I'm thinking about tackling the rebuild of the 200-4r that I am about to buy. Its from a 87 Monte Carlo SS. I'm gonna put it behind a 72 455 with C heads that I will get rebuilt later on. It will be going in my 64 cutlass 2 door. Any advice will be great appreciated.

What rebuild kit is recommended?

 

Dr Dan over on realoldspower does garage 2004r rebuilds and posted a few good DIY/tips threads over there. The 2004r was not built to handle torque, so you will need to replace certain hard parts. There are several specialty shops that will sell kits and components.

I did a rebuild of a TH350 myself some years back and convinced myself to never do that again. It is certainly doable, but there are interesting gotchas in every transmission, and certain clearances that are very critical, and very hard to check without the right tools.
Do get some kind of good setup for compressing the clutch springs. I mangled several in mine. Also ended up with bad clearances inside the pump that caused it to fail after 20k miles or so.

 

To each their own, but...disassemble a TH400 and a TH2004R then compare. Then Ill let you decide which one you'd want behind a 455, upgraded hard parts or not... Hands down the 400 will win. The 200s guts are puny compared to the 400. Build a nice 400 and put a GV over drive off the tail...Or go for a 4L80-E/4L85-E. I personally would not wast my money trying to upgrade a 200 after seeing the size of its internals. Im from the bigger is better camp. Do your homework. AGAIN to each their own. This is just one mans opinion recorded to enlighten another man on what he has observed by dissecting each of these transmissions and physically holding on to the greasy guts.

 

You need a hardened stator, 10 vane pump with hardened rings and stiffer spring set up with the right clearances. Plus bigger boost valves which are part of good shift kits, billet servo and quality clutches and steels. A deep pan and billet foward drum are both necessary with big torque.

 

If you plan to do this yourself, spend the $80 for the manual from CK Performance. It covers both the rebuild and the modifications required to make the 200-4R live behind a 9 sec Buick turbo. The book is extensively illustrated and tells you how to use alternates to the special Kent-Moore tools normally required.

 

http://www.ckperformance.com/View/GM...CHNICAL-MANUAL

X2 on the manual. I read it, didn't do everything suggested, and did some things that weren't in there. Definitely worth the cost.

I used a seven vane pump, hard rings, larger boost valves and spring, stiffer slide spring. Hard stator support, and sun shell. I cheaped out and used the stock forward drum but a billet shaft piece could save a towing bill when you get park and six neutrals. Plus you get to tear it down and replace the broken one.

I didn't use a kit. I kinda pieced together the parts I wanted from several vendors as I had the money. One of the reasons it took me the better part of a year to put it together.

http://www.ihadav8.com/forum/index.php?topic=3729.0