Rambo, Old farts last build

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Evguy1

Evguy1

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Errington BC
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2014 RAM1500
Engine
Cummins ISB 170
Did a good mountain drive this weekend and trans was always under 150F and engine stayed nice and cool under 180F.
The big surprise was the EGT's. In the past I had to be very carefull not to exceed 1250 which was VERY easy to do with a bit too much throttle. With the new setup I could not get over 1150 even full throttle up the mountain hills, very impressed.
 
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Evguy1

Evguy1

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Cummins ISB 170
After over a year of trying to find someone to tune my transmission and putting a lot of work into trying to do it myself I finally found a pro to help. I had already been turned down by all the tuning companies that I could find. Matt at Demon motorsports helped me a bit with some basic settings but my application is pretty unique with the 4 cylinder Cummins. I wanted the "sport" mode in the trans to be reprogramed as a "tow" mode. Also wanted increased engine braking in both normal mode and tow mode and all the safety limits setup for the Cummins particularly when in "manual" mode. Dodge Boy [email protected] put in a lot of time and a few revisions to get me a perfect tune for my application. He only works with the ZF8 transmissions and has done so for the last 12 years so he has the experience and willingness to work on custom tunes for almost anything. :)
 

GRKN

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Michigan
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2009
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5.7 Hemi
Just read through this whole thread, most of it is beyond my limited knowledge but anyone can see you’re incredibly talented! Way to go!
 
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Evguy1

Evguy1

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2014 RAM1500
Engine
Cummins ISB 170
Just read through this whole thread, most of it is beyond my limited knowledge but anyone can see you’re incredibly talented! Way to go!
Thanks GRKN, just very persistent and never think outside the box because there is NO box.
 
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Evguy1

Evguy1

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Cummins ISB 170
Pulled the engine back out last week to build new mounts. I had used the Dodge 6 cylinder mounts and modified them with cross drilled hols as others have done with the 4BT but still way too much vibration. I had these Isuzu NPR box truck mounts sitting on the shelf and they should be much better. The Isuzu engine is about the same weight as the Cummins. Just kicking myself for not using them in the first place. I thought they were too tall but in the end they work better than the low profile Dodge ones.Rambo mounts.jpgRambo new mounts.jpg
 

NRS91

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Don't own one yet
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Cummins
Cheers for linking your build thread on the Facebook 8HP group, great read and good build!

Could you go into more detail about how the 4ISB and 8HP are talking?

Is the Cummins sending J1939 CANbus to the Sound German Engineering module for it to translate to the Dodge TCU?
 
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Evguy1

Evguy1

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Cummins ISB 170
Hi Nick. Yes the Cummins is talking to the SGA module with J1939. The SGA module can then communicate to the rest of the truck via CAN but its a different rate? so the Cummins cant talk directly to the truck. My biggest issue has been trying to get the original hemi ECU to "wake up" and send a tach signal to the dash. I do run the Hemi tone ring and crank sensor on the front of the Cummins so the Hemi ECU is getting a crank signal.
 

NRS91

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Engine
Cummins
Hi Nick. Yes the Cummins is talking to the SGA module with J1939. The SGA module can then communicate to the rest of the truck via CAN but its a different rate? so the Cummins cant talk directly to the truck. My biggest issue has been trying to get the original hemi ECU to "wake up" and send a tach signal to the dash. I do run the Hemi tone ring and crank sensor on the front of the Cummins so the Hemi ECU is getting a crank signal.

Ahh nice!
If the SGA module worked with gearboxes I can get in the UK (Jag Land Rover and BMW are sat on the bench at the mo) I would go that route but at the moment I'm trying to convince another CANbus translator to incorporate J1939 protocol.

Unfortunately you are hitting the same issues a lot of people do with these modern light duty applications, proprietary manufacturer CANbus systems! At least the Cummins and other heavy duty application parts all use an SAE standard!

I guess at the moment you have a J1939 gauge for the Cummins vitals if it's not talking to the Ram dash as hoped?

Has SGA managed to make stuff like the torque interruption for gear change work? Probably not too important on a 4ISB but I want to use a 6ISB so don't want to burn out the 8HP.
 
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Evguy1

Evguy1

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Cummins ISB 170
I have installed the Ram water temp, oil pressure and engine oil temp sending units into the Cummins and that is being reported to the dash through the original Hemi ECU.
The SGA module is reading the Cummins torque values but not interrupting the engine for shifts but like you noted, it should not be a problem with the 4 cylinder. Ram does publish the basic engine CAN messages in its "body builder guide". I have connected the secondary CAN output from the SGA module to the trucks network and the tach comes right up to life but a few things get wierd and I dont want to crash the whole system so it was just for a test at this point. Maybe a issolated CAN module just for the tach signal is in the future but I'm still holding out that the Hemi ECU can be resuscitated and it will drive the tach.
 
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Evguy1

Evguy1

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Cummins ISB 170
Not much new to report. I'm currently away on holidays with the truck and my 5th wheel but it was only a 3 hr tow and performed very well. The new engine mounts have made a very nice differences to vibration which you dont notice at all unless really looking for it at idle. I did add an electric vacuum pump just before heading out as a backup to the belt driven one on the engine just to have the piece of mind that if the belt broke I would still have brakes. :) Did the heater core and AC condenser so should not have to worry about that when on the road. If all goes well we plan to be on the road 5 months next year across Canada and back through Northern US.
 
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