Allison transmission issues. How we solved them

00:00 Banks as a cure for hot boxes gear boxes that is Factory trans coolers exist for a reason and if your truck’s a grocery getter your factory trans cooler is probably adequate but if you haul heavy live where it’s hot or climb serious grades chances are your transmission and

00:19 toque converter are living life on the edge for 66 years Banks endurance racing engines have always had a weak link the transmission our engines have always made enough power to kill Transmissions so keeping Transmissions alive has become our art form and it starts with heat

00:45 dissipation in 2001 the 5-speed Allison in the Duramax lb7 was rated to handle an input of 520 lb feet guys have done a lot to these older trucks like a cold air intake turbo intercooler tuning and all that jive are making well over 1,000 lb feet in the newer L5 PS the 10speed

01:08 is rated at 975 lb feet but if you’ve tuned your newer truck you could be pushing over 12200 lb feet in all these cases transm is your enemy so what’s the Jeopardy with over temping this baby well for starters the truck’s ECM is in the business of saving the transmission

01:29 let me give you me some background optimal temps are 175 to 225 within this range the fluid maintains its viscosity to provide adequate lubrication Cooling and hydraulic pressure for gear changes when you get above 240 you start getting Into the Danger Zone there are additives

01:50 in the fluid that prevent oxidation or thickening of the fluid other additives help with clutch holding capacity and torque transfer and some reduce shuttering when the torque inverter clutches slip at 240 these additives begin to break down once they break down you’ve damaged the transf fluid and

02:09 they’re gone the clutches begin to slip causing even more heat at 260 seals begin to harden leading to leaks or pressure loss and the clutches slip even more at 300 the ECM tries to protect the transmission by going into limp mode locking it in a lower gear often third

02:29 and leaving you with just enough power to get off the road and get home maybe well I’ve got news for you we’ve developed something to help prevent those High temps from occurring in the first place this is the new banks Ram Air transmission pan our latest durability tool when we set out to lower

02:51 fluid temps in the Allison we applied what we learned during the development of our patented Ram Air differential covers as you can see we offer a complete line of fluid cooling products from trans pans and oil pans to oil cooler upgrades so how do we achieve cooler temps by capturing cool air

03:11 flowing under the truck and forcing it to flow over the surface of our long thin densely packed fins to make this happen we designed a ram air scoop that captures air compresses it and accelerates it when air is rammed into the scoop its density is increased that means more molecules in every cubic

03:33 foot of air and more molecules means more capacity to scrub off heat the only way to get more air density passing through the fins is to Ram it in and it works that’s why it’s patent pending because we’ve done something no one else has now if Winter’s a concern four bols

03:53 in this group is off or if it hits something it’s designed to break away without affecting the pan and if that ever happens I’ll send you replacement scoop on the house so now that you know that there’s air rushing over the fins let’s have a look at the fins we’re

04:08 looking head on the fins go all the way front to back and let’s let’s have a look at the inside as well to give you an idea of what’s going on inside if we roll the pan around and push through there’s something about the thermal path from the fluid to the air that I want

04:27 you to see something we’ve done here now now you see the fins connect from the inside to the outside so there’s a direct heat path on all those fins so now we’ve got the highest level of fin density uh in the marketplace and the best heat path from the inside to the

04:46 outside we call these flow through fins it’s impossible to match the fin surface area that we have on the inside and the outside without going to highpressure diecast but how do we amp it up even more than that taking a look at the banks Ram Air Trans pan it has a

05:03 magnetic drain plug at the lowest point so the pan drains completely without removing it from the transmission now you may say but Gail don’t I have to drop the pan to change the filter well the Allison 1000 has an external spin-on filter which they recommend changing

05:21 fairly frequently Allison recommends replacing the spin on filter at 50 100 and 15 50,000 Mi they want fluid changes at 75 and 150,000 so at 150,000 you’re replacing both the filter and the fluid then you start the cycle all over again they only call for the internal filter to be

05:46 changed when the transmission is overhauled so in other words you’re not dropping the pan unless you’re taking the trans down to the bare case the only problem I see with the Allison instructions is that they don’t address it too two quarts of dirty fluid trapped in their pan who

06:06 wow look at how much fluid is still in there wow it’s a damn wellnut that’s the problem it’s sticking up into the fluid volume and not letting it all out now there’s probably some left in the torque converter we’re not going to get that but we should be getting this

06:24 and with this setup if you want this dirty fluid out you got to pull the pan off off the Matt I’m real curious how much is in this pan do you mind pouring it into the cylinder woo my money’s on a quart and a half let’s see what we get there’s 1,000 milliliters that’s a

06:46 quart there’s a quart and a half we’re still going 1,600 1700 looks like 18850 ml it’s real close to two boards unbelievable well now you can see all the problem in there the sheet Metals pushed up a half an inch the nut adds another 1/ in so you’ve got an inch of fluid all the way across the bottom

07:15 with a banks Ram Air transmission pan for the Allison 5 six and 10speed you’ll get a more complete drain without pulling the pan because we’ve added a magnetic drain plug at the very lowest point so let let’s talk about how we manufactured these pans this really

