smarty and transmission

[Blu-meanie]

Nobody ever said you have to load the most agressive

:-laf :-laf :-laf :-laf

 

[MHorne]

so basically after i have a transmission that will withstand some power like the 170 and maybe a water methane injection down the road i should be ok so long as i watch my gauges and not let them get to high. And exactly what defines a stock motor? Does adding a programmer make it cutomized or do i have to start changing out cams and heads and stuff like that? Just curious cause i would like to know what defines a stock motor. Reb your input was what i wanted to hear for now. If i will be safe to do the 90 on the weekends thats good enought to me cause man does it still drive awesome on the 60 setting. I love the throttle response. Oh yeah and i love the nice cloud of black smoke it leaves. That was another thing i was hoping to get out of it. Anyway thanks for all the input so far and if you have more to share please do cause i will be following this thread until it pretty much is back in the archives i'll say.

 

[Reb.B]

Okay, gonna try to answer MHornes question a little better. A stock motor in my mind is stock cp3 and stock turbo. More boxes and more inj. only add the to problem. A larger turbo helps get more air in and out and the modded cp3 helps keep the pressure where it should be. Doing these two things will greatly help EGT's at WOT. As a transmission goes, stronger shafts will help with more LOAD. So will the flexplate. But the flexplate is weak in two areas, Load and Spool up. The slow to fast spool up from a large turbo is hard on flexplates. As far as the rest of the trans there are lots of way to make it stronger, but as a general rule of thumb, u need to increase surface area or pressure or both. If you have very aggresive fuelling down low (adding fuel with little throttle) then you are putting power to the trans, but with not enough pressure.

So, lets amagine u have a "built to the hilt" transmission. All billet and extra clutches and more pressure rise. Okay, you go and sled pull and drag race, NO Problem. You are full throttle everything is working great. But u have all this low end fuelling and you do alot of stop and go driving, this is going to take out the clutches, because the lack of pressure. So, if you want to drive a truck with lots of low end fuelling, then you must increase the minimum detent or minimum pressure, and that opens up a whole new ball of worms, especially on newer trucks. Hope this helps a little.

 

[Giachino]

So, if you want to drive a truck with lots of low end fuelling, then you must increase the minimum detent or minimum pressure, and that opens up a whole new ball of worms, especially on newer trucks. Hope this helps a little.

For the transmission ignorant, what exactly can be done to increase the min detent / pressure? Cant an aftermarket VB ramp up the pressure sooner w/o issue?



Also, related question: I have my smarty on level 3 (60hp)... stock trans. Today I got on it on the freeway, it down shifted to third and just didnt feel right, is it hard on the trans to punch it in that manner? I'm aware it's not good to do brake stands or floor it from a stop, so i havent been... . but i didnt think it was bad to punch it when your rolling (I was doing around 55)???Any thoughts? Did I slip 3rd? Should I not be flooring it enough to down shift to 3rd? I'm not anywhere near what I would call abusive with the smarty, just trying not to f' up my transmission before I can get her worked on... . I'm new to this whole thing so my appologies if this is a stupid question.

 

[Reb.B]

aftermarket V/B and adjust detent lever or screw in minimum detent screw in VB. 05 and above is electric detent and if you manually adjust the screw too much it will set trans code

 

[MoparBob]

I am wondering the same thing... will a VB help with that? Also, Reb, the way you explained it, less aggressive TM won't do a whole lot to save the transmission. Is this the case at the 30 and 60 HP levels? I can understand 170 hp being 170 hp no matter what the TM is doing. Maybe I don't fully understand the way the TM programming works? I would be fine running a Smarty on the 30 or 60 HP setting (w/ timing and the "Stock" TM) until I can have a full blown transmission built. I am just looking to add a little more enjoyment to driving the truck... a little more low end power and throttle response would be worth the admission price for me.

 

[MoparBob]

Reb... I think we posted at the same time. Thanks for the VB info...

 

[Reb.B]

well TM on bully dog and TM on Smarty are two totally differnet things. Marco adds a lot of power down low(on the aggressive TM) and that is a trans Killer! Less aggressive TM on the Smarty is better for a trans or a clutch. TM on the Bullydog is on the top end

 

[KevinO]

I had the smarty on level 8 and tst on 3/2 and ez on level 2 and the third day the second gear band shattered. That was before i had the billet piece holding the bands i did have a local trans shop use their HD parts plus billet input triple lock and vb. It would have saved me a lot of money just to buy the whole trans done the first time fwiw.

 

[Reb.B]

did they use the 5. 0 lever or the 3. 8 lever

 

[HLewallen]

Okay, I hear opinions on what Smarty setting will kill trannys faster. I still do not hear an explanation for Torque Management. As I understand it, the stock programming for these trucks includes a functionality we call "Torque Management". This limits the engine's torque output to what level, when does it do it, and why? Once this is understood, we can understand the difference between what the Smarty and Bullydog are doing. It sounds like the smarty's TM settings are referring to changing the stock TM parameters, and the bullydog's is something different entirely. Torque management is used by manufacturers to save drivetrains, and it is usually done by de-fueling (right?). My '00 Camaro did it during shifts. It sounds like our trucks do it off the line to keep from spitting drivetrain all over the road. If done with fueling, it is the same thing as low end fueling. If anyone could explain the torque management logic on our trucks I would appreciate it.

 

[lmills]

I don't know, I just find it really funny how when BullyDog released the Scary larry with the TQ managment disabled, it blew trannys apart left and right. Now all of a sudden they are better on trannys.

