Well I guess nevermind. Seriously. Just like the STR post I made.
No one has the answer to this, or it's misunderstood, or not important enough to be a concern (but it's important enough to be a PID in HPT)
Seriously, I have a converter, I like it, I had a question not related to the converter, no one understands me or the way it's worded or no one knows.

So.....moving along, I got most of the tuning done (idle, misfire, etc) including low speed shift points. These are the biggest PITA IMO, I got the higher speed shift points done. Now I'm going to work on the mid range and perfecting general driveability.

 

I did not notice the second gear on the footbrake, that makes much more sense. That should be closer to the flash stall.

As far as your programming, I have decided I need to learn this to answer more questions like yours. Sorry I can't help right now.

Chris

 

Thats fine. You did your part very well, I'm happy with everything you and your company did.
I just wish I could change some governor springs, adjust the modulator and be done with it

 

If you don't want the rpm drop alot when TCC lock up. Tune it to lock up at lower TPS and a bit higher MPH.

 

Heres an update.
I originally said the converter felt looser than expected at normal driving speeds and throttle positions.
For example I could accelerate moderatly into traffic and it would hold right at 2500 rpm for 1/4 mile or so. This also made the trans temps higher.

Now I have the low throttle shift mph set higher and it actually moves the car better with less throttle at a lower rpm making the converter feel tighter. And it runs cooler.

In comparison it's like the foot brake stall showing a higher rpm in second gear, same thing as driving down the road in too high (like 3rd instead of 2nd) a gear and relying on converter slip to get the rpm up.
Raising the shift points actually lowered the rpm it takes to get the car moving up to the speed of normal traffic.
Hope that makes sense.

Other things I tuned:
Misfire table values raised.
Idle airflow table values raised.
Shift pressure raised in 3rd and 4th.
Upshift/downshift mph raised below 44% (above 44% needed no changes)
TCC apply disabled below 12.50 TP to eliminate the lock up bang during a wot 1-2, 2-3 run in OD.
Full Throttle enable % lowered.
TCC high and low duty cycle tables set to 98
DTC P0751 and P0757 set to no report.
I think thats it.

 

did you do anything about the lockup dropping 1,500rpms when it did engage?

 

I'm actually still not done with lock up tuning.
I used to think a high stall lock up converter was a great concept, now I'm not so sure.
My opinion right now (remember I'm not done messing with it) is that an automatic lock up will never be 100% right and efficient.

Right now I can cruise around town and lock up is great, but once I get on a long stretch of road say at 30% throttle, the converter is still 'slipping' or under the stall speed, yet lock up is set to come on and bam, there it is.

The answer might seem like "well just raise the lockup speed"
Ok, if I do that and cruise normally down the road it never locks up because the lock up mph is too high.

And another little quirk is when you jump on it at 100% tps for a second or two and back off the throttle partially, maybe 25% to cruise, it immediatley hits the tcc apply and hammers down again.

So I'm thinking of maybe taking the easy road and wiring a tcc disable switch, and only enable it when I'm cruising.

 

Yea, I'm not liking this lock up situation at all.

Just my opinion, a converter recommended to be locked only while cruising needs damper springs.

 

What you don't like about it.

 

Nothing, I'm just tired of tuning it.
It's not the converter, it works good, in fact too good.
I got everything done and working great but this tcc apply/release is kicking my ***.
I thought that would be the easy part.

 

try to know when it locks, lift your foot a bit before TCC is applied.

Anyway, I have vig3200 and I'm happy with it, not too loose and drives nice with TR224.

 

Man I don't know what to tell you. I've tuned several cars for new converters and have never experienced a harsh tcc lock or unlock like you are describing. It almost sounds like you have too much mechanical line pressure and possibly the transmission is slipping. We have the 4C which is looser and it feels pretty tight around town and locks up pretty darn smooth when commanded.

I know people that run into similiar issues when internally raising the line pressure and adding the Trans-go HD shift kit or have messed with the base line pressure vs commanded table.

I hope you get the issue resolved soon. I know it can be frustrating.

Keep us updated.

 

The transmission is not slipping. Unless the converter would make it slip.
I've logged shift times and they went from .2 to 2.4
This is with a commanded time of .150 to .100
But performabuilt says thats the converter slip being read as well.

Is it normal for a 3c to run at 2500 to 3000 pulling out in traffic at 20%tps?
And how do you soften lock up when it's either tuned to lock at 70 mph highway cruise and works ok but is useless at ONLY that speed.
Or you tune it to lock up say at 50 mph but since I'm still accelerating and it's still at 2500-3000 rpm and IT wants to cruise at 1600 locked up?

Do you see my point?
Lock up is good when I tune it to apply at close to coupling speed, but at coupling speed the rpm is so high it defeats the purpose of lock up.

Lock up was invented to increase effeciency by locking at low speed cruise. At low speed cruise or even moderate speed like 45-50 mph it's nowhere near coupling speed and the tcc applies and drops the rpm on average of 1500 rpm.

Which brings up another point, if it was my trans slipping tcc apply would not bring the rpm down.
I've manually applied TCC in 3rd as well and it does the same thing, drops rpm, in fact I did this to verify that the trans is not slipping. I can lock it in 3rd or 4th and give it enough power that it would cut loose if it was the trans.

And I've gone through this before with a TCI, I've pulled the trans to look at the clutches instead of guessing on slipping, it never showed signs of slipping.

