Currently I have a mostly stock 2001 Dodge 2500 with an auto tranny (sadly). It has stock injectors (probably original) and a rebuilt hy35 turbo and 5 inch straight pipe exhaust. No stud, no major mods. Have a quadzilla tuner and running a pretty mild tune off it and im trying to go for lower egts.

 

Eventually id like to make 350ish HP and thats about it. It tows regularly 3k to 14k constantly and and does pretty decent at it... Until egts start getting around 1200F. 

 

Im trying to find a common Proven setup that works for this application. I do plan on putting an exhaust brake on it at some point and would like to try to steer away from having 2 turbo's and keep it simple.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Whelp, just ordered a new hx35w off of Benz Force. Hopefully it works out. Probably just gonna rehab the old elbow on the hy onto the new hx. Gonna have to wait a few weeks before I can look at getting an exhaust brake for it but at least ill have better peace in mind when it comes towing egts.

 

Now ill have to nail down exactly what trans mods I want to do so it can tolerate it long-term. 

Edited January 29, 20214 yr by Vinster_Beta
Forgot to add

Exhaust brakes... Oh how wonderful they are. 

 

I was warned long time ago back at about 15k miles. Friends were telling me upgrade and get the exhaust brake. I did. Wow! First brake job at 180k miles. Braking force is good. It can and will get the tires hopping if your coming down in gear to fast. Remember I'm a manual with a dual disc clutch. If you need a rush warm up leave the exhaust brake on it warms up faster. I typically drive like the brake pedal doesn't exist. I do majority of my stopping on the exhaust brake. 

Edited January 29, 20214 yr by Mopar1973Man

I've only heard good things about them and how effective they are. Thats one of the reasons I wanted to swap the auto for a 5 speed or 6 speed stick. But its one of those things I wont have the time to do the swap myself and idk if I want to swallow that pill with having a shop do the work for me.

 

Plus I have a nack for doing everything myself that way I know how its done. I've got your high idle switch installed and heard using it in tandum with the exhaust brake helps with a quick warm up.  Big thing will be just to beef up the auto trans to tolerate the increase in go go power and stopping power now.

 

By far best experience on a forms page so far, so much helpful feedback!

1 minute ago, Vinster_Beta said:

I've got your high idle switch installed and heard using it in tandum with the exhaust brake helps with a quick warm up.

 

I can drive my EGT's up to 800 to 900*F just 3 cylinder mode and the exhaust brake. I'll admit that it does warm up much faster. I normally don't do this being I rather just leave a bit early jump in start up and roll letting the road load warm up the engine. I understand if the glass is all frosted over yup your most likely going to use high idle and get heat to the glass so you can see to drive safely. 

Most cases I just let it idle for a minimum 3-5 minutes before going anywhere if its cold. Old truck takes a minute to wake up don't want to piss it off. 

 

That and idk about putting that much load on the motor right away would be a healthy when its cold. 

 

 

LOL... I don't even give it much wake up. I fire it up let my engine idle while I gather stuff form the house or shop for work. Then take off.

 

4 minutes ago, Vinster_Beta said:

Old truck takes a minute to wake up don't want to piss it off.

Piss it off... Never happen. 

 

Now like like myself I'm running the Quadzilla tuner so when my warm up mode is active I'm restricted to my 0 PSI boost fueling amount. I'm set for 80% fuel so till I reach 140*F I have reduced fuel below stock and can't cause any harm. Even on Level 3 with CANBus only I can just barely reach 1,200*F (not in warm up mode). My tune has a flat spot in the fuel table that 0 to 5 PSI of boost is 80% to 100% then from 5 PSI to 15 PSI is only 100% fuel (stock fuel) then from 15 PSI up it ramps to 150% fuel. This make daily driving more "stockish" but when you need power you can stab that GO! pedal and get it only if its not running warm up mode.

Ya know, never thought of setting my fuel table up that way, and it actually makes sense towards my driving style. I might need to play with mine and see how that responds. Stock injectors shouldn't make an issue with anything, in theory, ill give that a shot

1 hour ago, Vinster_Beta said:

Thats one of the reasons I wanted to swap the auto for a 5 speed or 6 speed stick.

I know Banks has a means of allowing use of an exhaust brake with an auto by holding line pressure.  If I ever get to that point I'm going to contact @Dynamic and get his input - and likely converter and valve body, if not a complete transmission.

