Treeman,
I thought about asking you to delete your post, Ive thought about not answering this post. How do I answer this post without tipping my hand and help my competitors. When we first introduced our tc system we looked at several things that were causing these transmissions and tc’s to fail.
We were not interested in building our tc the same as our competitors, milling the OEM stator was not even an option for us. We knew it was in effective, caused torque multiplication loss and power transfer loss. While we admit it would be very profitable to use this method as it was the accepted industry practice, we knew it was damaging to the transmission, as it generated too much heat and relied too much on the tc clutch to transfer the power of the Cummins.
I realize that there are Ram owners out there that totally disagree with me as they have conditioned by the industry to believe that their tc clutch can handle the power of the Cummins. Everyone uses more clutch lining, including our company, everybody increases the transmission line pressures including us.
My point being, just because a tc is advertised to have more clutch lining, and a VB has higher line pressures do not be fooled into thinking that by simply adding a mystery switch or torque loc your transmission is now prepared to take on the power of the Cummins. It that were true , there would not still be so many tc and transmission failures.
You guys can believe me or not. All you have to do is look at the 6speed and 5 speed guys , they have 4 times the clutch surface area. And they can slip their clutches with just a basic power upgrade.
So think about it, what exactly are you expecting from your automatic torque converter clutch.
Now most people have been conditioned to accept that the automatic transmission is weak and it is prone to failure. It is funny though if you think how much punishment the automatic transmission is expected to take as compared to the standard. The automatic transmission is expected to shift under full throttle
Without taking your foot off the throttle, and if it breaks you say what a piece of junk this transmission is.
If you try doing that with a standard transmission and it breaks, you call the driver an idiot, doesn’t he know he is supposed to take his foot off the throttle and use the clutch and ease back into the throttle. He should know that you shouldn’t power shift the transmission.
When a guy in a standard is in 5th or 6th gear and is putting around and then goes from light throttle, straight to full throttle, and his clutch slips because of it, you call the driver an idiot , doesn’t he know you are supposed to down shift otherwise the clutch will slip.
Now on an automatic, when a guy is in od, uses a mystery switch or a torque loc to force the tc to stay locked up and in od, and then he goes from light throttle to full throttle, and the tc clutch or transmission starts to slip, you say the automatic transmission is a piece of junk.
Now are you guys seeing my point here.
The automatic transmission is not at fault, the expectations from this transmission are un realistic.
When we engineered our transmission components and our torque converter, we had to consider all of the above. All of our components are designed to un-loc the torque converter clutch under heavy or full throttle conditions. Our tc is engineered to perform most of its functions in fluid coupling .
As far as we are concerned the only time we to have the tc clutch engage is for fuel economy when cruising down the highway and exhaust brake applications.
Our tc transfers 40% more power in fluid coupling than ANY OTHER tc on the market. So we DON’T NEED forced lock up in our system.
Now Chrysler in their great wisdom have programmed their pcm to monitor the tc clutch application. The computer sends a signal down to the tc clutch solenoid to activate the tc clutch and then monitors the tach to look for an rpm drop indicating the lock up cycle has been completed.
It is looking for a minimum of 200 rpm drop. If it fails to see that 200 rpm drop 3 times in a row, it sets off a 1740 code or a 0741 code, or a 1744 code. While this is not a big deal as it does not put the vehicle into limp mode, on California emissions trucks, it sets off a check engine light.
While it does not affect the drivability of the truck, the code is meant to tell you your tc clutch is not working or slipping and you need to have it fixed. As you guys are driving the trucks know, that is not true, the tc is working just fine.
With the design of our tc, it does not always produce a 200 rpm drop, the rpm drop can vary depending on hp, gear ratio, & vehicle combined weight. Some of our guys out there have as little as a 50rpm drop when going into lock up.
The solution is quite simple, we merely have to lie to the computer so it can see what it need to see. We are field-testing the system at the present time.
Bill Kondolay
Diesel Transmission Technology
[This message has been edited by Bill Kondolay (edited 03-10-2001). ]
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