Technical Apr 2020 update: Maintaining a 600awhp 335xi Pure Stage 2 - Long term- CAR FOR SALE NOW!!

[Msport335]

Have any of you experienced your 6AT trans kicking out of 3rd gear while making a pull? I'm also on ps2 high flows making over 600wheel. also, when coming to a stop after hard pull the trans does not automatically downshift and ill be at a red light or stop in 5th or 6th gear.
no codes or lights on dash though ...trans has 140k kms on it

 

[zmon1300]

Have any of you experienced your 6AT trans kicking out of 3rd gear while making a pull? I'm also on ps2 high flows making over 600wheel. also, when coming to a stop after hard pull the trans does not automatically downshift and ill be at a red light or stop in 5th or 6th gear.
no codes or lights on dash though ...trans has 140k kms on it

My trans will kick me out of 5th gear on WOT pulls. It will either skip to 6th or kick me back into 4th. If your's is kicking you out of 3rd, I would do a transmission service on it. New fluids, sleeves, and get new solenoids. If that does not fix it, then time to get a new trans.

 

[Msport335]

My trans will kick me out of 5th gear on WOT pulls. It will either skip to 6th or kick me back into 4th. If your's is kicking you out of 3rd, I would do a transmission service on it. New fluids, sleeves, and get new solenoids. If that does not fix it, then time to get a new trans.

It just kicks me out of gear with a loud thump. Doesnt over rev or throw me into another gear as I let off as soon as the thump hits me. Coming to a stop it wont downshift either when I'm on it hard. Do my clutches have to be changed and torque converter rebuilt?

 

[zmon1300]

It just kicks me out of gear with a loud thump. Doesnt over rev or throw me into another gear as I let off as soon as the thump hits me. Coming to a stop it wont downshift either when I'm on it hard. Do my clutches have to be changed and torque converter rebuilt?

Sounds like worn clutches. PD sells an upgraded clutch kit on ebay I think.

 

[Msport335]

Found this...seems to be the same friction material used in the PD clutches at a cheaper cost.

Alternatively the same kit can be ordered directly from Alto

http://www.altousa.com/downloads/tech-drawings/BM322.pdf

 

[zmon1300]

Season opening 2019:


Hey guys. The weather cleared up for few days here in chicagoland and wanted to get some runs in with the local competition. Had a few buddies get together and headed to the streets. We had the following cars/bike with us:

1300whp Supra - 3.4 stroker, 7685 turbo full E85 tuned by Sound Performance
700awhp GT-R - Alpha package E85
1300cc Hayabusa - Power commander and full exhaust
600awhp 335xi - Me
600whp c7z06 - midpipe. Owner doesn't really know how much power it makes. Just a estimate

Had some fun with the vette. The races were really close but I edged him out everytime at the top of 4th gear. Its crazy how the gearing on the vette's are so long. He shifted once while i did a 2-3-4 pull. Mind blowing. I really liked the vette, sounded great and was pretty quick for what it was. We all took a bunch of videos and I made a small youtube collage of videos. Car is running pretty solid. Will be doing some weight reduction along with the trans install soon.

Subscribe to my channel and share/like the video if you enjoyed it!


Thank you all!
Z

 

[zmon1300]

Happy Father's day to all of you dads out there!


Lots of good and bad news lately with the car.

Good news:
Scooped up a cheap lip and side skirt extensions from eBay
Installed my semi-built transmission and cooler along with the inline thermostat
Turbos and motor have a clean bill of health


Bad news:
New transmission is not shifting properly

My shop finally got me in for the transmission install. If you haven't kept up with this thread ill go over the components that were replaced in this 30k mile transmission

OEM pan/filter
OEM gasket
OEM mech sleeves
Custom Aluminum "double square" mech adapter
OEM ZF lifeguard fluid


Setrab 19 row transmission cooler
Improved racing 165 In-line Trans Thermostat.


So I dropped off the car about a week ago and all was well. The shop refused to install the sway bars and end links as they could not complete that project in time so those are for sale if anyone is interested. Brand new UUC F+R Sway bar kit for XI cars only and Front endlinks(used). TGS sells this for $840ish all new. I am willing to let them go for $775 to someone locally as I think shipping would be a nightmare. Will send pictures to serious inquiries. PM me if you're interested!

