I run a 700 in my GN It was originally from TCI bought in 1994, and boy was it garbage. Multiple failures from very simple mistakes on their part. So I finally learned to build it myself and its been very good. There are so many ways to go wrong with it , and so many builders who think they know how to hot rod it. For ex, alot of bubbas at big name shops will just drill out the valve body instead of actually putting in a shift kit. Then they put in a corvette servo, maybe a better band and 3/4 pack, and they think theyve hot rodded it. Ive never met a single trans builder who was aware of the hd parts that are available. They dont make $ from really beefing it with the hi dollar parts. But as it is, My feeling is that bigger hardware is stronger, I dont know how that can be argued. And there is such a bad workmanship among builders and they have such varying opinions that cause them to skip steps, make it shift too hard, chose bad parts, etc. BUT parts wise, i do say a better 200 could be built if one were to buy ALL the hard parts that are available for it (thanks to the GN heritage). I can buy maybe $600 of hard parts, and use a good set of new /used GM only gearsets and have great results with a GN modified as mine is. And friction parts have to be wisely chosen, and there are even some hi dollar cluthc material that is worse than the regular HD stuff. My main complaint with the transplant is shift timing is sketchy regardless of TV tweaking/ governor changes,etc. The gear drop has never seemed to lug it in the least. It does seem to throw off the 1-2 timing , as the trans is confused by the lc2's imediate tork and dumps 2nd/3rd a bit early.
