Getrag 282

[Z26-T]

Just bought a 95 beretta that had a manual swap done to it, says he used a 1990 cavalier trans with the 2.8, says it's the getrag 282. Just a question on it, he also says he installed a spec 2 clutch in it. You can tell it's some sort of fiber tough or ceramic while driving. When going in reverse it chatters pretty bad, do you guys with tougher clutches expierence the same thing? Or do you guys think something is wrong with the trans? The speedo doesn't work, as explained in the next paragraph, so I haven't taken it anywhere besides the parking lot where I had the transport truck drop it off. But took it through all the gears in the parking lot and they all seem to be working fine. Just takes a second to get used to the clutch

If anyone has done this manual swap in their berettas, also have another question. Tac works but speedo doesnt, so i'm assuming that he didnt get the speedo wired in correctly. Anyone have wiring diagrams for this, and pictures are cool .

[Superdave]

for the speedo, buy a VSS for a 1991 Cavalier 3.1 5 speed. It will drop right in. Not sure how your ECM will like that since most of the newer trannies use a magnetic VSS with a higher pulse divisor.

the 91 VSS is the only electronic one that you can use, it still rolls on the old gear that's on the diff. 92+ are all magnetic pickup.


I run a stage 3 6 puck clutch and don't have any chatter, it's very on/off feeling but other then that it feels just like a regular clutch.

the clutch dosen't care what gear the trans is in, if you have reverse chatter it could be a damaged tranny..

[Z26-T]

I'm guessing that a VSS out of an auto won't fit in the hole... But i'll price out a VSS for a 91 cavi. He says that it worked before he parked it, which was about 2 years ago, so i would assume that he had a new VSS put in it after the swap, saying that it in fact did work. Anyone have pictures of how they routed their VSS wiring? That way I can check for a splce and see if it's corroded or broken. Or guess I can just spend more time under the hood of the car and less time online . Too bad I didn't park it here at my house...

[Superdave]

the 90 trans would just be a cable output straight to the gauges, unless he put in either a VSS for a digi-dash or the 91 VSS it wouldn't have worked..


Being a 95 i don't see how it would have worked even with the 91 VSS.. the speedo wouldn't read right.


have a look down at the back side of the tranny, kind of next to where the jackshaft comes out you'll see the VSS. take a pic if you can.

[Z26-T]

Found the VSS in the trans, 2 female terminal connector... that isn't plugged into anything. Searched around and there weren't any other connectors or free wires near the sensor.

[IsaacHayes]

I can't help you if the signals don't match up and the speedo is off... Sounds like different trans time then, same for reverse. All beretta v6 trans (282) will have electric speedo stuff. I think some of the 3100 beretta guys have used the old old beretta trans no problem so the VSS might not be an issue, unless the cav trans were just different.

Hmm I can't find my file with the 5spd info in it... maybe it's on the laptop LOL. But I the wires for it should be in the same location at the manual. It should be purple/yellow wires. The 4T60-E it's on the passenger side of the car plugged into the trans.

[jmgtp]

don't mean to hijack but can someone go into a little detail on the 'reverse chatter?'

My 284 does this bad, I initially thought it was motor/trans mounts and I replaced them all but it still does it. The clutch has about 60k on it and works flawlessly in forward gears so I don't think that can be it. I'm just wondering exactly what causes it?

It has every other symptom of a bad trans: poor synchronization, gear shift bumps back and forth a little in 3rd/4th (bent fork?), slight whistle noise when decelerating in 1st gear (bearing I presume?). Despite all of that I can still drive it smoothly. You just need to know how to double clutch it. Other people have a hell of a time with it though. I have a spare 284 for the day that this one dies.

[Z26-T]

don't mean to hijack but can someone go into a little detail on the 'reverse chatter?'

My 284 does this bad, I initially thought it was motor/trans mounts and I replaced them all but it still does it. The clutch has about 60k on it and works flawlessly in forward gears so I don't think that can be it. I'm just wondering exactly what causes it?

It has every other symptom of a bad trans: poor synchronization, gear shift bumps back and forth a little in 3rd/4th (bent fork?), slight whistle noise when decelerating in 1st gear (bearing I presume?). Despite all of that I can still drive it smoothly. You just need to know how to double clutch it. Other people have a hell of a time with it though. I have a spare 284 for the day that this one dies.

Sounds exactly like mine does...