Back to the transmission situation,
Dropped off the car about a week ago with the new cooler, t-stat, and fluid. Heard from the shop about 3 days after saying they are wrapping the install up and only had to get some AN fittings to properly mount the cooler in the fog light housing area. All seemed well until I got a call the next day. They said they reset adaptations and took the car around the block for a test drive and immediately noticed erratic shifting and shortly after, the transmission fault light pop up on the iDrive system. They parked the car and contacted me right away. I asked them to flash the stock transmission map from xHP to fix the issue and they did with no luck. They flashed back to stage 3 xHP and still the same issue. So now I am kind of stuck on what could be the issue. They scanned the codes via xHP and it came back as

Gear Monitoring ratio 3-4

I called the shop who installed the zipkit, pan, filter etc and although they were very nice, did not want to look at it and their bmw tech is on vacation until next week.

I am kind of stuck and wanted to ask the transmission gurus of this forum on what would be the next step to get the car shifting properly.

Things could be worse is what I keep telling myself.....
Z

 

[zmon1300]

Somewhat of an update,

I called the transmission shop to see if I could tow my car there and have them look at the transmission. The owner was very nice but his tech who did the work is on vacation until next week and he has 2 weeks of work to catch up on when he gets back to work. Then it will take him another week to diagnose my car. All in all, he basically told me it wont be looked at until the end of July which is too long of a wait for me. He then stated that if the trans needs a full rebuild to OEM specs it would cost me $4,000. Big no no in my opinion. I could probably swap in a 8hp or 6mt for that amount. So I am pretty stumped. @SJ_1989 messaged me referring me to a local BMW shop that is working on his drag build and I reached out to that shop. Eric at Efab was very professional and helped answer my questions. Unfortunately he wanted me to get another trans and they would be more than happy to install it for me. Although he helped me tremendously, I wanted to open the current transmission in the car and actually figure out what was causing this issue. I did some googling for ZF transmission specialists in my area to no luck. I even called ZF USA and they referred me to a shop in my area but that shop claimed they do not rebuild transmissions. Another dead end. My buddy claimed that since my car is a 2010, I would need a 2010 transmission to work properly in terms of the TCU. The transmission I put in the car was from a 2009 car and I had the TCU coded to my car and that still did not work. I flashed multiple xHP files and still did not make any difference. I ordered new mech sleeves and solenoids and plan to rip apart my blown trans to refresh the mechatronics and swap it into the 09 trans that is currently installed in the car. My BMW tech does not want to open the transmission because he really does not know what to look for. I looked at a bunch of videos and read some DIY posts and it does not seem to be that difficult to open and see. I suspect that the transmission shop did not install the zip kit properly or didn't seat some of the mech sleeves properly. Hopefully this all works out because I don't want to leave this transmission issue on "what ifs" and don't want to blindly keep dumping tons of money into this car.

Once this transmission situation is worked out, I think I will be retiring this platform and stepping up to something else..

Z

 

[Torgus]

This is what I hate about autos. Manuals are so much simpler to work on. Best of luck mate.

 

[tisdrew]

Most shops 'warranty' their work for a shelf-life. I'd go back to your shop and make it the priority of the tech who last touched it when he's back from vacation. Shoddy or problematic work gets a return/come-back. They didn't give you what you paid for.

 

[SJ_1989]

@zmon1300 I'm glad E-Fab was able to help you out a bit. Eric's a good guy and very honest. Hope you get it figured out.

 

[chrisdfv]

Man, I went through similar auto transmission issues. Swapping transmissions, doing zip kits, dropping the pan multiple times to check seals, swapping mechatronic units, and valvebodies to try to figure out what was going to finally work. It gets old having to drain fluid, and fill with the car running etc. Not to mention ATF STINKS! It was a pretty demoralizing situation.

I gave up and swapped a manual trans in, and it's been amazing to finally have the car put down the power without a worry about a trans slipping, or it not shifting into the next gear, popping out of gear and all that.

Zip kits, fluid and all that, not to mention you're paying for your labor all adds up and it's money you don't get back. Spend 3K doing a manual swap once and be done with it.

