Received this PM from a fellow LOST member who for reasons of their own wishes to remain anonymous but did give me permission to share the great information and reading he sent for all to consider:
Suncoast is a good choice, I speak from experience. I installed the 2nd SunCoast TC ever sold for the CRD back in May of 2007, some 7 years ago. Ron Wolverton of SunCoast told me in 2011 that I had the 2nd SC TC he ever built, the first was the prototype he built and tested on a Jeep Liberty CRD in February through April of 2007.
I bought my CRD new (ordered it at a Jeep dealer) and had TC issues from day 1, drving it home from the dealership. 2 failed Mopar TC's later, I dropped Chrysler and went with a SunCoast TC and never looked back. I also bought a new pump and had the Transgo mods done at that time, because Chrysler had never replaced the pump after all of that trash went through my transmission and cooler. I didn't know then how important the valve body mods and new pump was to long transmission life. I know now in detail. More on that at the end of this pm.
In 2011, I was bitten by one of the bad Chrysler filters that split and it caused my OD/UD clutches to slip and burn up in less than 50 miles. Long story short, I took my CRD to SunCoast in Fort Walton Beach, Florida and had Ron rebuilt the entire transmission with all of his upgrades (Altos clutches, billet apply pistons, extra clutches and steels, valve body mods, pump mods, etc) and I've been enjoying it ever since. Ron also disassembled my TC just to see how it was doing and refreshed it with the stronger springs while he was in there. Not that it needed them, as I never had shudder again from May of 2007, not one time, even with an IMSII plus a rail boost mod, producing 415 lb-ft of torque.
I only used the rail boost for a test, to prove/disprove the baloney being put out on LOST at the time by the SunCoast detractors saying it wasn't better than the Euro. It handled the torque without so much as tremor, in fact it felt like it was yawning while handling all that torque, with the original smaller springs. The SunCoast TC has 170% more clutch area and with the same pump pressure, can hold far more torque than the Euro. End of story on that. And yes, it dramatically reduced engine vibrations - so much that I was amazed at the reduction. It was just that much smoother.
I learned quite a bit on what can cause Torque Converter clutch lockup shudder on the 545RFE.
1. Weak TC clutch damper springs. Poor quality springs which weaken over time, as well as inadequate springs to start with on the Mopar parts.
2. Early bore wear on several valves, some on the pump itself and some on the valve body. With the 545RFE, Chrysler moved several valves previously located on the valve body to the pump for more efficient operation. The valve bore wear known to cause the most TC shudder problems are:
a. TC Limit valve on the pump body. Springs are poor quality, known to break early and the bore wears as well. Sonnax/Transgo upgrade kits have hardened steel liners and replacement valves and much higher quality springs that won't wear out early. In the stock pump, early wear causes dragging of TC disengagement when decelerating, as well as shudder on TC lockup.
b. Weak springs and early valve and bore wear on the pump pressure regulator. Sonnax/Transgo kits have hardened steel liners, valves and springs for this also. Loss of hydraulic pressure causes TC and tranny clutch slippage.
c. Valve body early bore wear, especially on the SSV valve, which will cause TC shudder when it leaks fluid into the TC apply circuit, which is the L/R valve, not used in 5th gear, so it's doing doubly duty as the TC apply circuit. Sonnax/Transgo sells oversized SSV valves/better springs and tools to ream the old valve body bores out.
Basically, it all comes down to cost. The 545RFE is a well designe tranny, but cost cutting by Chrysler left it susceptible to early aluminum bore wear which caused these issues. The tranny is one big hyraulic system, electronically controlled and leaking fluid in these valve passages will destroy the clutches, sometimes in far less than 100K miles.
The valve body is so well known for this bore wear that Chrysler actually switched to annodizing all of the 545/68RFE valve bodies from mid 2010 forward.
So, while you're having the SC installed, don't forget to have the pump and valve body modded with all of these upgrade kits. If your shop knows the 545RFE, they'll know about these mods. If they don't, have them look at the Sonnax catalog for the pump TC limit valve, TC accumulator valve and the pressure regulator valve. For the valve body, the SSV and one other valve (the L/R valve and end cap) mod needs to be upgraded as well as the seals on the accumulator pistons upgraded. One other thing that should be done, add a Magnefine filter on the cooler return circuit - it will trap an amazing amount of fine iron particles (sub-micron sized vs 100 micron size trapped by the sump filter) and left over debris. Costs all of $18 on Ebay and works beautifully, will add many years of life to your pump, valve body and clutch packs due to much cleaner fluid. Just google Jim Allen and Magnefine and you'll see what I mean. His tranny UOA tests showed a full 2 levels of ISO particle count reduction with nothing more than just the Magnefine filter added.
Good luck with your upgrade.
Subject: Still in love!!!WWDiesel wrote:
Do not make a expensive mistake; been there done that on my Dodge Cummins. Went through two other TC's before biting the bullet and buying the higher priced Suncoast. Cost of first two TC's and install labor alone would have more than payed for the Suncoast.
Suncoast is a billet TC, much heavier than euro, and it was stated that this will help the CRD engine smooth out the pluses somewhat and it is stronger.
Some on this forum have stated they experienced chatter with a new Euro TC after install.
Mopar Euro TC is rated for 400 ft. lbs. max (~ 542 Nm)
Suncoast CRD-1ES TC is rated for 600 ft. lbs. max (813 Nm)
Huge difference in ratings and I plan to go to a Max tune at some point after Suncoast install.
Will post results after install and evaluation.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
I have tested it fairly hard a couple of times and it shifts and pulls with absolutely no chatter or slippage at full throttle and it runs like a race car! Tested it on several hills at 60 mph and tried to make it break loose to no avail, and Motor definitely does run much smoother at idle, less vibration. Transmission shop owner was so impressed with Jeep he says he thinks he now wants one for himself, he was impressed as to how well it ran during test drives.
Because I really need to save for this upgrade.