With the speedo, I finally found the connector you guys were talking about, there is one that goes into the trans on the top, then the one by the "jack-axle" with the purple/yellow wires. The slices were pretty poor so I fixed those, the connector is pretty messed up too, but should work until I can get a new 1. I re-spliced the wires so it doesnt look like a electrician from a house did it... (he used the stuped twist wire dealies...). Haven't driven it after fixing that. He cut the blue wiring going into the cooling fan and ran a switch to it, was wondering if i were to splice the blue wires back together if it would come on automatically like it should, or if i should stick with the "toggle switch fan operation selector". After fixing the wires I followed them and they go to the automatic shifter (the little module that goes on the 4t60-E shifter ontop of the trans, which he just put to the side). Then two big gauge yellow and purple wires come out, which he spliced together. Are the 2 big gauge wires the ones for my speedo? Or the smaller ones, and they just goes back through the harness?

[IsaacHayes]

The other connector on the 5spd is the reverse switch I bet. I bet that's not wired up.

[Z26-T]

Wish I could take better pictures, but that's where the harness is and everytime I try I cant really get to how it goes into the trans, can only get the connector itself. The one that isn't connected to anything is on the top of the trans, above the dip stick on the driver side, right by the inner fender/wheel house area. The other one down on the trans is the purple/yellow one.

There is a service road right by my work that I took the car down just to see how she does at WOT, got it to 4th before lifting, so around 60+ mph the speedo flicks up, then slows down with the car, but doesn't start working again until you hit that level. He put the indigo gauge cover on, and left the plastic ip cluster cover off so you can tough the needles, found that the needle wasn't fully seated, seated it and then drove it home, was in 4th/5th gear with 1500 rpm, which is im guessing around the 45 mph mark, not sure because there wern't any cars around to gauge my speed off of. But the speedo wasn't working. So I'm guessing either the VSS or the cluster itself is bad... My bets are more on the cluster because it isnt a smooth transition between speeds when slowing down, flicks down around every 5-10 mph when slowing.

[Superdave]

the 90/91 VSS puts out 4000.43 pulses per mile. the stock VSS from your car probably puts out 24015.64 pulses per mile. (that's the standard for most 92+ cars)

So.. at 45 MPH the current tranny is putting out 180019.35 PPM.. divided by 128 to the cluster and the speedo is seeing 1406 PPM

to read 45 MPH on the cluster your ECM needs to see 1080703.8 pulses, then it divides that by 128 and sends it to the cluster at 8442 PPM


so.. the VSS is reading 6 times too slow for your cluster to work. At 45 MPH it will read 7.5 MPH


the top connector is the reverse light switch, maybe this pic will help...

[Z26-T]

Yep, the reverse light switch isn't wired up, but the VSS is. Have a diagram to wire up the reverse lights?

The speedo jumped to 60 at wot in 4th gear, so i'm thinking that it's getting the signal, just that he screwed up the cluster when he put the indiglo gauge cover on it. So i'm going to throw my cluster in my DD in it and see if it works with that.. If it does the same thing, I'm buying a VSS .

I'm thinking the chatter in reverse is the header pipe resting against the body. I'll see what I can do to modify the header to fix that problem. This is why I think i'm going to do everything on my next project... It's one thing for 1-2 things to be a little rigged up, but everything I've checked out is, oh well.

[IsaacHayes]

You're still ahead as far as swapping most of the stuff over. Just have to put the final polish on.

Later today I'll search my laptop and my PM's on bnet for that info for reverse/etc. Gotta go back to work now.

[Z26-T]

Yep. It's the cluster. After fixing all the wiring and swapping clusters out, it now works. So now to just figure out a way to drop the mileage down on my spare cluster to match how many miles are on the car...

Dave, If i were to put a 282 out of a quad 4 beretta 92+ what would I have to do with that for the VSS? Would the cavalier vss fit in the hole, or it it a totally different designed set up? Want to swap a 92+ in there for the different upper mounts (so I don't have to re-modify my turbo pipes), then use a quad 4 282 for the gearing, just swap out bell housings. Is this possible?

[IsaacHayes]

I hear it's easy to roll the mileage to whatever, but requires taking off the speedo and tach needles to do so. Then you gotta put them back on in the right spot while moving/etc to calibrate it or whatever. I didn't want to risk making them off so I said F-it. My cluster shows about 30k less than what my car has.

For the quad 282, you'd need to swap the V6 bellhousing on, but it's the same trans, with a lower geared FDR. (higher ratio). If you have trouble with traction the quad4 trans will be even worse...

But to answer the vss question, you'd just plug in the connector to the wires and go from there. use the 92 quad sensor in the 92 quad trans no problem.