Quote:
Originally Posted by antiqfreq
I am trying to convince my hubby to get the Banks Brake set up, the Smart Lock set up and the Trans Command set up. ...Since the Price is about $1850 for these parts - ...Any thoughts or advise is greatly appreciated!
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I agree with
fulltimer50. Good stuff, but way to much money.
For about $400, you can buy the "electronic" exhaust brake that includes the equivalent of the Smart Brake from either BD Performance or SP-Diesel. That's the way I'd go at first. I haven't heard of anyone that bought one of those and later replaced them with the more-expensive type.
There are two types of exhaust brakes. The expensive kind, like the Banks brake, adds a big butterfly to the exhaust system. Other brands of the expensive type include BD, U.S.Gear, and PacBrake. They work good, but they all cost more than $1,000 base price, not including the extra-cost torque converter lockup that you must have with your automatic tranny.
The inexpensive "electronic" type uses the butterfly that is already in your exhaust system, the so-called "warm-up valve" or the exhaust back pressure valve (EBPV). These cost only about $200 for the basic unit that works fine with stick shifters, or $400 for the basic unit plus torque converter lockup controller needed for automagic trannies.
So BD sells both kinds. The less-expensive electronic exhaust brake is called the BrakeLoc.
BD Power - Product: 7.3L BrakeLoc
SP-Diesel sold out to Painless Performance, but the exhaust brake is still on the SP-Diesel website.
http://www.spdiesel.com/ Sean is a good salesman, and he swears his exhaust brake is a lot better than the BD BrakeLoc, and for about the same money. I haven't compared the two, but maybe you'd like to?
As far as the Banks TransCommand, lots of folks were disappointed, and wound up replacing it. One popular fix is to replace the tranny valve body with one from a well-known tranny rebuilder. You can get the wonderful BTS valve body for a few hundred bucks.
Brians Truck Shop Or you can get one from John Wood for about the same price as the BTS.
John Wood Automotive - Home
Neither one of those gurus want to sell you just the valve body. You wont see valve bodies on their websites. But I've heard that if you beg and plead, they will.
Or the Factory Tech valve body from Bob Riley at
Factory Tech Valve Body - And Bob swears you'll love the valve body he sells. Scroll down and read what the builder - Gregg Evans - claims the valve body will do for you. Sounds like similar claims made by Banks for the Transcommand?
Any of those valve bodies for your 4R100 tranny should do the sort of stuff the TransCommand claims to do, only better. But I'm no expert, so call and talk to Brian or his wife Patti about what a BTS valve body will do for your tranny.
