I was perusing NLOC.net and found this quote:

"Ford Motor Company does not recommend stiffer springs in the valve body like in the FTVB. The only thing they recommend for firmer shifting is a .500 Line Modulator Valve. "
-JimIII@JDM

Located here: http://www.nloc.net/forum/showthread...=&pagenumber=2

Could someone explain to me the differences and whether the FTVB would cause any harm versus a line mod valve? There's also a huge price difference too. I tried to do a search, but nothing fully addressed a claim like this (from FoMoCo).

Also, do most here just punch a hole in their stock pan and go with a 4x4 deep sump pan? Or do you guys feel the Ford Racing or B&M pan is worth the extra price? I'm concerned with the extra depth of the latter pans causing ground clearance issues. Where's the drain plug located? The side or the bottom?

 

search under my name and look for a post that was made by "lightning tuner". I copy and pasted it.

It will have everything you arre looking for

 

Drain plugs are on the bottom, I went with the Ford racing pan for the couple extra quarts & aluinum w/fins in hopes of a little better cooling, OK I love the looks of it to
also belive the ground clearance is the same on 4x4 and FFRP pans,lowest point on both is the drain plug, The FFRP pan is just a flater bottom than the 4x4 pan

 

Gregg's explanation of VB vs. valve only

just about every 4R100 pan on the planet

 

That is just not true.

Ford Motor Company does not reccomend ANY change at all in the valve body, period, I know the people involved, they know me and it just ain't so. That said, about half the engineers and techs at Ford use the FTVB, and it's pretty highly thought of in those circles. Before I ever sold them I made them for people at the plant where the 4R100 was built. For warranty and liability issues, they can't tell you to do anything to the tranny, but get one in private and ask what's in HIS transmission.

G

 

Pretty highly thought of in Linden NJ too!

 

Interesting...

 

Gregg, I found your post from NLOC. I hope you don't mind me posting it here? There was more information in your one post than anything I've ever read about our transmissions! Very indepth!


I almost fell out of the chair, the keyboard is going to have to be replaced, I threw the little model of a tranny across the office and spit half a diet coke on the monitor.

Jim didn't develop anything for the SCORE team, he tuned the truck, big deal. They did use a line mod valve I guess, and the addition of the center support ball bearing was prototyped in that tranny, but other than that, Ford Powertrain didn't have much to do with it, and remember, we're talking 15 years ago here, a few things we thought were a good idea at the time have been pondered over since then. The tranny itself has had some pretty big changes since then, most importantly how pressure is controlled in it. And as for working on the 5R110W (you even got the name of it wrong), I was there for that and didn't see Jim in any of the meetings. Maybe when I went to the bathroom (it worked for Al Gore)

The problem is, Ford doesn't reccomend you put ANYTHING in the tranny that we (yeah, WE, I'm one fo the guys who did it) didn't put into it at Sharonville. It's more for legal reasons, warranty etc..., but I want to see where Ford reccomended a line mod valve.
Secondly, there is a serious problem with making any change in the commanded line pressure of the transmission electronically, you saying that you don't raise line pressure, but only change the "slip time", that shows how much you don't know about how the transmission works. To begin with "slip time" is not a term I've ever heard anyone use around here, the proper term is "shift duration" which is set from the factory at .200 to .400 on a lightning, when the variability of components is factored in (or more plainly, the PCM commands 400 ms, but the program accepts anything from 200 to 400 without throwing a code in test, to account for the differences in each tranny)
There is a known issue with pump failures that is directly associated with changing line pressure with software and it was watched and tracked for some time, WE KNOW IT'S A PROBLEM, why don't you? It's the single biggest reason to void a warranty on a transmision with a chip, because it will kill the pump.


I personally don't think Jim knows many of the real engineers who work on these transmissions, at best he knows a few guys who used to be in powertrain but I work with the product engineer every day and he's never even heard of him, I know pretty much everyone involved in the 5R110W, he couldn't tell you their names, and none of them admits to knowing Jim, nuff said.

So tell me, how do you use software to control a shift duration without affecting line pressure? If you knew ANYTHING at all about the 4R100 you'd know you can't! The only input the PCM has on duration is control of line pressure going through the solenoid, call it what you wan't, but hook up a field gauge and tell me if the pressure is the same afterwards (I've done this, have you?)
A little primer. Simplified, but you'll get the gist.

Somewhere in the program is a line that says , in effect

Line pressure Set X (x being the commanded line pressure)

Now, you COULD change that number, by say 10% and get a firmer shift, but as Richard Nixon used to say "It would be wrong"

And Jim doesn't do that.

Now, somewhere else in the program is says

Command Shift Duration 400ms

And you can just change that, like Jim does, BUT

What he doesn't tell you, is duration is controlled by line pressure, and is calculated from a load and input table. Changning the duration modifies the original line pressure command, because somewhere between these two lines is another line that says, in effect

Adjust line pressure according to Table 110

Now, Table 110 (I'm not even sure if that's what it is, I think so, but it could be another one) takes inputs from the TPS, the OSS, the TSS, the TOT sensor, the PCM, the solenoid, etc... and adjusts the figure in the line that says

Set Line Pressure X

So, while you can say you didn't change line pressure, the line pressure is still higher, you're still taking dumped pressure and volume and letting into the tranny when it doesn't need it, and when it does it's still not there because you half assed the software to decrease duration the wrong way.
If Ford really thought you could control duration with software, they would never have bothered building 7 different accumulators, it would be much easier to just write seven different programs for the PCM. Instead of doing it Jim's way, they spent millions of dollars and added a lot of build matrix copmpexity into making seven different versions of the same part because that's the right way to do it. And everytime you change the size of the line mod valve, the resto fo the valve body has to be properly calibrated to balance L Mod pressure throughout the shift circuit. That's the only right way to do it. Period.

By robbing the tranny of the extra line pressure and volume it normally flows (when you take that and add it to the line pressure) you remove the volume from the "reserve" pressure that is needed on the next engagement event, since that volume (not really pressure) is GONE, it sometimes happens that the pump runs dry for 1/2 the duration. Not gonna hurt it today, not next month, but in time, small particles break off the pump gear (tool steel) and get introduced into the tranny as ferrous contamination, which causes more contamination, etc... if you're lucky it clogs a valve somewhere and the tranny fails before you eat the pump gear, which decreases oil flow, cuts lubrication and can cause a catastophic failure (anyone ever seen an output shaft welded to the case bushing?) or you have a quarter pound of tool steel in the tranny where the pump gear used to be.

I guess you didn't do much warranty analysis when you were "developing" this tranny, but it's something I'm very familiar with. The 4R100 program is over now, but somewhere along the way I managed to work on 39,768 of them, which I'm betting is about 39,765 more than you.


In your two attempts to explain how much you know about transmissions, you've shown me how little you do know, it almost scares me that you're trying to tune the things. It might work for people who don't know much about them, but you ain't fooling me, I do know them pretty well, and well, you have shown anyone who has more than basic knowledge of them that you DON'T.

Gregg Evans on Aug 5th, 2004 at 09:50 AM