Questions & Concerns Regarding ATS Triple-Lok

[ATSDiesel]

Originally posted by Bill Kondolay

Hey guys,



Please dont spend a lot of time on complex flow charts, let stick to the topic at hand. All that is required at this point in the thread is the pressure readings as that is the information relevant to what we were discussing.



We dont expect you guys to go to great lengths, the information we need you should have had when you did your baseline testing before you began your project.

Just fill in the blanks,



Apply pressure is ________________



Release pressure is ______________



Then we can carry on from there.



I am sure you guys want to keep this digestable for everyone to follow along and not want to confuse everything with a bunch of flow charts .



To be quite blunt this is an easy one, heck if the release pressure is 0 psi, there would be no clutch drag as the oil would move freely between the clutch plates.

Bill

Please tell me what you are after here. Pressure is a direct relation to volume flow. In this converter and any other converter oil is fed into the converter.



In fluid coupling mode, Oil volume is fed down the input shaft, between the piston and the cover then to the impeller/turbine section. When the oil passes through the clutch plates all the clutch plates are surrounded by the same oil, this means the clutch plates are not influenced by a pressure differential because they are all exposed to the same pressure. Any object in the pressurized vessel will not be influenced as long as the volume of oil is not allowed to escape to a lower pressure area. Loosing oil volume through a clutch plate (Piece of steel with friction bonded to it) would not be possible in my mind.



This is not a difficult theory to under stand. You said we are defying the laws of physics. Are we, or do we understand the laws of physics.



Earlier in the post D. Showan said “What I gathered from the posts from CCannon and Dramer is that on the release side there are multiple fiber and steel plates but that they are all exposed on all sides to the same fluid and pressure.



So with equal pressure (it wouldn't matter what the pressure is) the steels and fibers won't apply in any direction and are kept separated by the fluid film and would not wear excessively. ” ______



He explains it well, D. Showan is not a transmission man. I have a hard time believing you don’t understand the operation of our converter.

 

[Sled Puller]

I don't really care how it works, do you guys think it will hold a 900 hp 5. 9 Cummins, (I'm not kidding) at the pulling track?



And get as much power to the ground as a standard?

Always looking for upgrades.

 

[StakeMan]

Very informative post CCannon. I think I understand it better now.

 

[Diesel Freak]

WOW, I like that pic. I know where I would get a Lock up clutch for an automatic "if" I had an automatic, although it would snap an OEM input shaft in a heartbeat if you got stupid.



From the looks of it even with stock line pressures, the clutch should hold at least twice the torque of the stock Lockup clutch, and will not need higher line pressures (the BD dual concentric friction setup MUST have higher line pressures to work effectively)



We all know how multi disc clutches work. They work great, and with more discs (frictions and steels) the force required to attrain the same holding power decreaces.



Has anyone ever added an extra friction and steel plate to a Motorcycle clutch (this takes a little bit of machining to keep the spring preload the same)? If you have you know what I am getting at.





Good work guys!



EDIT: I just noticed that there are two steels missing from the Pic. . or is it my crappy monitor. . there should be steel discs between frictions 1,2 and 2,3... where are they? If they do not exist, then everything I said in the above post is moot, and this clutch is no better than the stocker.

 

[Bill Kondolay]

Lets first put the dis-agreement in simplier terms as not everyone understands the internal workings of a tc.



2 guys in the back of a truck, equal in every way, each trying to push the other one over, what Clint and i both agree on is that they are both of equal therefore they would be no movement. In essence no winner. Now here's where the dis-agreement comes in. What i am saying is if the truck excellerates and the guys are still in the back pushing against each other. One of the guys now have G force on his side and will win.



What Clint is saying is that the G force will not affect the outcome as they are both equal.



Now Clints theory would be right would be correct if the truck never moved.



Now i am saying that because of the G force advantage he's pushed the other guy to the back of the truck , and as they still have equal strength the other guy cannot push himself away from the back of the truck.



Keep in mind the inside of the tc also has centrifigual force we have not even factored in that will further affect the internal pressures of the tc. Just as G force affects the converter.

 

[Diesel Freak]

Bill, how many G's are we talking here at 3200 RPM?



Using that radial acceleration what is the force exerted by the remaining transmission fluid within the clutch area.

 

[Bill Kondolay]

Ah ! you see now we are getting back to the original question at hand , what is the apply pressure and what is the release pressure?



If all forces are equal inside the tc , the slightest change in movement it doesnt have to be radical will force the clutch plates to come together. Now the release pressure has become the apply pressure for 2 of the 3 friction plates.



ps,

engine rpms inside the converter create centrifugal force around the radius of the converter. At 3200rpms you would be looking at roughly about 350 -450 psi

 

[ATSDiesel]

Originally posted by Diesel Freak

WOW, I like that pic. I know where I would get a Lock up clutch for an automatic "if" I had an automatic, although it would snap an OEM input shaft in a heartbeat if you got stupid.



