Which Exhaust Brake?

I have the PRXB 4" inline and it's so effective it doesn't matter, discs or not on the trailer, cuz I scarcely need the brake peddle going down the hills. Even down to Dillon with my 15k 5er... 5th gear with the Pac and I only needed the brakes for about 10 seconds total, the entire way down. Panic stops is a totally different story... discs and the ebrake can't be beat! Craig

Had the PacBrake on an 05 Ram with AT. Was very happy with it. Took i70 west out of Denver with a 5k lb truck camper on my back and rarely used the pedal. It's not as effective as the factory Ford EB but much better than nothing.

rjsurfer wrote:
I'm going against the grain here little and would like to suggest disc brakes for your trailer as an alternative to an engine brake.

Right now they are about the same price and performance is excellent. I'm in the middle of a 2 month cross country trip out west (our third such trip) and grades over 6% used to scare me to death now I almost look forward to them!

Stopping is never an issue, they operate more smoothly in traffic no wear on engine/transmiiion, no noise, one tenth the maintenance.

Of course the down side is if you tow other trailers or purchase a new one you lose the discs.

Give them a look.

Ron W.

Well this is food for thought on that thought.
If you have disc brakes on the trailer, you are still heating them up slowing the decent down a long grade. I very seldom need to touch my service brakes on long grades, the EB will keep or slow my rig on downhills. ALL of my service brakes are cold and ready for full service at the bottom of the hill.

I'm going against the grain here little and would like to suggest disc brakes for your trailer as an alternative to an engine brake.

Right now they are about the same price and performance is excellent. I'm in the middle of a 2 month cross country trip out west (our third such trip) and grades over 6% used to scare me to death now I almost look forward to them!

Stopping is never an issue, they operate more smoothly in traffic no wear on engine/transmiiion, no noise, one tenth the maintenance.

Of course the down side is if you tow other trailers or purchase a new one you lose the discs.

Give them a look.

Ron W.

I have the PacBrake PXRB on my '04.5 Dodge and like it very well. (My trailer weighs in the neighborhood of 13k loaded.) It came with the controller for the torque converter. I researched all of the brands, narrowed it down to the PacBrake and BD because they were controlled by compressed air, and selected PacBrake. If it's not on, it will automatically cycle when you start the vehicle in order to prevent seizing up. I have mine on nearly all the time. I have found that in town driving of speeds below 45 mph it's best to either have the brake turned off or to engage tow/haul; otherwise it seems the shift points are too high and the response from the throttle is sluggish. While towing the trailer the exhaust brake really shines and use of the service brakes is greatly reduced. It worked really great while going through the mountains as we went to Oregon several years ago. There is a learning curve and I had to learn to give the brake time enough to work by decelerating early and engaging tow/haul as I'm preparing to stop. Hope this helps.

Good info, thanks.

Pacbrake PRXB here!
I again have a manual transmission, but I believe that the Packbrake for the auto includes a control module that locks the TC.

I didn't know either for my 2001 with AUTO 47re. We did across a retired Cummins engineer that did a lot of work between Chrysler and Cummins before he retired. We did go with BD after he pointed out the maintenance "required" on Pac Brake and also digging around TDR's forum and several diesel forums. Pac brake was better in several areas according to him. Cost was one of them If I recall right. But overall we thought BD was better.

Perfectly happy, but that is after getting "what they cost" out of my mind. Totally too much money for those things, that is until you get 1/2 down a good size hill and your ABS light comes on.

We went from Seattle to LA and not use regular brakes (trailer is around 8,500) on any grades. Not that I-5 has any really big grades, I think 7% is most. But been on a lot of other grades that exhaust brake and regular brakes we're necessary. Sure is nice to have exhaust brake. No wonder the new ones come with them.

But here is what I'm not happy with. No big deal, just passing it on.

-Cool down period, bit hard to remember at first, to shut of switch to exhaust brake before you park. EGT's don't go below 4 or 5K when exhaust brake is on. So I usually shut off switch when I get off the freeway.

-Engine noise is now even louder than what is already too darn loud.

-There are 2 brass plugs on the flange. One plug is for temp sensor and other is for testing backpressure. The casting design of flange is over 20 years old according to BD and very few brake downs because of cracked or broken flange. Very strong design but I had to call them because bigger plug vibrated out. Burned a hole in the weather stripping just above the trans dip stick tube, about size of quarter. But it sounded much, much worse at the time, my wife had a horrified look and death grip on door handle. Funny now but wasn't then, believe me. So make sure brass plugs are tight after you get it installed. There aren't to many lock tite type materials that holds up to 1200 degrees on the market. So if I recall right, 12 psi on torque wrench is what BD told me, they also told me they get maybe 2 dozen calls a year with same question of brass plugs coming loose. And don't use anything except brass, rust factor. BD was perfectly honest saying they're QC is supposed to double check the plugs before unit is put into box to ship. Anyways after an oil change I give the plugs a little tug to make they're tight.

(side note about 47re) The retired Cummins engineer also brought to my attention that I have 3 errors in my owner manual. (little did I know) All 3 errors conflict each other about servicing the 47re when you tow with it. He said that he "lost the war about trans service behind a bigger torque engine" and the trans was Chryslers not Cummins. He said Chrysler's view at the time, was more servicing makes it harder to compete against other OEM's who don't have as much maintenance. Also interesting to me was owners manuals are to protect OEM's behind more so than the owner. Gives OEM's a chance to get out of much $$$ as possible. They probably knew the 47re was junk when they made it.

I had a BD exhaust brake on a '96 3500 DRW NV4500. No issues with it.

My current '03 Dodge/Cummins hs the Jacobs exhaust brake as part of the new truck deal. Its also been flawless in 265k miles. The Jacobs uses a inline mechanical vacuum pump for the brake that requires a much longer serpentine belt.

If I had a used Cummins I would go with the Pacbrake PRXB. It has a bit more braking at lower RPMs and it comes with a remote air compressor for the brake that can be used for other purposes.

Whatever brand you choose work with the factory sales folks. As Rusty mentioned you will need some thing like the "pressureloc" (BD power product) ....keeps the TC clutch locked for more braking performance. The tech folks can help you with what you will need.

Just to avoid confusion, the 3rd generation 5.9L Ram above uses a 48RE automatic transmission. The ECMs and PCMs of the 3rd generation trucks are different than the 2nd generation trucks with the 47RE (for instance, there's no Tow/Haul mode in a 2nd generation truck, just OD on/off.) I reiterate that a torque converter lockup device is required with the 47RE. If the US Gear module referred to above provides that torque converter control function along with exhaust brake control, that's great, but please confirm that with your vendor.

Rusty