:spank:

I ordered the TV kit from Bowtie Overdrive (BTO) for the Edelbrock/Carter carbs and figured it would bolt right up. Wrong! The linkage on these stock carbs is totally different from the aftermarket Carters and Eddy's. Plan on fabbing your own linkage or buying a new carb. I ended up buying a new 600 Eddy with electric choke, more for convenience than anything. June was crazy with work and I had no time for being creative.

The carb linkage hangs down to low and I had to buy a 1" phenolic carb spacer, which is a good idea anyways, as I guess the Eddy's like to get hot and vapor lock.

My drop base air cleaner would not clear the choke or fuel line, so I bought a 1/2" spacer for that too. The stock air cleaner will not work with aftermarket carbs, as the stocker is a 4.5" neck and aftermarket is 5 1/8" or thereabouts. I did try a chrome 425 Nailhead aircleaner and it fit good but it covers the whole damn engine! Those are huge!

I handled the torque converter lockup with a kit from BTO also, which came with a cruise control type brake light switch. Just pop the old switch out and pop the new one in. It unlocks the converter as soon as the brakes are applied. It was suggested to me that I also use a vacuum switch so the convert would unlock upon part to full throttle while in 4th gear. I used a switch from an '86 Monte Carlo. (I should have ordered the internal wiring kit also, but it was not recommended to me at the time.)

So the keyed positive wire (I used the orange wire from the switch pitch set up) goes to the vacuum switch, then from there down to the brake light switch, then down to the trans 4th gear pressure switch, then to the lockup solenoid. The BRF trans is different inside than others, so I'm still playing with my set up. The 4th gear pressure switch only has one wire connection, and I need a 2 wire switch. Also the BRF lockup solenoid has 2 wires, where non ECM trans uses a single wire solenoid. I'll update as things progress.

I did the pressure test as per the factory suggests and my numbers were pretty close, but a little lower than the recommended range. I'll take it into the tranny shop for a check up and a new speedo gear.

Went for a road test and it seems to shift nice and firm. Found a nice quiet stretch of fresh new pavement and the moment of truth.........

:3gears: :3gears: :3gears:

From a stop and just punching it, it lit up the right tire for about 20-30 feet or so. Stopped again and held the brakes and let her have it until a nice cloud of white smoke engulf the rear of the car. Niiiice.

Buicks are made to do burnouts. Even with the wimpy 2.78 gears, that 375 FT/LBS of torque punishes the tire(s). The 3.90 posi is up next, so we can lay down some twins!

I hope some of this info will help others in their decision to swap their trannies out. If I had to do it all over again though, I might lean towards a TH-350 and maybe keep the gears a little more civilized. Maybe a 3.08 or 3.23 at most. It would certainly be cheaper....I probably have about $1300 total in this swap with $350 of that in the carb.


Brian

 

The carb/TV cable setup is probably the hardest part of the swap. I have three different setup from Bowtie Overdrives because of the different carbs I have used. There are ways to mod the carbs make this easier.

You probably do not need 3:90 gears with the 200 because 1st gear is lower than other trannies. I know other transmissions are cheaper but nothing else is as versatile. Not many go back from their 200r4 to another tranny.

 

I was not impressed with Bowtie, to say the least. Their cutomer service is very poor. E-mails and phone calls were never returned. The tech I talked to when I ordered everything did not recommend the internal wiring kit, that they later said I needed. It's a two week delivery wait for parts from California to my home, so getting the order right the first time was fairly important to me.

Now I think I have to drain the trans and remove the pan to rewire the lockup system and install the proper solenoid and 4th gear switch.

Hopefully others can learn from my mistakes......

Brian

 

Did not have that experience with them. The tech I talked to (Steve?) used to work with nukes.was very helpful. The first setup was for a standard q-jet and I had to put on a Holley style throttle lever. Worked great. Next setup was for a Edelbrock 850 q-jet, they have a plate and adapter specifically for that carb. Works great. This year needed a plate for a Holley and used the cammed device from my modified q-jet. Again works great. I am in Michigan and parts were here in 3 days.

I do know that it is much harder to get stuff across the the border now. I deal with a company in Vancouver and have had things held at the border for some stupid reason or another. All these new rules seem to be a genuine clusterduck in my opinion.

I do know that there are some other companies that make adapters. 70gsconvert did an nice series on putting the 200r4 in his convertible and used an adapter from another company. Also possible to find q-jet stuff at the yards that will work, but that is getting harder all the time.