07:33 matters there are two popular methods of casting aluminum sand casting and die casting sand casting is one of the earliest forms of metal casting this method involves molten metal being poured into a sand mold the only thing helping the aluminum to flow into the mold is Gravity the sandcast mold is

07:55 rough and typically leaves a rough finish another another problem is paracity that’s where voids or holes in the casting are caused by hydrogen gas entrapment and when you sandcast thicker walls are required to avoid cold shuts cold shuts are where streams of metal

08:18 entering the mold through various Gates don’t completely fuse together due to premature cooling that’s why some of these aftermarket pans are so thick if you look closely you can find welds in the casting where a cold shut has been repaired but has not been ground

08:35 completely smooth I’m here to tell you we never sandcast our lubrication products this eliminates any risk of sand contamination in the fluid which brings me to diec casting with diec casting aluminum is a rammed into the bow this is the right way to cast lubrication products

08:59 aluminum is he heated to, 1300° injected into a preheated h13 tool steel mold at 5500 lb per square inch it happens instantaneously the result is a Precision casting with no paracity no cold shuts and no welds the surface finish is as smooth as a baby’s butt which is good for fluid flow and the

09:26 walls will be thinner and dense as hell which is great for heat transfer and thermal recovery in other words thinner denser walls allow heat to exit more quickly the only downside to diec Casting is that the molds cost a fortune but the result is worth the effort here’s the poster child for every

09:47 Foundry flaw it’s the PPE Allison 10-speed transpan if you look closely it’s quite rough I mean it’s audibly rough it’s got paracity that looks like the surface of the Moon and here’s a weld to cover up a cold shut they did a piss poor job of grinding it smooth it’s real

10:11 apparent but it’s either that or you scrap the pan all right what do you guys want to show me here what the hell is that just smashed into the pan God oh you’re making it easy for me guys oh God oh my God the trans cooling line and the pan are having a war over a

10:37 little little bit of space and I think the pan is winning but the trans cooling Line’s jammed which wears through first the pan or the trans cooling line this is what you call a self diagnosing system you go to the source of the transfluid leak and there it is now I’m

10:59 calling this this the ascent of pan it all starts with the stock stamped steel version which has an exclusive two qu dirty oil retention feature right here so next pan here in the ascent of pan is the PPE stock capacity replacement pan with no fins inside to gather up the

11:21 heat and flow it through to the outside fins so it’s got outside fins no inside fins stock capacity I don’t get it I wouldn’t buy it it makes no sense speaking of making no sense this is the pp high-capacity pan it has four quarts the fin design Inside Yes it has

11:43 fins inside and yes it has fin outside it looks to be sandcast like this one does but these fins are random if anything else I don’t know what the guy was on who designed this Pan the fluid pickup is roughly in this area how does the fluid flow through these fins and get there I mean you’ve got blind

12:05 Corners this guy here seems to block the fluid flowing through here in any manner what you’ve actually got here is a maze but where the hell is the mouse now you might notice on the stock pan on this pan it’s deeper in the front than it is in the rear starting with the stock pan

12:23 they want the pan to be level with the ground level with the body of the truck this one ignores that and it’s the same depth on each end which gives you a pool of oil towards the rear that probably never sees that pickup at all this is pp’s attempt to make a better pan than

12:44 the mag high-tech which also adds four qu and is level on the bottom very similar screw up the mag Hightech it has the fins running transversely across on the inside and linearly on the bottom they cross each other no chance at a flow through fin design which brings me

13:05 to the banks Ram a transpan we add two quarts it’s diecast it has flow through fins that align with the fins on the outside the fins flow to the pickup it drains at the lowest point it gives you lower Peak fluid temps and quicker cool down it prevents thickening and

13:26 preserves the additives and here’s a little surprise this little piece of jewelry is the drain plug it’s got a Banks logo on it it’s got a massive high temperature magnet which means as fluid temp goes up magnetic capability does not go down which happens with other magnetic drain plugs it’s a bit of

13:47 stainless steel jewelry and it seals with an O-ring the performance is largely due to the diec casting the design and the ram a feature which none of the other pants have at all this guy this isn’t just another aftermarket transpan it was a full engineering effort by an engine design and

14:12 Manufacturing Company you may not know this but Banks is the exclusive engine supplier to the US Army’s joint light tactical vehicle program this engine business didn’t just fall into our laps we battled it out with the likes of caterpillar and cumins just to name a

14:30 few over 25,000 jltvs are powered by bank’s d866 engines the knowledge that we gained from these engines is used in performance parts that you can bolt on your truck this Ram a fluid cooling technology is already covered by an existing Banks patent so you guys who’ve

14:53 been ripping off everything I’m doing this one’s off limits it’s available for the Allison 5 and six speed the newer Allison 10 speed and coming soon for the Mopar Ram 68 RF and you can get them in any color you want as long as it’s high temp Banks black powder coat because

15:18 black radiates heat the best when we set out to lower fluid temps we didn’t realize we’d be revolutionizing transpan design we weren’t trying to put the other transpan guys out of business it just kind of happened