Blown head gasket 8.9 liter near knoxville,TN

[Old Bird]

I'll cast my vote for the 6-5 jake downshift, as well. It usually gives just the right amount of braking when a need to bleed off a little speed (moderate traffic with varying speed) is necessary without having to manually downshift or use the brakes. If I'm going 70 or over (a rare instance), I turn the jake off to prevent over-revving when I take my foot off the gas.
I also manually shift my coach when in heavy traffic, using a gear that keeps the engine around 1,800 rpm. That prevents lugging the engine down and constant gear changes; it also gives me enough engine braking effect to prevent brake usage as traffic slows.

[golfster]

Sign me up for the reprogramming for 6 to 5 or stay in 6th. What happens with jake if I'm manually in 4th and I take my foot off the gas after I have it reprogrammed? I assume the jack still works but there is no need for it to shift. Until I get the change done, I will be careful when using the jack in 6th gear.

[Shawnthegrasshopper]

This Post Definitely Morphed into Something Different from a Blown Head Gasket…
Maybe Move to its Own Thread?

I Had Bandy Change My Shift from 5th to 6th on My LXI and I have to Say

I Love It!!

Look at it this way Cruising @70+ And with The Jake Set on Manual, Lift The Throttle and Rpm Stays Around 1500-1600 and In Traffic Slows Bus Just Enough That it Doesn’t Run Away.
Our Busses are Heavy and Need Some Hold Back in Traffic.

Set To Brake Activated Up and Down hills Awesome, No Spike in RPM.

I’m Headed Back Home From My Southern Fall Journey Trying to Beat This Snow Coming and Traveling From SOWEGA Thru The Carolina’s and the Real Test is 81 Thru Virginia and Pa.

If You Think You Need to Stop Sooner by Dropping a Gear DO SO, But Really You Need to Stand On The Binders Harder!

[Hellcat]

The final ratio difference between 5th and 6th is so small I’m surprised it makes a noticeable difference.

[Shawnthegrasshopper]

Originally Posted by Hellcat

The final ratio difference between 5th and 6th is so small I’m surprised it makes a noticeable difference.

Yep No More Clenched Butt Cheeks From Skyrocketed RPM’s!

[Robert Britton]

My Prevost Jake was programed for 6th, at first I thought I would reprogram to 5th but after driving it for a while I really learned to appreciate it the way it was set up. What I found was that many times when traveling down the interstate I would momentarily let off on the throttle to let a big rig or whatever into my lane with no downshift followed by an immediate upshift as soon as I applied some throttle if it would have downshifted into 5th, or to just ease off and coast up to a stop light, with the transmission downshifting on its own assisted by the Jake. Gone were the downshifts that were too aggressive for what I was trying to accomplish. It makes for a much smoother driving experience and when heading down a grade I would already be in my preselected gear for the grade so the Jake just did it thing effortlessly.

[NoGas]

Originally Posted by Robert Britton

My Prevost Jake was programed for 6th, at first I thought I would reprogram to 5th but after driving it for a while I really learned to appreciate it the way it was set up. What I found was that many times when traveling down the interstate I would momentarily let off on the throttle to let a big rig or whatever into my lane with no downshift followed by an immediate upshift as soon as I applied some throttle if it would have downshifted into 5th, or to just ease off and coast up to a stop light, with the transmission downshifting on its own assisted by the Jake. Gone were the downshifts that were too aggressive for what I was trying to accomplish. It makes for a much smoother driving experience and when heading down a grade I would already be in my preselected gear for the grade so the Jake just did it thing effortlessly.

Agree totally. Have run with my 6th gear EB for a decade now and hard for me to recall how risky that Auto 4th function was. For those who drive less steep hills at speed the M380’s “wimpy” EB works beautifully to scrub a few mph off or avoid further speed build up. Many times just going between Low & High (3 vs 6 cyl) is enough to do the trick without dropping to 5th. Bet some new owners never realized there is a high-low switch or had no use for it because theirs is still set for 4th. Of course using the brakes momentarily to get the coach in 5th or 4th speed “range” is always an option, especially should I mis-judge the steepness of a hill. For the M380, 65-50-35-20 mph seems to work well as recommended engagement speeds for 5-4-3-2 gears. NOT having the “computer” do its thing at unexpected times is priceless (maybe not $500 priceless but…). Now if Andy could figure out a way to incorporate Elon’s FSD into a 20 YO Bird, that’d be . Btw - My BlueFire shows both Selected and Engaged gear and I sometimes find that handy.

[Randy Dupree]

Originally Posted by Robert Britton

My Prevost Jake was programed for 6th, at first I thought I would reprogram to 5th but after driving it for a while I really learned to appreciate it the way it was set up. What I found was that many times when traveling down the interstate I would momentarily let off on the throttle to let a big rig or whatever into my lane with no downshift followed by an immediate upshift as soon as I applied some throttle if it would have downshifted into 5th, or to just ease off and coast up to a stop light, with the transmission downshifting on its own assisted by the Jake. Gone were the downshifts that were too aggressive for what I was trying to accomplish. It makes for a much smoother driving experience and when heading down a grade I would already be in my preselected gear for the grade so the Jake just did it thing effortlessly.

Well said Robert.

[1984Lodge]

Andy gave me some valuable information about the max RPMs of the series 60 with the jakes on, but I cannot remember it now. But the moral of the story is that the max RPM with the jakes on is higher than the running max RPMs. Let’s take this over to Andy’s thread about Detroit and Allison programming and I am going to see if he can answer the question of max RPM.

[sceptre155]

Would make sense, I would think pressures in the cylinders would be less without fuel. But I'm no expert. Yeah... this thread changed gears eh?? lol