From the looks of it even with stock line pressures, the clutch should hold at least twice the torque of the stock Lockup clutch, and will not need higher line pressures (the BD dual concentric friction setup MUST have higher line pressures to work effectively)



We all know how multi disc clutches work. They work great, and with more discs (frictions and steels) the force required to attrain the same holding power decreaces.



Has anyone ever added an extra friction and steel plate to a Motorcycle clutch (this takes a little bit of machining to keep the spring preload the same)? If you have you know what I am getting at.





Good work guys!



EDIT: I just noticed that there are two steels missing from the Pic. . or is it my crappy monitor. . there should be steel discs between frictions 1,2 and 2,3... where are they? If they do not exist, then everything I said in the above post is moot, and this clutch is no better than the stocker.

Diesel Freak

You are right about some parts missing; we did not show all the parts on our Triple-Lok clutch for various reasons. Thanks for the good post.

Clint

 

[Diesel Freak]

Originally posted by Bill Kondolay

ps,

engine rpms inside the converter create centrifugal force around the radius of the converter. At 3200rpms you would be looking at roughly about 350 -450 psi

seems a little high to me... . how did you come by those numbers?

 

[Bill Kondolay]

Diesel Freak,



Centrifugal force #'s are actually quite a bit higher than the #'s I gave you as provided by Sonnax and the TCRA(torque converter rebuilders association). They list the pressure at 500-700psi at the radius of the TC on a gas vehicle, that's why I said roughly 350-450psi on a diesel as they don't rev as high. Now a days with the way the diesel industry is going who knows maybe 5000-6000rpm's aren't out of the question.

 

[Diesel Freak]

I guess my missunderstanding is where the pressure is exerted... I am under the assumption that the max pressure is exerted around the inner circumference of the Torque Convertor. The radius in just the straight line distance from the center of a circle, or D/2.



What is the thickness of the Torque Convertor Housing?



What is the material?



What is the diameter of a Torque Convertor?



Is the lockup section of the clutch completely full of oil from the center of rotation to the outer most edge of the clutch while it is in lockup?

 

[Diesel Freak]

Originally posted by Diesel Freak

I guess my missunderstanding is where the pressure is exerted... I am under the assumption that the max pressure is exerted around the inner circumference of the Torque Convertor. The radius in just the straight line distance from the center of a circle, or D/2.



You gave me pressure not force!



What is the thickness of the Torque Convertor Housing?



What is the material?



What is the diameter of a Torque Convertor?



Is the lockup section of the clutch completely full of oil from the center of rotation to the outer most edge of the clutch while it is in lockup?

 

[Cummins Corvette]

I think I can maybe see what you are talking about here Bill. I am having a hard time though. If you could just make a sketch of what you are talking about, scan it or take a digital picture of it, and post it here, it would make it a lot easier for all of us non-gurus to SEE what you are talking about. A picture is worth a thousand words (or more in this case). I am just a visual learner I guess.







I can see what CCannon's point is though, about if the pressure surrounding an object is the same from all sides, the object is not going to move. The only possibility is for it to compress.

 

[Diesel Freak]

It takes much more than a sketch... . Fluid flow dynamics and force dynamics within the Convertor and Lockup Clutch while in fluid coupling and lockup take some serious brain warping to understand.

 

[KatDiesel]

One question from me is all.



Does ATS offer a money back garentee??????????

 

[Bob Wagner]

just let it be known

That I coined the phrase "auto transmission Guru&reg"

 

[Strick-9]

Let me throw my two bits in here.



Someone is claiming no pressure drop across the steels, frictions and piston. I'll admit, at first it does seem logical that everything in the converter is at the same pressure.



BUT, if that were true, how does the piston engage into lockup?

We merely switch the direction of flow through the converter with the switch valve in the valvebody to request lockup.



If there were NO pressure drop across the piston, the piston wouldn't move forward against the cover. It would just sit there and allow the fluid to pass by it with no restriction.



But there IS a restriction there. There has to be if you are using the factory lockup system.



So now the question is how do you handle the pressure drop across the frictions and steels and totally eliminate drag?



-Chris

 

[StakeMan]

Bill, are you saying that the highest pressure inside the TC is at the outer edge? And you don't think that 350-400 psi of fluid pressure is enough to seperate the clutches?

 

[Power Wagon]

I talked to Don at some length about it. Without giving away what he said completely, things are set up so that the clutches are not seriously impacted by "release" oil flow. It has been addressed, but I do not fully understand the how.



Bill, I do not believe the intermediate clutches and discs are impervious to oil flow through them, and that some attention has been paid to using this oil flow to actually separate them at release.



As I said, I dont' fully understand it, just got the gist of things. Pictures would have made it clear

 

[Cummins Corvette]

I disagree. I think a picture can explain it better than words ever could. Nothing is too complex for a picture (or pictures) to help explain.