so my friend runs a company that hard anodizes gears and other parts for the military, he told me the other day if i had anything i needed to be stronger to let him know he can do it for me for free. I was wondering if i could hard anodize all the internals of my 4l60e? will this make it pretty much bullit proof? or not give it any advantage?

 

What is done to the parts to make them stronger? That sounds like a pretty neat deal if it works. I'd go for it...

 

I know hard anodizing aluminum actually adds material to the part. I'm not sure about steel though. That would mess up your internal clearances I would think.

 

actually im not sure exactly how hard anodizing works?? i never asked him the details, he just told me it makes the metal more than 30 times stronger. I'll find out if it adds metal

 

Anodizing puts a hard rust resistant hard (harder than base metal anyway usually) surface coating on parts and will change their sizes slightly. It does not harder that part internally at all (that is hardening/heat treating) I would not anodize any of my internal tranny parts and besides the weak link in a 4L80 is the clutchs anyway when you overload it, not the gears and such. l

 

You can have them cryo'd and that should make them stronger. It's a whole nother process though and usually isn't that expensive.

 

Yes but unless you are trying to put 6 or 700HP through a 4L80 regularly, your money could be better spent.

 

He didn't say anything about an 80e.

 

My mistake but even still the sprag in a 700R4/4L60 need to be upgraded along with the planetaries if you want more durabilty not hardened as stock parts are a bit weak by design.

 

The sprag in these late model trucks is a heavier sprag already. It's not a double caged, but it's a 29 element.

The sprag isn't the problem in thse trannies, it's the shafts that break.