A340E Buildup Information Thread

[TurboStreetCar]

Ok, ive searched around, know of the thread on SF and ive read about all the threads on Here about this.

What im looking for is personal Experience, i want to here from people that have been there and done that, No my sisters friends boyfriends cousins dads stepsons stories.

I what to know Who personally has blown an A340E and what broke. If you personally havnt blown a tranny but know someone who has and know Factual Exact data then post. But no "my friend broke one, it was something with second gear" stories.

I dont want to talk about what clutches to buy, what places do good rebuilds, why your tranny wont shift, what size cooler to buy or anything else, Please keep this on topic.

If you put 500+ horsepower threw your A340E and broke a planetary set/sprag/clip/spring/seal, i want to know about it.

I want to compile ONE thread about what breaks in an A340E at elevated power levels, and only what mechanical parts break. This way when someone has a question they can look at this thread and know exactly what to replace and why to replace when doing a performance build.

Please Keep This On Topic

 

[need new tires]

well one of the local guys auto took a dump on him. long story short i pulled the tranny apart for fun and saw an old failure that was "fixed".

not sure how it happend but since you want to see failure parts.

iirc it was the front driving shell that was cracked most of the way around.

his car was near stock when he got it(89t) so dont have a clue how it happend. neutral bombing it:dunno:

 

[TurboStreetCar]

So the shell was cracked, and welded to be fixed and then broke again? nice

Anyone else?

 

[cuel]

Wow, nice "fix." The A340 series transmission is used in a few different Toyota vehicles. Parts shouldn't be to difficult to find for a trans. shop.

 

[jdub]

One part I've seen break on the A340E are the sprags...generally on high HP motors. Not a lot you can do other than have them cyro treated. Had my input and output shafts cyro treated too. Stock type clutches will graze under high HP/torque, causing the tranny to slip.

 

[suprabad]

Oil pump failed and then the clutches burned up in mine.

I noticed a rattling sound from underneath the car after a few passes at Irwindale raceway one wednesday night (grudge night). As I drove home the rattling got worse and I started to smell burnt ATF, which sucked cause I had just flushed it and filled it with Royal Purple that I had to get off the internet because I couldn't find it in a retail outllet of any kind.

When I got off the freeway near my house the rattling had become worse, as I headed up my street the tranny started slipping and within a block it went from just starting to slip (although the pump was making a hell of a racket) to complete loss of drive.

Luckily it didn't totally take a dump untill I was on my street about 4 or 5 houses away from home, so I was able to coast it into the driveway. I tried every gear, including reverse and nothing. Dead.

Rebuilt with kevlar clutches, slightly modified pump, shimmed accumulators and higher stall. I've been beating it up pretty good for about 6 months and so far so good.

I do have a JDM A340LE from a Soarer sitting around just in case. By the way they're not fun to change, and if you go JDM, you have to change the tail piece as well as the speedo drive. It's on the right side on the JDM.

One other thing (I'm sure you know this but I'll mention it anyway...because you'd be surprised how many people have trouble with it), make sure you spin the TQ until it seats all the way in or you won't be able to close the gap between the engine and trans.

:icon_bigg

 

[TurboStreetCar]

Ive herd of the sprags bieng an issue but never seen personal reports of them failing. From what i understand the sprags are the one way clutches, they use little "fingers" that ride on a smooth surface and bind when turned in the proper direction?

Suprabad, do you know what the cause of the oil pump failure was? was it high mileage or was there some other factor?

Yea torque converter installation can be a little tricky, been there done that though.

Planning on buying the blue friction clutches, unless theres something better, a huge cooler and thermostat, and i want to seek out any weak links in the transmission as far as hard mechanical parts and find upgraded ones. Might be building the tranny soon pending cost and available information at time of build. I also have a spare good condition A340e so ill be able to take them both apart and use the best parts from each to make one perfect tranny.

