So you are considering a transmission swap and have lots of questions? Doing your homework before a swap will save you tons of frustration and wasted time and money. If you can’t find the answers you need here you are welcome to email or call me from my contact form, or find a place to ask here. The forums will be set up quite specific and organized, and should be an excellent resource for referrals and other experience even I can’t give you so don’t be shy, register today.
Legacy support for PCS and other aftermarket control systems will eventually transition to member forums completely, accounts for supporting these kinds of systems have a one time reasonable cost.
Customers that purchase a control system from me or are interested in learning more first can register for free.
Below are a few frequently asked questions.
Can you give me some pointers to tune the transmission myself?
If you are using an aftermarket system for a Ford 5R110, 4R100, 48RE, etc, you can join a member forum and get some help. I already have a tuning manual written for the tcm-2000 controlled 5R110. I’ll be giving some additional help to the first several guys that join there as well. Changing shift points is something that the end user can do without to much fear of causing damage. In the case of the Ford 4R100, most guys just need some help getting it set up right and once they are pointed in the right direction they can make final adjustments. The Ford 5R110 on the other hand requires shift quality tuning, and that is expertise that is going to be a little difficult to transfer, but it’s time to try for some of these legacy systems. Allison tuning is still going to stay under my hat for now.
Do I need to bring my truck to you?
No, the transmission is tuned best using recorded data of test drives, called data logs. Even if you brought the truck to me I would still use data logs to tune the trans. The only possible advantage of bringing the truck to me is that I can drive the truck exactly how I need to in order for me to see the data I need to see. This can be a disadvantage however, because I may not drive the truck like you do, so when tuning long distance I can give direction to the customer to drive in a certain way if needed.
Why do you charge by the hour for tuning?
Believe it or not, it’s in your best interests. Tuning is very variable in nature. There are a lot of tuners out there that make bold claims of sending you a perfect one time tune, but such a thing just doesn’t exist. The best tunes are developed from studying data logs that show how the tune is working with the truck and driver and adjusted accordingly. Some tunes can take a hour or so to build and others may only take 10 minutes. If I do a flat rate charge per tune hoping it will even out in the end, you may pay for a complicated tune when a simple tune is all you need. On my side of the coin, if I were charging the same per tune, I may need to spend a lot of time studying a poor shift that is intermittent, and be faced with a choice to rush through it, or do it right and not make any profit.
Whatever amount of time you need, you won’t be surprised with a big bill in the end since you pay for the service up front, and you won’t have to shell out a big amount if you just need a moderate amount of tuning.
I need to make a reasonable profit. If the services I provide aren’t profitable I can’t continue providing that service.
How can I trust you to be honest with the time you charge?
I understand it is difficult to trust service providers these days, and unfortunately trust takes time to build. I have made it a little easier with the following:
You only have to buy as many hours ahead of time as you are comfortable with- and I typically only sell an hour or so the first time anyway. A half hour is my minimum, so you can pay for that much and see how it goes. If you don’t feel I am being honest with my time you aren’t out a lot of money if you go elsewhere.
I track my time and provide the customer with that information.
I need your business and I have a good reputation to maintain, so it would not be smart of me to rip you off. I am working hard to be the best at what I do and realize that my customers are my best advertising. Unfortunately many businesses these days don’t do business that way, intentionally or unintentionally, and that makes most understandably skeptical.