6.7L Cummins conversion project - Page 64

mgmetalworks · 02-28-2022, 01:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TomsBeast

My wife and I recently put together a second home, utilities, well, excavation, manufactured home factory and contractor to ground set it on our 37 acre site. Being 600 miles away didn't help, neither did the pandemic.

The number of egocentric excuse making blow-hards in THAT business, is simply staggering. They tell you how many people they know in the trades, 'we work with so and so company all the time, we're like brothers' but fingerpoint and disavow any knowledge of any other sub when it's convenient. Sure there's exceptions, and I apologize to the hard working tradesmen who put in an honest day's work for their customers, but OMG is construction full of finger pointers and cover up artists, that use polished story telling skills to make up for their lack of competence and organizational skills.

I won't go into the details but after an experience like we've had, well over budget and 10 months behind schedule, I almost wish for an '3 bad transmission ruining torque converters in a row' type problems. Not really, I wouldn't wish that on anyone, but the aftermarket automotive industry seems to be working overtime trying to catch up to the construction trades, and that's not a good thing LOL!

I don't think you're wrong about that! I've had to become somewhat of a handyman for our house stuff simply because the contractors we've tried to hire to do things have not been impressive in every situation.

mk216v · 02-28-2022, 10:58 PM

You both aren't inspiring much confidence stateside LOL. Are contractors in Switzerland or Germany any better?(serious question)

b. rock · 03-01-2022, 09:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TomsBeast

My wife and I recently put together a second home, utilities, well, excavation, manufactured home factory and contractor to ground set it on our 37 acre site. Being 600 miles away didn't help, neither did the pandemic.

The number of egocentric excuse making blow-hards in THAT business, is simply staggering. They tell you how many people they know in the trades, 'we work with so and so company all the time, we're like brothers' but fingerpoint and disavow any knowledge of any other sub when it's convenient. Sure there's exceptions, and I apologize to the hard working tradesmen who put in an honest day's work for their customers, but OMG is construction full of finger pointers and cover up artists, that use polished story telling skills to make up for their lack of competence and organizational skills.

I won't go into the details but after an experience like we've had, well over budget and 10 months behind schedule, I almost wish for an '3 bad transmission ruining torque converters in a row' type problems. Not really, I wouldn't wish that on anyone, but the aftermarket automotive industry seems to be working overtime trying to catch up to the construction trades, and that's not a good thing LOL!

Glad I'm not the only one. Our 1st story is modular and we're local and supposedly everyone was all buddy buddy. From start to finish that was probably the most stressful ~2 yrs of our lives. It didn't help we built into a hill side, but still - it's absolutely tarnished my idea that professionals are any more competent than the average person that wants to put in a little time to learn. They'll just try and do it quicker and are more likely to cut corners since they get paid by the job, not the hour. I work alongside commercial contractors so I came in biased, but good lord was the unprofessionalism shocking. I could go on for hours but I can feel my blood pressure rising.

I'll echo the general sentiment of the recent posts - doing it yourself is always option #1. Which is probably the reason at least half of us are on this forum.

However, I'm watching with extra interest to see how that 3rd torque converter goes. I don't think ours (ATS) is quite as off as yours have been, but it's definitely still aggressive at times.

mgmetalworks · 03-01-2022, 10:52 AM

So as to not derail the thread too far into the abyss... Here's a quick update on how the van is doing.

Data logging round #1 was reviewed by the tuner and some changes were made to shift timing and lock up points. I can already tell that this setup is going to be MUCH MUCH better than before. It has retained its driving miss daisy smoothness at light throttle but now it can actually take a romp on the go fast pedal and get through the gears without it feeling like the van is going shake apart. There are more miles to log and some fine tuning here and there (and then we need to do the same in tow/haul mode to make sure we get that nailed too)... more progress in the right direction!

mgmetalworks · 03-11-2022, 10:09 AM

A few days and a few calibration tweaks later....

Oh man!!! I can't find all the words to express to you how much different this van is to drive. It was pretty bad a$$ before but I couldn't really drive it hard in most of the gears and just about every gear change under heavy throttle was, it felt like, a roll of the dice for some component in the drivetrain.

It's getting close to perfect now though. I imagine we'll have a couple more calibration tweaks in the coming weeks as more data logs are taken under different driving conditions but I'm really happy with how things have been going now.

And not only that, my trans temps have been waaaaaaaaay lower since the converter change. Before the converter change, I'd see 85-95C just driving around then up to ~100C after long uphills. This isn't "hot" by any Allison trans standards but it isn't great and the temps just kept climbing higher the more you drove. After the converter change, the highest I've seen was 75C before any changes to the lock up and shift timing. A couple tweaks to the calibration and yesterday driving the same route as all the previous data logs, I never saw higher than 64C.

Good times!

In other news... this showed up yesterday.

Anyone want to guess where this is going???