Torque Management (TM):
In this final section we will deal with Torque Management, or TM as its called are settings that are on both the
engine side of the tune
and the trans side of the tune for A4s. M6 cars do not have trans side TM in the tune. For those that dont know TM is something GM added to the tune to dial back the engine timing during shifts and also add a shift time delay. This helps protect the trans from breakage but also makes for slow shifts and with timing being pulled and RWHP reduced because of it TM can put a serious hindrance on performance. Most modern vehicles have TM. For reference the stock torque rating for the 4L60E is 360 ft/lbs and 380 ft/lbs for the 65E. I personally dont recommend more than a 50% reduction of TM on a stock trans. Some people go further. 75% is fairly common and some even pull it out all together 100%. As far as a built trans, let it all hang out. Thats what they are for. On my trans I have it pulled out 100% since it is built to take the abuse. As far as how much
YOU should pull out, well thats up to your personal preference. Do some research and be careful with your decisions. That being said lets get to it. In the "
Transmission" section, find your way over to the "
Torque Management" tab. Find the "
Torque Reduction" area and there you'll find the "
Torque Reduction vs Torque vs Shift" button or something along those lines. Unfortunately I dont remember what it says because 2.23 Beta has it listed as "
Pattern X". This will be one of the main TM variables. There are a few others but this one makes the largest impact. Maybe someone can post up with what its called in 2.22 and I'll amend this write up. The pic below is from my stock tune:
Now the reason people say "-x%" is because these numbers are kind of arbitrary and dont really work out to be 1-100 in scale. So basically, looking at the 230 ft/lb area on the sixth box in for the 1>2 shift you'll see an 8. Obviously, a -50% reduction for that box would be 4. If you are going to do -50% then do it across the board. So, -50% on the first set of numbers 8, 11, 20 would be 4, 5.5, 10...etc. Now as far as the 5.5 thing HPT wont let you enter that so I usually would round up so 4, 6, 10...etc. If you want to go -100% drop 0s in every box.
Next lets check out "
Abuse Mode". This is something the tune will reference if it feels like its getting the Ike Turner treatment. Here we have "
Torque Reduction" and "
Reduction Duration" buttons. Pop em open and lets see whats inside:
Lets go ahead and leave the Duration vs Trans Temp completely alone for all % reductions except 100%. If your taking out
all TM then 0 out this entire table. Next we see the Trans Abuse Mode Torque Reduction vs RPM at the top right of the pic. Just like the Torque Reduction vs Shift from before if you are going to pull out a % of TM the the 90, 100, 100...etc would be 45, 50, 50...etc down the line for -50%. Once again if you are taking out all TM then 0 out the entire table.
Next we'll go over to the "
TCC Limit" area and you'll see the Tq Reduction drop down
disabled. Under that, you'll see an are where you can enter in the max torque numbers. This is the maximum TCC limit torque. If you have an aftermarket quality converter lets max this out by entering the max possible value in the box, with my car it says that its 6042. It can be found in the lower right corner of the window:
There we have it! Thats my write up. I trust that everything I have put in here is spot on accurate but as always I am open to any and all criticism. This entire thing came off the top of my head and if I missed something I'd like to hear it so I can add it in. Thanks to the members of LS2GTO.com, HPT forums and LS1Tech. Its where I gathered all of my info over the last couple years and if I can give back then I'm more then happy to because without all of us working together and sharing knowledge this hobby is flat hard to figure out sometimes. Good luck with your trans tunes and take things slow until you fully learn the ropes and what you are doing. There is a little more elbow room doing trans tunes for the first time since its a bit harder to blow things up like you can easily with motor tunes. Have at it!
Cheers