4R100 Tranny Upgrade...Need a Program Change?

[ChrisCNC]

Just recently went through a VERY reputable Ford tranny guy here on the West Coast. He went through the transmission and beefed it up, bigger bearings, best torque converter money can buy (in his opinion), new pressure plate, valve body, springs...etc. I've known of him for over 20 years and have had some of my good friends have the exact same thing done to their tranny's. I'm confident of his work and my friends have had nothing but success using him (they abuse their trucks IMO, I tend to baby mine).

Just got back from a trip with my new tranny. I've got a 2003 F250 with 35" tires and pulling a 5000# trailer, am using the PHP 80 HP, standard Tow program. Pulling up one of the main pulls from the Willamette Valley (Lebanon, OR through Sweet Home to Sisters called, "Tombstone Summit") is a 10 mile pull at 10 - 11%. Twisty-turney, 35 mph corners and some spotty rough road all the way up. I had a difficult time getting the Torque Converter to Lock up in 3rd gear. I had to pull over twice because my temp gauge alarmed out (at 225) and I was at 240 degrees and climbing fast by the time I found a place to pull over.

I'd have to slow down for rough road (and the truck would need to shift into 2nd) and when I accelerated back up it would go into 3rd and I could not get TCL. I'd try to accel and back off, hard accels, soft accels, everything. Near the top the road straightened out some and I was able to stay in 3rd with TCL and the temps would stay around 216 which is acceptable.

Is this something that should be addressed with programming? Or do you think I need to go back to the Tranny place and see what they can do. My other friends (one in particular) are pulling 12,000 to 18,000 tow haulers up the same grade with bigger tires (on the same 2003 trucks) but with different programs (One has Standard Edge, One has SuperChips).

Please let me know what you think as soon as convenient. I'd like to talk to my tranny guy and get this resolved asap.

Thank you and Sincerely,

[ChrisCNC]

Just spoke to the Tranny guy. He's willing to double check his work (no cost to me but a MAJOR hassle since I have to take time off work 2X to get it to him and get it back.

He did say to let PHP know that the stall speed on the new Torque Converter is lower, and that it is a triple disk setup.

[cleatus12r]

It doesn't matter at all what the "stall speed" is. If the torque converter clutch is not being applied (but did before the transmission was replaced), then something is wrong with the build. NOT the tuning.

[ChrisCNC]

Thank you for the quick reply, I appreciate it!

Your comment, "If the torque converter clutch is not being applied (but did before the transmission was replaced)...", really got me trying to remember exactly how things have played out.

I purposely avoided that section of the pass (went ~25 miles out of the way to go around it) after I got my bigger tires, and before I upgraded the tranny. I didn't want to tax the stock transmission since my friend smoked 2 stock trannies and I wasn't willing to go down that path carrying my family along.

I went over that section with the stock tires and stock tranny pulling the same trailer before and did not have an issue. The two things that changed this time was the bigger tires (35") and the beefed up transmission. This is the first time over that section of pass with both the bigger tires and the new transmission.

Do you still think it's probably the transmission build? Thank you for your input, I really value it.

Sincerely,

[cleatus12r]

As an example:

If the torque converter clutch applied at 35 MPH (as indicated on the speedometer) with the small tires, then the torque converter clutch apply will STILL happen at an indicated 35 MPH on the speedometer with the larger tires. Nothing will EVER change in that regard unless the tuning is changed or the speedometer is recalibrated. The tires do not change the engine RPM/driveshaft speed relationship; they only change the actual road speed vs. the speedometer.

[ChrisCNC]

Thank you for answering all my questions, I'll head back to the tranny shop!

Any bets on what the problem may be?

[ChrisCNC]

I took time off work this Saturday, hooked my trailer up to the truck and made the ~100 mile roundtrip down to the transmission place that upgraded my transmission. We hooked the system to his scanner to get an idea of what was going on and proceeded to tow the trailer up and down the hills of southwest Eugene toward the coast.

I was able to duplicate the problem readily, between a throttle position of approximately 1.8 - 2.1 volts and a torque of 250 to 300 ft-lbs, if the transmission is in 3rd gear and not in TCL it will not lock up because it is never commanded to. Everytime the TC was commanded to lock up, it did so.