Ive already done the accumulator mods and the tranny shifts fast enough for me, its just a matter of not breaking at power now.

Keep the carnage coming!

 

[cuel]

Put at least one quart of fluid in the T.C. before installing it as well, as spinning them dry(at operating rpms) will tear them up.

 

[americanjebus]

Thnx for making this thread nosechunks been waiting for people to show interest in this thing.

Oil pump failed and then the clutches burned up in mine.

I had just flushed it and filled it with Royal Purple that I had to get off the internet because I couldn't find it in a retail outllet of any kind.

Throwing a theory out of my ass here but how many miles were on the tranny when you did this? Think you just broke loose any grime or sludge that had built up w/ the flush + royal purple that may have gotten built up in your pump?

You guys ever take pictures of the magnets on the oil pan? Do you guys w/ tranny failures ever notice any substantial buildup on them?
Any theories as to what exactly is wearing down that is being picked up by those magnets?

When i did my flush i had about 1 - 1.5 mm of sediment on 2 of the 4 magnets. Any theories as to a specific part it came from. Clutch packs maybe?

 

[IJ.]

I just crank mine with the Ign off till I get pressure, holding the throttle open will help here as the 340 will make 160ish Psi cranking so fills the Converter pretty quickly.

 

[jdub]

Any theories as to a specific part it came from. Clutch packs maybe?

Yep...ferrous material from the clutch packs. The problem is the magnets don't attract non-ferrous particles and the screen is not fine enough to catch them. For this exact reason, I run a filter on the output line to the cooler...a Trasko by-pass filter, but any quality full flow filter will do. I also went with an air cooled cooler...B&M makes one with a 160 deg switch controlling a fan attached to the cooler. Works well

 

[TurboStreetCar]

American: yea theres really no threads that show problems withthe A340E only tips on how to make them last longer. Im glad this thread is working, all good info so far.

Wheres all the Breakage pics? People have to have broken these things.

 

[TurboStreetCar]

This isnt a Trouble shooting thread, this is a "if you broke your A340E, know what broke and why post here" thread.

Stay on topic.

 

[suprarich]

Nosechunks - You should also throw out all the post that include buring up clutches from over-powering the tranny set up, and post that have trannies failed from overheating. These are no brains type of faluires caused by the owner and not a weak link of the tranny, which is what I think your looking for.

 

[TurboStreetCar]

Yea but having clutches burn up from producing too much power could tell how much power the stock clutches can take without over heating.

Though i am trying to find out what hard mechanical parts break. The myths are out there for the sprags and whatnot as we've seen posted here, but i want to see proof though.

 

[TurboStreetCar]

Anyone?

 

[Ma70.Ent]

I'm tempted to sticky this.

 

[TurboStreetCar]

So i guess besides Clutches, nothing else need to be upgraded?

I know theres people out there that have blown these things up.

 

[jdub]

The myths are out there for the sprags and whatnot as we've seen posted here, but i want to see proof though.

Hmmm...sorry dude, I don't take pics to prove anything to anyone
If you don't want to believe it, that is your choice.

 

[suprabad]

Suprabad, do you know what the cause of the oil pump failure was? was it high mileage or was there some other factor?

Ive already done the accumulator mods

Keep the carnage coming!

Unfortunately, it wasn't high mileage (I wish).

Once we had it all apart and were able to inspect the pump, valvebody and the TQ etc...it looked like the pump had been momentarily starved, which is all it took to get the clutches slipping and disintigrating, which started sending pieces of clutch material through pump and valvebody, clogging things up along the way. Once that debris started accumulating in the system it made the pump starve even worse which just exacerbated the problem.

Heat and not having a filteration system (other than the screen filter in the pan) were definitely the culprit.

I think it's worth mentioning that despite the horrible abuse I gave the stock trans the internals (planetary gears, bands etc) looked pretty good. I was surprised.

I'm running raybestos kevlar clutches ,external cooler and filter now, so far so good (crosses fingers).