6L80E and 6L90E into Holden CrossTrac system

[Lex]

A couple off pictures off the finished console, it has taken me awhile, but it came up much better than I thought.

Looking good.
How is the car going? Still good?

 

[CWG]

Yes and still enjoying driving it. I hope to do a short 5 day rally in QLD next month then a longer one in July stating in Tasmania and finishing at Dundee beach just out off Darwin, should be a great trip 7500klm and 18 days

 

[mooknee]

HI and hope you can help, I have a VY Cross8 Crewman and I recently fitted a 6L80E transmission to it and it is running and I have a TCM2650 controller fitted but I am having trouble getting someone in Queensland to tune/set it up to run well, it is Ok but seems to have a mind of it's own sometimes, the trans I fitted is a 5CVA, I am going to also fit the tapshift controller as well and just want to know what I need to do/know in advance to get this working as it should, reading your posts it seems you have had the same problems I have had and you could give me a heads up as to what I need to do? I got the kit to fit the transmission thru Clive Gray on the AWD Holden facebook page, he has been very helpful, I am an old school guy 67 next birthday and my last experience with auto's was a TH700 I put behind a 308 Holden in an EH back in the 70's and the only electrics was the overdrive switch I had to fit, thanks for your time and hope to hear from you soon, cheers Mike D

 

[Fu Manchu]

There’s two mobs here in Perth that can offer advice and maybe even do something remotely.

Zared Fox Automotive WA
And

*Ive used an image from his GT listing with his number. Al builds adaptor harnesses and is a whizz with 6L80e conversions and their modules.

 

[Fu Manchu]

Thought I might prompt @CWG with this juicy bit of info that might assist with the tap up and down shifting.

“Might” help.

Huge thanks to @OldSkoolGP for finding this.

https://forums.justcommodores.com.au/threads/4l60-65-tap-shift-may-be-possible.298176/

 

[ben_att]

Just thought I’d add if anyone’s interested as I see this come up a bit about the 6L 80 into VZ.
I put an L77 /6l80e into my Vz cross 6 1 tonner and didn’t want to go down the path of external gearbox controller and much preferred to use the stock Holden VF tune and given the TCM is built into the gearbox and is ready to go with the ECU it made more sense to me to retain it. Currently it’s only running RWD but once I get the bits together I’ll change the sump and put the original K frame and FWD gear back in. So I got it all running, it runs and drives great, especially compared to how it did before with the LEO and also very noticeable difference to my L98 VZ SS crewman which has the ol’ 4 speed auto. Once I got it all running, I had some issues such as
-Dash engine oil alert
-Dash fuel gauge not working
-Dash temp gauge not working
-Dash alternator fault
-CAN Bus A/C command
-Service Vehicle Soon alert
-CAN Bus reverse lights driven from the PIM
-CAN Bus signal for the gear position to display on the dash cluster
-VF A/C compressor is variable, VZ is not, so needed additional signal for this.
-Cruise control is all CAN Bus through the PIM.
-VF uses serial data for Tacho and Speed to cluster, just had to add some wires to the ECU to the plug.
-VF uses serial radiator cooling fan control, just needed to add an extra wire to the ECU and change some settings using HP tuners to setup low & high fans.

The big ticket item here is majority of these issues have been corrected with a CAN Bus translator that was built for converting the newer GMLAN to the older GMLAN that the factory VZ PIM understands in order to translate to the old ALDL dash and BCM to work as normal.
There is a couple of minor things left on the list above which are currently being worked out. Currently when I connect Tech II none of the modules have any errors logged, however I still get an SVS on the dash (which as above is currently being looked at) I’ve got an excel sheet for the wiring modification I can upload if anyone wants it.

So basically I used the engine/TCM loom that came out of the VF, it has two plugs that connect the whole engine loom to the car, I made some minor wiring adjustments to the loom and added a few extra wires and got a VF chassis side plug, cut off the E55 plug on the Vz and put the wires needed in to the VF plug so now it’s the same as VF, unplug two plugs and I can drop the whole engine/trans electrically. The high speed GMLAN is now running between the E38, ABS, TCM (6L80e TCM not the VZ one that was in the passenger kick panel), PIM and FPCM, then the PIM translates the data it is picking up from the add in module (which is very small and only has 5 wires connected currently (+, -, CAN_lo, CAN_high, PWM for A/C variable control) there is an extra connection for the tap shift however I haven’t tried this yet as I don’t have the paddles on the steering wheel. Once the last couple of things are tidied up, I can clean up the wiring and take some photos.

I was told the ABS wouldn’t work, it seems to be ok at the moment, I didn’t expect it to work since the cross track front wheel hubs are different to the sealed units I have fitted temporarily and suspected they would have different pulses, I have tried hitting the pedal pretty hard and it doesn’t lock up but I don’t think the ABS tried either as I would expect to feel the pedal pulsing. One thing I have noticed though is up on stands as the cross tracks diffs are single spinner, if I give it a little rev the dash shows low traction and it brakes the wheel that was spinning and forces the other one to turn, so seems like it should work.

Once this is all working, my next mission is to swap the 4l out of the L98 crewman and put in the 6L80 and I’m hoping this one is more so just ‘repinning’ with existing E38, loading in the VF tune with SPS, add in the CAN bus translator and fingers crossed!

Cheers

 

[Fu Manchu]

Mate if you can post that excel spreadsheet, that would be great. If not then I’m happy to provide a public link for it from my G drive. I might even be able to upload it to the forum server as a donating member.

I’m loving what can be achieved.
You guys with the CrossTrac system and then there is the work @OldSkoolGP is doing getting the newer ECM working on older VZ’s and GTO’s.

