My maiden voyage was a huge success waytogo imp: I will admit the first 1.5hrs I was staring at my mirrors wondering if my K5 was gonna fall off :doah: Down hill the Allison and Duramax engine combo was very impressive, I needed no brakes as the engine and tranny took care of my speed all on it's own, as if I told it too imp: I was expecting a little down hill performance but not what this rig delivered, AWSOME!!!! waytogo Up Hill, what can I say, I FLEW up thoes whimpy hills. Even the Pismo grade or whatever it is called (a very steep grade on hwy 101) I simply motored up it at about 2800 RPM and 55mph. Heck I even passed a honda hahahaa rotfl Now I have a new bond with my rig. It likes me and I like it rotfl For reals though it was an awsome experiance. Can't wait to get on the open hwy again. Thanks for your time Burt
Dangit! You go off all freakin' weekend long having fun passing Hondas on hills pulling the K5, smashing in the dunes, and drinking beer until you couldn't drink beer anymore.....while I stayed home and irrigated all weekend....lucky bastard. rotfl I got to get me one of them dang 'O fancy 8-5 jobs..... rotfl Glad you had a good time. waytogo
Congrats on the successful haul! You just can't beat that combo. BTW, did you read up on how to control the grade breaking using the foot brake?
No, but I did figure out how to get the rig to react to what I needed. Meaning if I was receveing too much engine brake with a small push of the throttle the engine/tranny would cycle up to the next RPM/gear speed increasing my down hill speed just a bit, foot still off the throttle too waytogo Some parts of the drive as I begain the decent I let off the throttle and right as I tap or touch the brake, almost like it knew I was going to, a downshift & engine brake(sounds like a huge fan turns on) kicks in. The first time it did this I was like "Wooo! what the...!"....I just let it do it's thing and hell..it did it perfect. I'm sure I still have alot to learn but as far as I am concirned I chosse the right setup for my needs and I couldn't be happier imp: imp: waytogo waytogo Oh and my trailer brakes and the Jordan controler all worked very well too. SO easy to slow down and stop, smoooooth.
You basically got it. Just "lightly tap" (not enough to actually engage) the brake to engage/increase "grade braking" and "tap" the throttle to reduce it. I find that for all but the steepest hills or heavy loads, the lightest level of grade braking is all I need. And even with steep hills and heavy loads I often find I am loosing TOO MUCH speed...
Id like to see that grade braking in action. My neighbor with is Harley Edition 6.0/torqueshift Ford raves about it too. Hopefully soon Dodge will go with a 5spd auto and some sort of similar setup. I don't understand why they haven't already....probably because most of the heavy towing folks get the NV5600 anyway? ANyway, I bet thats a nice setup. I could see then that there would be no need for a $750+ exhaust brake and wiring kit for the torque converter, that is so common with Cummins/auto trucks.