So what happens is this, I'm towing trailer and family over a pass and coming out of a sharp corner or rough patch of road I press down on the throttle and the system shifts out of 3rd w/TCL and into 3rd WO/TCL and it will not go back into TCL because it is never told to. The road is such that I cannot accel up fast enough and if I let off the throttle is slows down too much. Since it is never commanded to lock up the torque converter it does not and the transmission overheats quite quickly on the steep grade.

My tranny guy is more than happy to engage in a phone conversation to help get this system working like should, and better than it is.

Let me know as soon as convenient.

[cleatus12r]

So what you're saying is that you need the torque converter clutch to be commanded to apply at a lower accelerator pedal position in third gear. My guess is that it worked the same way before, but you never noticed it because you never took that trip before.

It's working correctly, just not in the manner that you intend to use it. It sounds to me like we need to play chip tag to remedy your situation.

[ChrisCNC]

Thank you for the reply, Cleatus,

You'd know what the best remedy is I'm sure!

My wife and I got to talking about it and actually, the last time we went over that pass was before we had the custom tunes, it was with whatever came on the gryphon as I had the CTS, but not the custom PHP tunes yet, stock tires, stock tranny.

Let me know how you'd like to proceed. Tony, the owner of Transmisison Solutions, said he'd help as much as possible, including talking with PHP in phone conversations.

Thank you, I appreciate PHP's knowledge and willingness to help... I brag you guys up whenever I get the chance!

Sincerely,

[cleatus12r]

I never noticed that you had a CTS. This will be easier than I thought initially....however possibly a little more time consuming due to the requirement of Bill putting the calibration download on Fusion (busy guy that he is).

At least we don't have to ship anything back and forth!!

I'll take a look at the calibrations (I assume that the towing program is the only one that needs repair) and make the necessary adjustments to either:

A. Keep the torque converter clutch applied with lower speed and more accelerator pedal position.

B. Allow the torque converter clutch to be commanded applied at lower road speed with more accelerator pedal position.

C. Combination of both.

Let me know how you want to proceed.

[ChrisCNC]

I can only go on common sense, which seems to be dwindling as I get older (according to my better half...(c: ), I'd like to rely more on your experience and wisdom than my own.

If I were to guess it would be a combination of both but possibly heavier towards (B), and yes, I'm only interested in the tow tune.

Is Throttle position the only parameter you have to work with? As I recall, I would press the throttle down to accelerate out of a corner and maintain some reasonable uphill speed (35 - 45 mph). Coming out of the corner I'm not doing a 'hard' accel by any stretch and I'm not trying to get up to some fantastic speed either because I've got more corners/potholes coming up. Going off of memory, I can't really recall how much I was varying the throttle postion on that pull. With a constant pull (maybe 7%+ ??), no corners, and constant speed over 35 mph and even up around 50 mph it will not go into TCL.

I can say that with the current tune I tried accelerating pretty hard and backing off to try to initiate TCL, I also tried going faster that I really wanted to around some corners (45 mph?) to try to initiate TCL while sometimes intentionally mashing and sometimes intentionally easing off the throttle with no avail. On that particular section (and similar sections while testing) I could go 40 mph on a straight-ish section of road with constant Throttle position and grade and TCL would never initiate.

I don't know what other parameters there are to look at. Really if Torque was available that would be a good one, using a countdown timer may be useful, like if at 35 mph AND 5 seconds has elapsed (i.e. no acceleration other than the torque of going uphill) then engage... I simply don't know what access you have to other parameters.

Tony (Transmission Solutions, he was manning the scanner as I was driving) indicated that he would be happy to discuss his findings with you if that would help. Remember, we are PDT, 541-484-0633.

Let me know what you'd like me to do,

Sincerely,

[cleatus12r]

There's not much need to talk to your transmission tech since it's tuning related and not due to the transmission build.

Torque converter clutch apply is dictated by accelerator pedal position and road speed. With the 99-03 trucks, there is a bit of "adaptive" finagling that the PCM does (unlike the 95-97 trucks that do exactly what we want them to do right when told to do so).

