Cat 3406E More power!!!

In your area you may get away with big HP, I live in the Mountains and if you have access to warranty repairs for trucks that goes by the regions you will find that B.C. has the highest warranty repairs. Because we have mountains and sharp corners steep grades and with the winters we get frost heaves and pot holes.
When they brought out the 2050 Torque engines the first transmissions came with a 2 inch input they did not last very long in our area the Eaton rep said they were not having problems in other areas, now they all have 2.5 inch inputs.
I was involved with re-powering trucks years ago, 8V71's to the original 8V92's these were car haulers out of Alberta, and they managed to destroy every component behind the engine.
Just mark me down as skeptical that anybody can drive smooth enough to run big HP and Torque on a unit designed for low power.

 

I've run the mountains in West Virginia with my truck, it takes knowedge that most drivers today don't have to keep the engines and drive lines together with big Hp. My incentive was if I broke it I had to pay to repair it. Running from Hancock MD to Morgantown WV is 110 miles of either up the mountain or down it. The biggest problem with Hp is that everybody that drives a truck today thinks that if the engine can pull the grade at 70 mph at full throttle in high gear then you don't need to slow down, down shift or raise the engine RPM to control the heat the engine is producing. I've seen more than one melted down because of this. 30-35 years ago when everybody played with the pump for more power the drivers knew when to stand on it and when to be easy on it. Unfortunately today you can try to explain this to 75% of the drivers today and they look at you like your talking a foreign language. If you do these thing you're also not running the engine at peak torque to destroy the driveline. What really gets me is that the truck will still be moving 50% faster up the grade than a stock 550 hp truck can do. I've dropped as much as 20 mph in speed to control temperatures, but I'm still out in the hammer lane passing all the other trucks out there by a 25-30 mph margin on a huge grade. In that 110 miles of mountains I can save 30-40 minutes of time compared to most everybody else I've ever crossed there with. I don't barrel down the other sides to make up time, I travel a consistent 65-70 Mph until I get to Big Savage Mt, going up this grade is punishing to a truck and I slow down to 50 mph to control the heat that the driveline and engine have built up since leaving Hancock MD. Downshifting a truck with big power is an art.......you can't lift quickly to grab the next gear down. When a turbo is moving 2000+CFM of air you actually have to lift very slowly off the throttle to keep from surging the turbo and possibly breaking a turbo shaft. You plan your shifts long before you actually do them. Yes, the engines were built in stock form to be just about idiot proof. The reason for this is the engine warranty periods are much longer than they were 30 years ago. The down side is the drivers today have never played with an old mechanical engine and then babby sat it to keep it alive and healthy. They're used to mashing the throttle and not looking at the gauges to monitor the engine, the ECM is doing that for them. Double the Hp of that engine and they don't understand how to take care of it, until they score a cylinder

I've got a 2" 10 spline input shaft on my RTLO20918B and have never broken it. I was taught if you couldn't pull off in the gear you choose with the engine idling, you need to drop a gear. When you run out of gears and still can't pull off, then you're stuck and need a machine to pull you out of the situation you've gotten yourself into. You'll never break a driveline adhering to this simple rule no matter how steep the grade is or how soft the ground is. If you're dealing with an area where you have 12% grades on hard surface roads, then the truck needs the proper rear gears to have the starting capabilities to handle that condition loaded and meet the simple rule above. Just because I'm on the East Coast and you think it's flat doesn't mean I haven't been in Off Road situations with steep grades and dealing with wheel hop.........the driver controls all facets of the situation with his right foot. The driver needs to pick the gear to maintain momentum as he climbs the steep grade in an Off Road situation wihout using tons of Hp and torque applied to the tires and as soon as traction or wheel hop becomes an issue ...........lift off the throttle wheel speed doesn't help get you up a grade without traction

I know what the tail end of a D5 or a 980 looks like from the drivers seat

My engine produces almost 4,000 ft-lbs of torque at 1800 RPM, with my gear ratio that is 11,800 ft-lbs at the tires. I've never allowed anyone to pull it down on a dyno to measure peak torque which will be higher than these numbers. I don't think anybody has built a drive line to handle this torque, but for some unknown reason it has survived a many year like this without a single part failure.

 

alot has to do with the driver. i had a 16913 with 1.278.000 on it when i replaced it,not because it failed because it was wore out. hauled heavy all its life, in hills, in mud,in pretty much all conditions. drivers that have alot of failures pretty much tells the story of why. like someone said. if you have to pay for it out of your own pocket you learn to make it last. i buy over the road trucks and convert to what i need to haul heavy,i have never had anything bigger than 40,000 rears, and recently 18918 trans. as of this moment never have been on the back of a wrecker.(knock on wood).

 

Mr. H: Well said. As you and many others have said, the driver creates 99% of the problems. It is part of trucking, knowing when to lift of the right pedal.
And as you said,rear gears are very important to driveline longevity. Everyone says fast gears are needed for MPG. I have had this arguement in this and the other forum before, but i will take low gears everytime for the work i do. I have had very good luck running low gears, hauling heavy and off road. I have no interest in starting a rear gear arguement, this is my preference. I will burn extra fuel knowing the driveline is going to take the abuse.
Im sure a truck that grosses 80K and never leaves blacktop does well with fast highway gears.

 

can you give me a shout mr haney? 507-291-1491 thanks

 

I can agree with you on hp an torque on skinny driveline. I owned a 2001 pete 379 flat top 63”shack 8” straights, 3.31 rears an super 40’s. Put 896hp to the ground and 4,722ft/lbs torque on heavy clutch. Bigger rad. Run an Aussie cam, custom injectors, psi manifold an holset 1919 turbo I believe. Bigger fuel pump oversized fuel lines valves and fittings. Had put deeper fuel filter an longer tube when used it pulling drained filter caused cavitation an took injectors out (learning curve) with the 18speed an them gears an hp an torque could pull 63,500kg loads all day with her watching pyro close an not using the juice an torque was very reliable. If took off soft ground bugger could be hell on a clutch brake an shear it. Had 1.8 when bought it drove it 400,000km more an saved a lot fuel. An it was a 6NZ compression ratio hot it to a 15:1. Other mods but the short an sweet it can be done an reliable like ya said an the right driver behind her. Haters gonna hate the rumble of a cranked 6NZ. Not no super trucker an not an old trucker, but taught by two old truckers how to drive an a wooden ruler on your knuckles for every time you screwed up a shift or gearing to quick I can look back at and say thank god theyre still good teachers back then, most guys now don’t understand a pyro cause the ecm rates it so can be jus another gear hammer wannabe left laners. Jmho

predatorzedge@hotmail.com
Truck I speak of is also on the Instagram Brakin’8 Polishing care take a look.

 

Funny, there was no mention of torque capacity problems when they were selling us 3408’s and KTA’s with 1200 ft/lb transmissions screwed to them.