2020 Duramax L5P Allison RevMax Signature Series Transmission (RA1000-2)

With the ever increasing constraints that manufactures are seeing in regards to fuel economy, there has been rapid changes in technology in the transmission realm. We have jumped from 6 speeds to 10 speeds and with the change in speeds comes a massive change in form.

The new Allison 10L1000 shares NOTHING with its predecessor the Allison 1000. In fact, this unit really isn’t an Allison anymore. This transmission was development hand in hand with Ford. What you see here is a Allison/GM interpretation of a common design. While some will say that the GM version is better or the Ford is better, what is true is they are extremely similar.

The new Allison 10L1000 is barrel loaded transmission. This means that the external case is just that, a case. All but one set of clutches resides in the internal aluminum barrels making this unit EXTREMELY compact and lightweight for its size. This compact nature also makes it very difficult to add additional clutch upgrades as there is very little space to do so.

Another issue that both of these unit have is due to the extensive use of lightweight aluminum. The Allison 1000 and nearly all of the other HD transmissions never used aluminum for clutch hubs and planetary gears. The E clutch hub in this transmission is made of aluminum. This hub is splined to the mainshaft of the transmission and is extremely susceptible to stripping the aluminum spline out of it. Another first is that fact that the E clutch and steels are not designed in the traditional way. The clutch plates have external teeth while the steel plates have internal teeth. This means that the steel plates spline to the aluminum E clutch hub. The hub wears excessively where the steels contact it and it is common for the hub to be destroyed when the E clutch fails as the steels plates then warp and embed themselves into the aluminum clutch hub.

The F clutch in this unit is also a major issue. This too is a backwards designed clutch and steel setup where the clutches are external teeth and the steels are internal. Unfortunately these clutches engage into the outer aluminum barrel and the design of this barrel has a very short spline area. This means we are very limited in what we can add to this area.

We have spent over a year designing upgrades for this unit and while they are all not available yet, we now offer a upgraded model for you!