[El Pozzinator]

I stopped watching TFL when it became abundantly clear they were clickbaiting to buy toys. Tired of the “we’re just like you” YouTube channels where they have $2-3 million worth of cars, in a shop worth more than most of our houses, and every other video is a “you’ll never guess what we just bought” about another brand new big-hype (and usually very high dollar) vehicle. Off-roading a Tesla model X? GTFO… zero people buy a Tesla to wheel it thru the mountains.

 

[El Pozzinator]

Used to enjoy watching cleetus McFarland til he got to the point where his third or fourth car was on its third or fourth $30,000 Texas speed LSX427 and they bought a race track as a private playground, then proceeded to do several million dollars worth of renovations, but still hang out in the “privateer” class at race week.

 

[El Pozzinator]

Curious to see how the 10-speed “Allison branded” GM/Ford joint venture trans holds up mid- to long-term. I’m personally not sold that the Cummins, with a half-mile-wide torque curve, really needs those other four gears if it’s being used to tow. But I’m sure it would be nice for unloaded daily driving, and/or mall-crawler BroDozer’ing with the mirrors stretched out like Invisible Blasted Lats Syndrome towing a massive Bluetooth freedom trailer thru the Home Depot parking lot…

…Says the guy (me) with a 15yo mega dually that hasn’t had a trailer hitched up in prolly 4-5 years…

 

[El Pozzinator]

It will be interesting to see the new 10 speeds durability over the long haul. But the big 10speeds aren't a Ford/GM JV. That's jsut the half ton slushboxes. They are different transmissions.

That said, your analysis of "who" could use more gear splits, the hauler or the mall crawler is 180deg off course. Mall crawler could theoretically get by with a beefed up Powerglide and 2.73 or 3.08 gears behind the big C.
It's the heavy work that would benefit from more gear splits, deeper low gears, etc.

Sorry I gueas the sarcasm didn’t come thru via written word on the gears thing. I figured everyone here would catch that given we all understand why the big inline 6 class 8 trucks run 18-speed over/under boxes, more gears is always better on a big bore engine that only revs to 3k but isn’t real terribly happy outside of an 1800-2200 rpm window. What’s oddest I thought about the v8 diesels using the extra gears and dodge resisting was that those V8s comparatively can rev to the moon, with a much wider spread between their torque and horsepower peaks. One would think dodge would take advantage of the closer inline engine peaks by using extra gears. More complicated? Yes, but it seems there’s a lot more stupid high mile Cummins on the road working than Dmax or PS engines… been sorta anticipating a 10-speed (or at least an 8-speed) was gonna be the gen 5 bombshell ram would drop on the hotshot world.

 

[El Pozzinator]

My apologies, yes I did not read into your sarcasm....Doesn't help that more than one person has actually claimed, "The Cummins has such a flat torque curve that it won't benefit from more gears, unlike them wimpy V8 diesels..." or something to that effect.

Moral of the story, don't be surprised if you get some mis-guided folks agreeing with your sarcasm! LOL

We always say on here “torque without rpm breaks parts”, so I can’t understand how giving the truck more options to transmit torque under boost at a higher rpm could be a bad thing. Or roll a lower rpm at low load conditions - cruising 70-75 mph across Kansas at barely above idle might be kinda nice.

Halfway between all the gears 1-5 would be nice splits, ie launch in 1st, 1 over, 2, 2 over, 3, 3 over, 4, 4 over, 5th and 6th. There’s your 10 gears… program it so T/H mode doesn’t allow 6th, and you solve a BIG problem the 68rfe has… namely, cooking the OD gears trying to push boost thru literally the weakest gear the transmission has. Electronically limit the truck to 4th (or in this hypothetical case, 8th) and you solve most of the rest of the problem by keeping boost off the OD pack altogether.

I understand the ZF 10-speed in the gassers is barely bigger than the previous 6-speed; I’ve heard a buddy with a diesel shop say the diesel 10 speed isn’t much bigger either, proportionately maybe the same increase as the ZF-10 over say the 6L80. Hopefully they managed to smash enough clutch in there to hold these “new and improved” torque numbers they’re bragging about, AND enough case rigidity to hold the gears in place like they should be.

 

[El Pozzinator]

YES! My 06 g56 truck, I spent a LOT of time on the phone with gear vendors trying to figure out how to make a splitter live behind the 5.9 with 3.73s and 19.5” wheels with toyo m508z tires (36.1” rolling diameter). That thing, 1st was useless except for hooked up to a 15k+ trailer, 2-3 and 5-6 was too much rpm drop if shifting under 2k rpm, and unloaded it desperately needed a 7th gear. Totally understandable why a spicer 7 speed in the 2nd and 3rd gen trucks is such a well-regarded but difficult upgrade.

Only other thing I wanna see is the emissions get more reliable where they don’t require aftertreament injection - like how we can get utterly stupid power out of gassers with fully intact emissions that seem to never break - and the transmission actually be able to handle full torque and full GCWR. Maybe a programming thing, maybe a hard parts thing. But would be nice if buying an $85,000 truck wouldn’t require a legal page front and back worth of caveats about how to not break your brand new truck the first time you hitch up a 12,000 lb 5er. Max “rated” numbers are useless if the ignorant masses victimized by market-wanketeering spend the next six years trash talking your product.