 

Assuming it's a flat road with no incline, it shouldn't take any more than 10% TPS to get the car moving. When I say moving I mean 1 mph, not up to highway speed. However, this may be a result of the 3.23 rear gears.

By far, this is the hardest part to tune because it's varies so much for each vehicle as well as the driver. It took me countless hours of driving and datalogging to get mine right especially for the low speed driving.

You should have a positive engagement of the TCC at that speed/tps/engine load because the line pressure and apply rate is higher. You can reduce the line pressure or the TCC pressure apply rate to see if that helps. I've always left the line pressure and apply rate stock with good results.

If I understand your comment correctly; the converter rpm will fluctuate until the converter is locked.

Looking at logs of my current converter (5C) the converter will lock up at 50 mph with 15% tps and the rpms drop from 2700 rpms to 1700 rpms. My previous converter (PT4000) would lock up at 50 mph with 19% tps and the rpms would drop from 2900 rpms to 1800.

 

FYI - When I refer to TC lockup I mean 4th gear, not 3rd. I've experimented with 3rd gear lock up at low speed (35-40 mph) and it lugs too much for my taste. The only way it will lock in 3rd is if the shifter is in D3.

 

Yea. I long given up on 3rd gear tcc apply even stock with the shift kit. Because of the lock 3rd, unlock, shift to 4th, lock.

Now how do you reduce TCC apply pressure with HP Tuners?

I searched when the converter was on order, and took notes of whats typically tuned with a small diameter converter. The only thing I changed with tcc other than apply/release mph was the min and max duty cycle. I found this in a write up that Performabuilt did, it said to set both tables to max.

Luckily I made notes because the evening I put the converter in, my internet went out. So I had only notes to do the basic tune with. I never messed with the duty cycle, I just set all min and max to 98. I got a long way with no internet (just tuning from 9pm to 1 am) then the next morning I searched here and could not find how to get the idle right, finally I found a post from like 2004? one post. Everything else says get a tune after a converter, I'm sorry but I didn't buy HP Tuners and a new laptop for it to hear just go get a tune.

This is part of my aggravation, no one talks, no one helps, until you make a big deal out of it.

And I got a PM from Chris saying it sounds like I'm calling his converter crap in this thread, it's not my intension to, it is a good converter.
But I don't know I guess you have to make some noise to get advice?
He told me in this thread he does not know tuning. IMO I think ALL converter manufacturers should consider just a small write up of things that may need to be changed with the installation on their product. Somewhat like the write up Performabuilt has somewhere here.
Just something very basic.

I know I got off topic

Kind of.
Your other post that I didn't quote says just about whats going on. I've got it pretty close right now.
Maybe some help on getting the converter apply softer would help. I might be able to mess with it again later in the week, I'll try putting the duty cycles back to stock unless someone suggests something else.

 

There should be a separate table for TCC Apply Rate in the TCC portion of the tables. Most converters companies won't recommend specific tuning tips because each car and converter combination can vary. My first converter (Yank 3200) required no tuning, then each converter after that required additional tuning except for my 5C which required no additional tuning.

 

I am an lt1 guy but i drive my circle d converter about 500 miles a week. Here is what i can tell you about tuning for a converter car so it doesnt drive you nuts in every sort of traffic. If you are pulling around and you're on the converter really hard, you need to get a whole lot more agressive with the shift tables on the throttle. Mine will stall about 3200 behind my setup, and it will stall every bit of that 3200 if i am in the wrong gear trying to accelerate (3rd or mostly 4rth too soon). If its slipping on the stall that much you need to be in a lower gear for that tps and mph setting.

The way mine is set up it dosent lock at over 30% throttle basicly. But if I am accelerating at 20-30% throttle she will stay in third all the way up to 50ish mph or past depending. Every gear lower will make the slip that much less because there isnt so much load/resistance against the stall and it will couple up lower. The other thing is with it set up it doesnt lock up on my while i am trying to accelerate and cause a bog etc or stress the lockup clutch. By keeping into 3rd gear and easing off the gas when I am approaching 50-55mph it will shift into 4rth and after it takes 4rth I have let off anyways and then it will lock up smooth and softly.

Your problem seems to be that you are in too high of a gear and your lockup is happening with too much tps% applied, and the sudden jerk you feel is all the inertia of the crank etc suddenly slowing down 1500rpm.

Do not be afraid to get agressive with keeping it in low gears under moderate throttle and having it kick down for you when you get on the gas instead of unlocking and stalling up and slipping. You're just making heat and not going anywhere because essientially the gear and converter is not suitable for that mph.

I am not trying to be preachy just giving a little advice and sharing experience. It took me a long long *** time to learn about how I drive how the converter responds to it and how to outsmart my own driving habbits. Some lower gears will also make the stall slip less and couple better. The slip of the stall is directly related to the gear multiplication behind it the vehichle weight and the air drag at higher speeds. Hope you get it worked out. I dont know what kind of tables are in the ls1 pcm for shift points under normal driving or what kind of lockup tables you have but I will share the ones I use if you would like to see them and they would be relevant since I also have 3.23 gears.

 

Yes, I did realize that early on. Like you say, maybe I need to get agressive with keeping it in low gears under moderate throttle and having it kick down for you when you get on the gas instead of unlocking and stalling up and slipping.

I'll be sure to try that out also. Thanks.