Hey folks, anybody know the advisability of using the tow/haul button to downshift? Seems to work great!

 

Welcome to FTE 054x4Banks6.0MaineX!

You'll find everything you need to know about your truck and then some....

Now, I'm not sure how the tow/haul feature works with the Torqshift, but I'm sure the same applies with the "OD off" switch I have. If while pulling a load, your truck is hunting for gears (i.e constantly downshifting), then you would lock out OD or in your case, use the tow/haul feature. But if you're going to manually downshift, I'd use 3,2, then 1 if it applies.

 

Hey T thanks for the kickback!

Not sure I would go thru the "trouble" of using the shifter to slow down, the button was easy and I figured I was saving the rotors some wear and tear. Probably not really necessary though since I usually drive the thing like grandma anyway, trying to keep the mi. avg @ 20 and set example for the soon to be driving kids. By the way the Banks system pretty much working exactly as advertised with an increased mpg of about 2.5 and more power than we really need. Impressive power for sure but race car it ain't!!!
Later and thanks again!

 

On the Torque**** transmission, the "tow-haul" button (end of the shifter stalk) changes the shift program. At certain speeds, it will downshift (ie: it doesn't allow OD under 80kmh and it doesn't allow 4th gear below 60 kmh), but that's not generally it's purpose. Unloaded, it gives a slightly rougher ride ... and I don't think you'd be saving milage per se (although it might cause you to change your driving style such that you do), but if you're OK with that, then it probably doesn't do any harm.

 

Hey Z thanks for the input.
We have a couple of little hills around town and I have even used it when approaching stops/turns/etc. I have used the button to slow down without having to use as much brake(in some cases no brake at all), then I return to reg/OD mode. Little concerned with the trans anyway because of the Banks system, we'll see...I have tried Toreadors sugges to downshift with lever to 3, etc.
Guess I just wish they made these things with manuals

 

or Steering Wheel mounted paddle shifters. Seriously.

Actually, having a lever or somesuch to set the desired amount of engine braking would be a plus. There are times when I really don't need the delayed upshifts but would like more engine braking. Equally, there are times I'm just coasting to a stop. A few more options would be really cool.

(of course you could all dig into my ideas of replacing the vehicle's computer with an open source one if you don't have anything better to do.)

 

Uh, that would be a GREAT idea!

A little mini-Linux kernel, etc. The problem is building the box cheap. Does anyone make a general purpose Intel-driven data I/O box that could not only control the injectors and such, but read all the sensors required?

Might be just a whole-lot easier figuring out what the stock computer uses and reverse engineer it. Then, get Linux or a comparable small kernel running on whatever processor they used.

Hey, wait, this is way OT - I'll shut up now.

 

actually, linux would suck. Linux is not realtime _at all_. There are a couple of injector driving boxes out there, but it seems that most of them have only been used to drive gasonline injectors (retrofitting old cars). Some have some thought about how diesel would work, but I don't see any actual examples.

If I were to do this, I'd build the injector control module out of an ASIC and variably clock it to the CPS. Ie: the clock speed of the unit would depend on the speed of the engine (look in the archives for more description). The main computer would likely be an embedded platform. I run FreeBSD on WRAP platforms all the time --- they might do very well for this. Regardless, a micro real-time OS is a good candidate for this, and there are many of them. FreeBSD might be realtime "enough" (syscall latencies of 1microsecond or less on slow hardware).

None of the hardware is a problem for me. Could have it done in a couple of days.

The program is the problem. I had the idea that you could build a passthrough harness that would sample all the in and out signals of the stock unit (or a unit programmed by one of our chipmakers). Then from that data, you could start to build your model software. Then, using the harness, you could run the new unit in parallel with the old --- duplicate all the inputs and compare all the outputs.

At some point, you want to throw the switch to have the new box controll everything.

But the real problem is diesel experts, not electronics experts (at least from my perspective ... since I can assemble all the electronics easily).

I'd love to work on this... but we'd need real diesel experts.

 

FreeBSD definitely beats Linux in "realtime" - I was actually envisioning the same thing as you, an ASIC doing the primary injector stuff, and a "real" processor to monitor it, and make changes as needed.

I had thought long and hard about making something like the above for a gasser, my V10 to be exact. Gas is easy though Yup, when the money fairy visits my house I'll be sure to let you know my plans ....

 

well... for the Gasoline side, there already is a project. It doesn't even cost much (if you've done almost any mods to your truck, you'd be amazed the the 'scale'. It would appear that you can get yourself started for $50 to $80.

http://www.bgsoflex.com/megasquirt.html

 

Cute! Thanks for the pointer. That processor is so close to a 68000 that my M68 assembler I wrote 15 years ago should work with it with a little tweaking of opcodes and addressing... hmm...

Anyway, I'll stop hijacking this thread

 

I'd be interested to keep tabs on your progress. I asked the author of the software if he knew of any diesel injection projects. He didn't... but that won't, in the end, stop me.