Basically you need lock up in all gears. Like PacBrake has a lock up controller but only works in 3rd and 4th gear. Now if you talk to @Dynamicand he tells you have to get lock up in all gears now you can lock the torque converter and use the exhaust brake in all forward gears. IIRC the 1st and 2nd gear you need to block a port in the valve body from seeing pressure. 

 

 

Edited January 29, 20214 yr by Mopar1973Man

With my Pacbreak and @Dynamic valvebody. The Ebreak will lock in 2nd. Haven’t tried in 1st but I’m sure it will as well. The control module for the Ebreak has a wire you unplug for it to lock in 2nd if your valvebody is capable. My travel trailer loaded weighs about 7,000lbs. Going down a 7% grade 3rd will hold me at 50mph.  I forgot to mention. No lockup switch is required with the Pacbreak. The module keeps The  converter locked down to 1000 RPMs. I do have a lock up switch though when I am towing up hill in second gear behind someone slow. Or first gear. 

Edited January 29, 20214 yr by Threadzy

Unless the transmission work can be done well below the cost for a manual swap, it might seem that doing a swap will be the cheapest now. Or could be my motive of overbuilding that is driving up the cost for it. I'd like to have a full lock up option but I would be at a lost to mess with the auto trans to force it to make it do a full lock up.

Dynamic's valve body sales page:

https://dynamictransparts.com/dynamic-hd-towing-valve-body

I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if this clears up any confusion 😆

 

Threadzy seems to have it figured out for autos.

 

 

 

 

That does settle a lot better for me as far as cost. The billet shafts it recommends wont be a problem but "upgraded gear-train" concerns me. 

 

And I understand buy once cry once and the reliability factor of it. I just know it gets expensive quick. Might be a thing to contact them about and see what is needed for the 350ish HP range for reliable towing.

If you do end up doing a manual swap I would recommend finding and nv5600 or g56 six speed transmission. I’ve got the nv4500 transmission which is great, don’t get me wrong, but the split in ratio between third and fourth gears is huge. With my 285/65 tires and 3.55 axle gears, the truck will go from 2300 rpm when I shift out of third down to 1250 in fourth. That’s fine for normal around town driving but towing it’s a  pain for sure. I’ve since added a gear vendors overdrive to the truck, and this eliminates that dead spot between gears but hindsight says I should have just found a 6 speed transmission to put in it. 

I know those Gear Vendors units are expensive, but if I towed more often (but not real heavy) I'd fork over the money.  The 0.69 overdrive is just ridiculous, as is cruising down the interstate in 3rd (direct).

It looks like the upgraded gear train is only required for 3-2nd downshifts while locked up.  Is that really that important?  Seems reasonable to me that the torque converter could unlock (as commanded by the PacBrake) while the downshift happens, then the both the PacBrake and converter engage.  Is it different than using the clutch on a stick shift?  Do guys downshift under load without using the clutch?!

2 hours ago, LorenS said:

Do guys downshift under load without using the clutch?!

Negative on that.

2 hours ago, LorenS said:

Do guys downshift under load without using the clutch?!

Absolutely not. I have a good southbend dual disc clutch so I can do all the exhaust brake down shifts I want and I don’t have to worry about hurting the clutch. I even push the clutch in to shift the gear vendors, and make sure the main transmission shifter is in neutral before engaging or disengaging the gear vendors. 

2 hours ago, Nathan S said:

Absolutely not.

I knew that'd be a cool trick, so why would we want an automatic to do essentially the same thing? Or am I once again wildly mistaken on what is being described?

Ain't talking about float shifting are ya?

33 minutes ago, LorenS said:

I knew that'd be a cool trick, so why would we want an automatic to do essentially the same thing? Or am I once again wildly mistaken on what is being described?

These transmissions have brass or carbon fiber synchronizers to increase or decrease shaft speed when the next gear is being selected to make the transmission shift smoother and eliminate the need to match engine speed with wheel speed. It’s not good for the synchros to float the gears so to speak. I’ve seen guys do it and tried it myself, but it’s not how the transmission was intended to be used. Heavy duty transmissions like the medium and heavy duty Eaton fuller boxes have no synchros hence the need for rev matching and more skill to operate than a light duty manual transmission.