Once it was urban legends like CommodoreNut that knew which parts swapped around on various models, or the multitude of harnesses that could be swapped to upgrade model features all off the top of his head.

Now the way forward is pioneers like @CWG and @OldSkoolGP that continue those Lego style hacks to make our Commodores going, bigger and better.

Great info mate.

Edit: E38 conversion
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzRGL_4twwCq-Jy_-v9D1rLwFsdt-FoT9&si=QPUdB_jvzifeoZQs

 

[ben_att]

No worries. I watched some of the videos in you're link. That's interesting to watch someone pulling the parts apart and fiddling as I have, however from what I can tell, he is running the VZ OS, VZ OS doesn't allow for comms to the 6L80 as far as I can tell. I am running the VF OS in my E38 hence why the 6L80 works as per factory VF and why I had canbus issues to the car as there is something different about the data on the GMLAN between VZ and VF models.
Also, running the VF OS keeps the DoD working and I have the FPCM fitted (which I don't know if this would work with VZ OS) as well and changed the fuel pump to the donor that came from the same VF the motor came from, so the composition sensor is also connected which allows for E85 if desired and the pressure sensor is fitted so the module varies pump speed based on demand. The VZ OS 'guesses' the fuel pressure as the bypass is in the pump assembly and the ECU 'assumes' around 60 psi (this may be wrong, but just what I have observed between my factory VZ L98 E38 and the VF).
I've attached the spreadsheet I worked with, (which needs a few tweaks still but it's close) there is a few left over wires from the E55 plug as oxy sensors and some other things are not part of the engine loom for some reason on VZ and go back through other looms, where as on the VF loom virtually everything to do with the engine and auto is all in the one loom so there's a few redundant wires.
If using this chart, the other thing to note is I made up a little 'patch loom' which plugged into the plug under the dash for the VZ style accelerator pedal and converted to the VF style pedal plug, and I had to join the can wires in the X203 plug which had the old 4l60 loom connected to it so that with the VZ TCM missing the can bus chain link was continued.
I still need to manipulate the wiring for the starter relay as the VZ that comes factory with the E38 has the start feed from the ignition switch going to the PIM and which then sends crank request via CAN to the ECU, the ECU then directly controls the starter motor relay. The V6 however sends power to a relay in the engine bay directly. So I currently have the starter checks patch applied in HP tuners to clear the faults that come up with the ECU not being in control of the starting circuit, but once the ECU sees RPM it will start up and run anyways. I am not sure if this will work yet as I doubt that I will be able to link the PIM and ECU being totally different operating systems, but will find out soon.
I've also attached the wiring diagrams for the engine and the pinouts for various plugs that I used.
I'm hoping to spend a little bit of time on it later this week to clean up loose ends and most importantly given the change in weather, make sure the A/C works properly!

Cheers

Note: I couldn't upload excel files, so I've changed the extension to .pdf but the file says change extension in the name.

 

[Fu Manchu]

There is another way to get a 6L80e running in an older model V8. Well. In part, a similar approach to the above post.

Some minor sensor additions and a computer swap. VE ABS added.

 

[Fu Manchu]

No worries. I watched some of the videos in you're link. That's interesting to watch someone pulling the parts apart and fiddling as I have, however from what I can tell, he is running the VZ OS, VZ OS doesn't allow for comms to the 6L80 as far as I can tell. I am running the VF OS in my E38 hence why the 6L80 works as per factory VF and why I had canbus issues to the car as there is something different about the data on the GMLAN between VZ and VF models.
Also, running the VF OS keeps the DoD working and I have the FPCM fitted (which I don't know if this would work with VZ OS) as well and changed the fuel pump to the donor that came from the same VF the motor came from, so the composition sensor is also connected which allows for E85 if desired and the pressure sensor is fitted so the module varies pump speed based on demand. The VZ OS 'guesses' the fuel pressure as the bypass is in the pump assembly and the ECU 'assumes' around 60 psi (this may be wrong, but just what I have observed between my factory VZ L98 E38 and the VF).
I've attached the spreadsheet I worked with, (which needs a few tweaks still but it's close) there is a few left over wires from the E55 plug as oxy sensors and some other things are not part of the engine loom for some reason on VZ and go back through other looms, where as on the VF loom virtually everything to do with the engine and auto is all in the one loom so there's a few redundant wires.
If using this chart, the other thing to note is I made up a little 'patch loom' which plugged into the plug under the dash for the VZ style accelerator pedal and converted to the VF style pedal plug, and I had to join the can wires in the X203 plug which had the old 4l60 loom connected to it so that with the VZ TCM missing the can bus chain link was continued.
I still need to manipulate the wiring for the starter relay as the VZ that comes factory with the E38 has the start feed from the ignition switch going to the PIM and which then sends crank request via CAN to the ECU, the ECU then directly controls the starter motor relay. The V6 however sends power to a relay in the engine bay directly. So I currently have the starter checks patch applied in HP tuners to clear the faults that come up with the ECU not being in control of the starting circuit, but once the ECU sees RPM it will start up and run anyways. I am not sure if this will work yet as I doubt that I will be able to link the PIM and ECU being totally different operating systems, but will find out soon.
I've also attached the wiring diagrams for the engine and the pinouts for various plugs that I used.
I'm hoping to spend a little bit of time on it later this week to clean up loose ends and most importantly given the change in weather, make sure the A/C works properly!

Cheers

Note: I couldn't upload excel files, so I've changed the extension to .pdf but the file says change extension in the name.

This info looks very much like what @OldSkoolGP is talking about in the video.

It’s pretty great that this type of info can be shared around.