Torque converter lock up.

buddyIam wrote:
I have been inclined to look at the Ram Cummins because of it's manual transmission availability. I always thought it would give better EB on the steep two lane mountain roads that I travel on.

But last night I noticed that the Ford auto can stay locked up down to 900 rpm. If that's true that is about what you would expect from a manual transmission.

Anyone know about the torque converter lock ups on the Chevy and the Ram. Or if any of them work as claimed.

Such as does the Ford 900 rpm apply to any gear?

Well being a RAM owner, here's my experience with the exhaust brake (68RFE transmission):
1. There are 2 modes, Auto and Full-on. When you have it set to Auto, then the exhaust brake will engage whenever your vehicle is accelerating and throttle is not applied (coasting down a hill) or whenever you press the brakes. Under both of these situations, the torque converter must be locked, which means engine speed around 1,000 to 1,100 rpm during lock. Full-on applies the exhaust brake any time you lift your foot off the accelerator and the torque converter is locked.

2. The exhaust brake has slightly different behavior when you are in tow-haul versus no tow-haul. When you are in tow haul, the transmission will continue to down shift as the truck decelerates and re-lock the torque converter and re-engage the exhaust brake with every down shift until you're at about 25 or 30 mph. Without tow-haul, the exhaust brake will only continue to engage until the transmission releases torque converter lockup (around 1,000 to 1,100 rpm) and then the torque converter remains disengaged until the throttle is applied again, then the transmission will re-lock the torque converter once the vehicle is moving quick enough.

So that's how it works on the RAM.