got the ol trans apart. Horror show of clutch destruction in the forward drum, and the intermediates and directs were burned but not de-lined. All bearings, bushings, etc looked awesome, and surprisingly, there was not an abundant amount of trash in the fluid or the pan (so, where did it go? hm), but whatevs. Took the pump apart, and initially didn't think much of it (there was nothing split or teeth missing on the gears), however after watching a disassembly and inspection video on the yootubes (for the pump, not the whole box) it is apparent that it's thrashed, both housings are scored up. I suspect this resulted in a pressure bleed at low rpms, and coupled with the trans tuning (I had line pressure relatively low at low throttle angles because hey, don't need it and don't want it to bang gears) likely resulted in premature wear on the low and intermediate clutches. The directs being torched is more likely due to the leak, hydraulic demand for the gear, and input power, but also could be from tooling around at low throttle angles and/or occasional towing putting demand on it.
so... new clutches and steels, new pump, air check the pistons (they only have however many miles are on the setup.. so like 4000 or something lol) to make sure nothing is leaking... may order some new pistons just to have on hand in case, and a cleanup/out of the case itself, and it should be good to go.
bouta order up some new ls9 gaskets and the trans stuff, and put in a hit with revmax to get the converter stall bumped up from the 1800 or so that it currently stalls out at to like 3600, and get this thing headed back towards running.