 

[Kaane]

I rebuilt my transmission as well, had some issues after still and gave up on it, troubleshooting these without a test rig is impossible. Swapped a 6MT into my 535i and love it!

the 6HP transmission are just very unreliable, the bushings suck and every trans around 100k miles almost needs a rebuild.

 

[RNM]

Zip kits, fluid and all that, not to mention you're paying for your labor all adds up and it's money you don't get back. Spend 3K doing a manual swap once and be done with it.

3k for a manual swap.. Does that include labor or is that just parts alone? Trying to get an idea of what to expect when I find myself in a similar situation.

 

[Kaane]

I spent with no labor (Did all the work myself on my 535i, 335i should be about the same, trans is the same)

$1200 on trans, pedals, driveshaft
$600 on DMF + 335is clutch
$200 in misc parts
$250 on rear diff
$150 used axles

Diff and axles are optional, but the ratio sucks.

$2400 total no labor.

 

[DCook]

This is what I hate about autos. Manuals are so much simpler to work on. Best of luck mate.

While this is true, my manual trans is shot lol. And unsure where to get parts if its cheaper to fix vs low mileage unit. Unless you got connections lol

 

[Torgus]

While this is true, my manual trans is shot lol. And unsure where to get parts if its cheaper to fix vs low mileage unit. Unless you got connections lol

I would try and find one in a yard local. If not local the usual places such as: http://www.car-part.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi $300 bucks 20k miles.

 

[Kaane]

There is no parts for the manual transmissions, but they are so cheap and easy to swap that I would just grab another.

 

[chrisdfv]

3k for a manual swap.. Does that include labor or is that just parts alone? Trying to get an idea of what to expect when I find myself in a similar situation.

I did the labor and coding myself. The swap took me about 14 hours on a lift. Some time was spent before that cleaning the trans, changing the fluid, installing the pedals, and running the wiring.

Trans with mounting bracket and first clutch line $600
Twin disc $1575
Pedals(and clutch module) and clutch line coming from pedal $145
Diff $300 (bolted so i could DIY an LSD)
ECS cart with misc items(trans fluid, some wiring bits, Slave cyl, bolts etc) $220
RTD shifter $466
Driveshaft $140

$3446
Could save the money on the shifter and diff if you don't mind a 3.46FD. Cheaper clutch if you're not about that power.

 

[Blackarrow335i]

Somewhat of an update,

I called the transmission shop to see if I could tow my car there and have them look at the transmission. The owner was very nice but his tech who did the work is on vacation until next week and he has 2 weeks of work to catch up on when he gets back to work. Then it will take him another week to diagnose my car. All in all, he basically told me it wont be looked at until the end of July which is too long of a wait for me. He then stated that if the trans needs a full rebuild to OEM specs it would cost me $4,000. Big no no in my opinion. I could probably swap in a 8hp or 6mt for that amount. So I am pretty stumped. @SJ_1989 messaged me referring me to a local BMW shop that is working on his drag build and I reached out to that shop. Eric at Efab was very professional and helped answer my questions. Unfortunately he wanted me to get another trans and they would be more than happy to install it for me. Although he helped me tremendously, I wanted to open the current transmission in the car and actually figure out what was causing this issue. I did some googling for ZF transmission specialists in my area to no luck. I even called ZF USA and they referred me to a shop in my area but that shop claimed they do not rebuild transmissions. Another dead end. My buddy claimed that since my car is a 2010, I would need a 2010 transmission to work properly in terms of the TCU. The transmission I put in the car was from a 2009 car and I had the TCU coded to my car and that still did not work. I flashed multiple xHP files and still did not make any difference. I ordered new mech sleeves and solenoids and plan to rip apart my blown trans to refresh the mechatronics and swap it into the 09 trans that is currently installed in the car. My BMW tech does not want to open the transmission because he really does not know what to look for. I looked at a bunch of videos and read some DIY posts and it does not seem to be that difficult to open and see. I suspect that the transmission shop did not install the zip kit properly or didn't seat some of the mech sleeves properly. Hopefully this all works out because I don't want to leave this transmission issue on "what ifs" and don't want to blindly keep dumping tons of money into this car.

Once this transmission situation is worked out, I think I will be retiring this platform and stepping up to something else..

Z

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