I've been reading a lot about people adding shift kits to help their tranny shift faster/prevent heating/lengthen life. I was wondering if increasing the shift firmness with a programmer (such as the Hypertech Max Energy) would do about the same thing? Or is the programmer shift firmness more superficial than anything else?

P.S. Sorry if this is in the wrong place, wasn't sure if it belongs here or in the programmers section...

 

i'll take a shot at this until corrected...

a valve body (shift kit) allows (creates) more line pressure than the programmer because it has been mechanically modified (larger/smaller/new passages... its this line pressure that determines how fast the transmission shifts. the amount of time the clutches are allowed to slip generates more heat. faster shifts, less heat=quicker ETs

 

gotcha. thanks for the info!

Just out of curiosity, do you know what the programmer is doing to try to mimic this?

 

A programmer controls shift pressure. You can make it as firm/hard as you want it.

 

a programmer increases line pressure VIA EPC solinoid...thats it, it can only firm up the shifts a little not anywhere near what a shift kit can.

a shift kit replaces accumulator springs and tunes the seperator plate for higher pressure and faster flow to pistons for fast firm shifts.

edit: just noticed you have a 2010..a programmer is probably your only option anways. Nothing available shiftkit wise for the 6R80 yet as far as i know...

 

The shift it may be a BETTER method but I don't see how it could make it any firmer than what I can do with the Edge. I'll put it this way, if it was any harder, I would not want it. I ran the Edge at plus 12 on mine and most people thought it was too firm. I think it would go to plus 20. I never went there with it.

 

depends on what your looking for. when I had an edge i ran it a +25 all the time...it was kinda firm but no where near what a shift kit does. if you get into higher horsepower setups a shift kit is the only way to go to get minimal slipping between shifts. if youve never been in a vehicle with a firm shift kit setup its hard to explain...it will slam your head into the headrest is the best way to explain it..

 

I am quite familiar with shift kits. Installed them in every Mustang tranny I built(Transgo, usually). Also had a fully built transmission in my drag truck with a 351C 4V, so I know what they can do. My transmission shfted every bit that hard on +12. I have also learned that these trucks a frequently different, so that may be what we have experienced.

 

uping line pressure with a programer on a stock N/A vehicle is no big deal(if you don't do alot of towing, it's when you start throwing 6-10lbs of boost at that upped line pressure that it becomes a problem.

 

Good custom tuning ( I can't speak to canned devices) are designed with limits preventing the user from exceeding what is safely allowable to bump up line pressure - somewhere around 20-25% over stock, AFAIK.

What is being overlooked here is - a proper full valve body replacement (not a separator plate, nor a simple Transgo install) addresses the stock limitation on fluid VOLUME. Via enlarged passages, different springs, etc.

This does a couple things - lessens the stress on the pumps & seals (lower line pressure required to achieve rapid clutch pack & TC ) filling and allows ridiculously hard and quick shifts if desired - that remain safe.

Far & away from simple programmatic-only changes - and the beauty of it is, the same line pressure controls in the tuning can 'tailor' the shifting feel for this mod as well. No other way to do it properly shy of a tranny perf rebuild.

 

It was not overlooked, just not brought up, till you did. Also, TransGo made full kits back then, too. You could get both. There was also anothe brand we used which I do not recall at the moment.

 

So, I've got a hypertech programmer.... I noticed I can only select to increase shift firmness with a "yes" or "no", there's no percentage or level... just "Do you want to increase shift firmness?" "Yes." "Shift firmness Increased." I really would like to know if every time I do that it increases it or it just increases it do a certain percentage and thats it.... I don't know how good it is for my truck... I have used it to calibrate the speedo, rpm shift points, and such... and it shifts pretty hard right now, but I don't know if thats good or bad. I have stock 3.73s and I do tow stuff

 

Thanks, that's exactly what I was curious about.

 

Increasing shift firmness in a programmer increases the line pressure to fill the accumulators and engage the clutches faster. This isn't the best way to do things, because added pressure can cause added heat, and can if increased to high crack passages in the valve body and cause failure in some parts.

The shift kit will increase the speed of the shifts by making certain passages larger, not by increasing pressure. The line pressure remains the same, but the flow of fluid is increased making the shifts quicker. The Trans-Go kit I installed even included a bypass valve to protect against overly high line pressure. So, if Trans-Go is including a bypass valve to protect against high line pressures, this leads me to believe even more strongly that its not ideal to increase the pressure.

I've done both, and I can say one thing. When I originally just increased the firmness on the programmer, my shifts where EXTREMELY firm. On the race shift setting in my programmer (the firmest setting) it was unbearably firm. I noticed, however that it didn't really make the shifts "faster" really... it just made them harder. My entire truck seemed to jump forward 3 feet on a shift. This I found out was made so hard due to a couple of broken accumulator springs in the tranny. Later, when my tranny failed, I rebuilt it and added the Trans-go kit. This didn't make the extremely firm shifts like I used to have, but I notice now that the shifts happen extremely quickly, and the RPM drop between shifts has reduced significantly. So the shift kit seems to be the way to go in my opinion, as the shifts were wayyy firm with the programmer.. but it was just added stress to the driveline, not actually "faster" shifting.

- Erik