 

[CStockton]

Just my 2 cents worth.

It would appear to me that the none of these mods will kill your trans or drop valve seats on their own and in any combination. The true fault lies in the driver's use of the vehicle.

This is my first diesel and I haven't been on this forum long so I usually defer to my more senior and experienced members but I really have to question anyone being concerned about dropping valve seats unless you're using your truck in some type of competition or dyno testing on a regular basis.

Now I have an 06 and you can see my mods in my sig. I run the TST on 3/3 pretty much all the time except when I'm cruising at highway speeds and I've taken it up to 9/9. Now that's a lot more torque and horsepower going through the trans than recommended but I figure since I'm rolling it on the drivetrain can handle it.

I'll probably end up getting the Smarty before I save up enough to get a trans. I figure I'll run Smarty on it's lowest power setting for the bottem end and take the TST down to 2/2. I have my EGR set to defuel at 1200 and if I avoid hard launches I'm pretty sure the trans will handle it.

But to my way of thinking, if I let my 77 year old mother drive my truck with a TST/Smarty stack set to the max my trans would last forever because she would be to scared to ever stomp on it. Oo.

 

[Reb.B]

don't run your truck on 9/9, thats ridiculous. U are losing power and getting waaaaay too hot. 9/9 was only made for cali trucks with 235 HP. U are losing rail pressure and losing power and making too much heat, which adds boosts. your truck should do the best on 6/7 or close to that. U need a rail pres. gauge to tune your truck. In fact, the best tuning devise short of a dyno on 03 and above trucks is a rail pressure gauge.

As far as TM goes, ... ... i don't know. Smarty TM is actually just low end fuelling in my opinion. BDDL TM has increased top end. Maybe the smarty is a hair higher on top too, ... need more testing. As technical answer to your question about TM and its factory functions, i say its top end power pulled off. This is were i get my reasoning. The 03 dodges have more TM built into them than the 06 dodges. If u take a BDDL and put it on both trucks the 06 will have more top end reving power. If u remove the TM on the 03 it will run like an 06. Take it for what its worth. In my mind TM will not kill trans, but the increased TM in the smarty(low end power) will be very hard on the clutches, when the truck is accellerating and NOT at WOT.

 

[RobertP]

ok so what about the guys with manual trucks? how much does TM affect them? compared to an auto? i know it will ruin a clutch. (first hand)

 

[CStockton]

don't run your truck on 9/9, thats ridiculous. U are losing power and getting waaaaay too hot. 9/9 was only made for cali trucks with 235 HP. U are losing rail pressure and losing power and making too much heat, which adds boosts. your truck should do the best on 6/7 or close to that. U need a rail pres. gauge to tune your truck. In fact, the best tuning devise short of a dyno on 03 and above trucks is a rail pressure gauge.

Pity you missed the point of the post.

 

[MCummings]

Our truck grossing nearly 30,000Lbs doesn't even like the smart on 30hp w/timing. One running up and down hills, at the very begining of a hill when you really start to get on the throttle, the RPMs pick up about 200RPM, then fall back down. I'm pretty sure that's the trans slipping...



Merrick

 

[DJKosa]

FWIW I have seen quite a few 06 48re's with less than 10,000 mi on them, (including my shop's 06 with very little towing and 7000mi) with the thrust washers showing extreme amount's of wear. These transmissions with no engine or transmission mods will burn the drive clutches towing 10,000# and above... that was in a truck with less than 10,000 mi on it and the customer is very respectfull to his truck. My thrust washers were trashed with 7000mi, about a 1000mi was with a tst and htt 62/14 turbo. I never towed with the tst. The TV motors on the 06's are junk and are causing trannys to burn up stock or not (lack of line pressure) A torque converter and VB are a great start but I am convinced that the transmission wont last with out converting the geartrain to a full bearing setup internally (in place of the thrust washers). If you don't all those thrust washer fillings drop right down on top of your expensive VB. Also the stock 2nd gear bands are not holding up. So bottom line is with a better torque converter and HD VB you will put the power down but for a limited time.

 

[KevinO]

It would appear to me that the none of these mods will kill your trans or drop valve seats on their own and in any combination. The true fault lies in the driver's use of the vehicle

How could you say that then say you put it on 9/9 and do just rolling starts. That setting is for smoke shows and driving the EGT's through the roof. Better start saving because either hole shots or on the fly runs the motor with mods is still able to push power through the stock trans holding capacity.

 

[RobertP]

FWIW I have seen quite a few 06 48re's with less than 10,000 mi on them, (including my shop's 06 with very little towing and 7000mi) with the thrust washers showing extreme amount's of wear. These transmissions with no engine or transmission mods will burn the drive clutches towing 10,000# and above... that was in a truck with less than 10,000 mi on it and the customer is very respectfull to his truck. My thrust washers were trashed with 7000mi, about a 1000mi was with a tst and htt 62/14 turbo. I never towed with the tst. The TV motors on the 06's are junk and are causing trannys to burn up stock or not (lack of line pressure) A torque converter and VB are a great start but I am convinced that the transmission wont last with out converting the geartrain to a full bearing setup internally (in place of the thrust washers). If you don't all those thrust washer fillings drop right down on top of your expensive VB. Also the stock 2nd gear bands are not holding up. So bottom line is with a better torque converter and HD VB you will put the power down but for a limited time.

the thrust washers are wearable items normally, but in the case you are talking about it was a absolute design flaw that has been upgraded, now its a lubrication problem, no lube or high heat from lack of lube quality and thrust washers are gone fast along with many other parts