In your particular 80T program, the way the torque converter apply is commanded in the tuning, the lowest speed we should expect apply would be about 35-36 MPH. At an accelerator pedal position voltage of 1.23, the speed begins to increase sharply and at 1.96 volts the torque converter apply speed becomes about 42 MPH. At 2.0 volts, the speed at which the command is initiated becomes lower (about 35 MPH again) while the speed increases gradually to 39 MPH at 2.8 volts and remains 39 MPH until the APP voltage is maxed out.

Do you see any of the voltages you gave me line up with any that I gave you? It just so happens that the ranges you gave lie right about in line with where the vehicle speed increases before torque converter clutch apply.

My money says that flat-lining the TCC apply command at 36 MPH and then setting a time delay for 4-5 seconds in addition to lowering the TCC release speed to 31 MPH across the board would work out pretty well for you.

However, while typing this out, I'm not certain about this because I don't deal with TNAA7S3 unless someone happens to have it while using a programmer. With the Phoenix chips, we'd use a modified hybrid VDH2/PMT1 strategy that allows TCC apply whenever it's commanded and a lot of the 02-03 trucks have really weird operational characteristics that don't allow torque converter clutch engagement under certain operating conditions (for whatever reason....stupid engineers I guess). However, with a programmer, we can't put that particular VDH2 program on a VDH5 computer; it just won't work.

I can try a couple tricks in the tune and have Bill put it on Fusion for you. However, I'm not certain that I can make the PCM do what I want.....I know how to do it (my personal 2000 is that way) but if yours will is a completely different story.

[ChrisCNC]

The flat-lining strategy sounds great, it would be real disappointing if we weren't able to get there from here because of 'stupid Engineers'.

I hope there's something that works well and not just a pseudo-effective patch because your hands are tied. You having a good fix available, and me not being able to use it is maddening. I assume I'm paying for this customization over what was delivered originally? If you weren't expecting this and it will make a difference in your decision in what gets done lets talk about the cost. I'm all for making it right if possible as long as it doesn't break the bank.

The throttle positions you gave me do seem to line up to the best of my recollection, but Tony wasn't calling out everything while I was driving either so I have a pretty limited picture. There's a small chance he saved the data but I wouldn't bet on it. I'm sure since he was watching the scanner, he'd have a better idea of where things were at than I. This information is what I had in mind you and he talking about.

Sincerely,

[cleatus12r]

The flat-lining strategy sounds great, it would be real disappointing if we weren't able to get there from here because of 'stupid Engineers'.

I hope there's something that works well and not just a pseudo-effective patch because your hands are tied. You having a good fix available, and me not being able to use it is maddening. I assume I'm paying for this customization over what was delivered originally? If you weren't expecting this and it will make a difference in your decision in what gets done lets talk about the cost. I'm all for making it right if possible as long as it doesn't break the bank.

The throttle positions you gave me do seem to line up to the best of my recollection, but Tony wasn't calling out everything while I was driving either so I have a pretty limited picture. There's a small chance he saved the data but I wouldn't bet on it. I'm sure since he was watching the scanner, he'd have a better idea of where things were at than I. This information is what I had in mind you and he talking about.

Sincerely,


We'll do it. It's one tune and it's not anything major (basically just a few keystrokes in the tuning software). The wait will come from the fact that it's a programmer and it has to be done using Fusion.

[ChrisCNC]

Thank you Cleatus, I appreciate you and all that PHP does.

Sincerely,

[ChrisCNC]

If you could give me a swag on the timeline for this change, when you have a chance, it would be very much appreciated. Let me know if you need anything from me.

Thank you,

[ChrisCNC]

Hey Cleatus,

Just wondering if you could give me a guess on PHP's timeline when I could see this change. I haven't heard anything yet from PHP and it's been a month since this discussion.

Thank you!

[ChrisCNC]

Hey Cleatus!

Hope all is going well for you. Spoke to the office and apparently Bill hasn't received the new program to put onto fusion. I was wondering if you could give me a swag as to when that will be put into the queue? It's been 77 days since we started our discussions and 67 days since it was indicated that I should have a change made.

Thank you!

[cleatus12r]

Since I don't frequent forums - even this one - (since forums in general really irritate me), I forgot all about it. My bad.

I'll do it tonight and let Bill know that it's done. However, you'll have to "blank out" your unit by doing the unthinkable "update"...and you'll be without your tuning for a while. Bill can't put the programming on Fusion until that's done.