My OD shift point must be too low or something? When I hit about 45mph, at 2000rpm on a fair incline, it shifts into OD, dropping to 1500rpm ish, then locks the TC after about 2 seconds (regardless of if you press the pedal harder to try to get it to hold 1500rpm) it drops down further to 1100rpm. Now I am on this hill doing about 44mph in OD at 1100rpm and just about to start rolling backwards....

This is under no load, and OD is on. Of course, I can leave OD off, but that gets to be a pain on ever hill going down the highway. Seems like I just need to get up to 55mph before I hit the hill. Which puts me at 1500rpm and it will climb almost any hill at that with no load.

Question? Can I change this shift point for OD with one of the programmers?

Ed

 

Jody at www.dp-tuner.com works wonders with the tranny. What I have found with the stock shifting is if you can anticipate the OD shift and give her just a tab more pedal right before the shift it will hold till about 2200 and then when it shifts it will only drop to ~1700rpm and will be able to hold.

But if it is lugging all the way down to 1100rpm something is wrong it should be kicking back out of OD before then.

 

This is how mine is.Been like that sence i installed the chip (sence new).I just take it out of OD.
If i knew the jody could chage my shift points,to hold the gears a little longer,i might get one of his chips.

 

jody's tow tunes hold gears longer and shift just a little later for morer power to the ground

 

I had this same problem when I was towing for the first time, 5500# trailer plus and extra 600# in the truck, it just would not down shift from OD if I started to climb a steep grade, I have not towed since and the last time I did a run over a Pass it didnt even need to down shift until I hit some hairpin turns. I think there must be some weird glitch in our tranny programming, because the ECM should be able to notice the increased pedel input+falling rpm's+falling speed..........Hmmm it just doesnt seem right.

 

My truck also does it, its a real pain in the , when it does it because it usally starts hunting for gears up the hill and i need to manualy take it out of 4th to 3rd.

 

Mine acts similarly to yours, John. My shift point, no load, flat ground is around 42mph. What drives me nuts is that there are a lot of 40 mph spped zones I go through and the drone of the engine running almost at the shift point is really irritating... forces me to either spped up to about 45 (ticket risk) or run down at 35 (too slow for my patience). That said, I do not have the gear hunting going on when I'm climbing a hill in that speed range... it either shifts down and goes or runs at about 1800. Sometimes I'll back off the pedal just a tad and let it downshift due to load and then get back on the pedal to compensat eonce the downshift takes place.

 

Mine is the same way, if I am on flat ground it will shift at around 38 or so, and really lug. I had this problem on my old (99 Z71) and took it to the dealer and they put a new program in it to shift when I wanted. I asked Ford if they could do this for me and they said it wasn't possible. However, I am getting the feeling that Jody can make it shift where I want? If so, I'll be giving him some money next week! I really hate the lugging and the egt likes to climb of course when this happens. It would be nice not to shift out of od back and forth all the time.

 

If I leave my foot in the same throttle position and in OD at 45 and get a slight grade it will not downshift and rpms will decrease to 1100 and speed will fall off till about 38 or so before downshift. If I increase throttle to maintain speed on grade it will downshift to maintain speed. This is how I expect it to work and want it to work.

 

Your OD shifting sounds normal to me. I've read that Ford programmed it that way for maximum MPG. If you push on the throttle hard enough you should initiate an automatic "torque demand" downshift which will release the TC clutch and shift to a lower gear, which will be 2nd if you floor it all the way.

I recently spent a week in Asheville trying to get some special tunes for my tranny. The tranny shift points for going into and out of each gear are programmed via a table which defines the road speed (measured by the VSS) for each gear separately. I'm going to make a short story longer, just because I think it might be of interest, but I'll eventually get to your situation.

The first trick Jody tried, so I could have complete manual control by using the shift lever, was to design a special tune that used 127 mph (I think this was the max # he could use) as the speed that needed to be obtained before the PCM would command an up-shift for each gear. He also fixed it so that the TC lock up clutch wouldn't engage. I went for a test drive, and almost everything worked great, I selected 1st manually, and above 15 mph I could manually lock or unlock the TC clutch using my special switch, and do this in 2nd and 3rd gear as well. So far I had the equivalent of a 6 speed tranny, because TC locked feels and pulls like a 1/2 gear up-shift. Problem was the OD button didn't work using this approach, so back to the drawing board for Jody. Here's the thread that has the discussion of the idea for an 8 speed tranny using paddle switches to select gears and the TC clutch, https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/607309-my-new-dp-tuner-really-sucks-air-that-is.html I'm still trying to drum up enough interest in this to motivate Jody to make it available, for a price of course.

Anyway, Jody gave me a chip with his 40 and 60 tow tunes for my standard tranny that I could drive around with for a few days until he could see what else he could come up with. I could easily switch between my old chip, stock, and his 40 and 60 tow settings. Jody's tunes shifted into OD at 45 mph like you're seeing, but on a hill, it took just a slight extra nudge on the throttle and the TC would unlock and it would shift back to 3rd if it was required to avoid lugging up the hill. Much smoother shifting and drivability than the stock program.

The best Jody could come up with for now to address my special request , was to give me a special version of his 40 and 60 tow with the tranny shift points for each gear spread as far apart as possible and still have everything work. These settings will still work if you just drive and let the PCM shift for you, but they're not something that gives good drivability, as they're intended for me to use with my manual shifting strategy. For example, it won't up-shift into OD until about 55-60 mph, and once in OD it won't shift back to 3rd until 30 mph or less! The idea is to let me make the decision of when to shift manually!

Bottom line is that Jody can set your shifting up pretty much any way you want it, but remember that it'll be that way all the time. I think his standard program gives the best all around compromise. I only use my special settings when towing, and sometimes playing around empty, and his standard tunes the rest of the time.

 

Nice info ernesteugene, just what I was loking for!

 

Thanks for the replies. I am sure that I can adjust my driving habbits to improve the shift points since I have only had it for a month or so. I definitely agree that it is setup for the best mpg. Will be looking into a programmer asap!
Ed