Installed a Tremec Magnum XL in my S550

[Angrey]

Hello Magnum XL swappers! I'm planning my swap and most likely going to get everything through Modern Driveline. My car currently has a Whipple stage 2 kit on it running on the Whipple tune. I know tuning changes are needed to run the Magnum with the different gear ratios and a few other things.

I have zero complaints about the Whipple tune. Car makes great power and runs awesome. I've been debating what to do in regards to the tune and my question is around HP Tuners. I think I'd be comfortable making the tuning changes myself if someone can steer me in the right direction.

Does anyone here know exactly what needs to be changed if using HP tuners? I'm assuming gear ratios somewhere, but there is also talk about 'shift assist' and making cruise control work. Just trying to avoid having to go with a pricey third party tune. Appreciate any info!

If you have a 2017, bowler makes an add on harness that's a workaround, and that would be the easiest solution.

If you're set on making changes in the actual tune, someone else would have to chime in, as you still need a physical harness/adapter to communicate from the trans to the computer, from there, it becomes geek speak.

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[J17GT]

If you have a 2017, bowler makes an add on harness that's a workaround, and that would be the easiest solution.

If you're set on making changes in the actual tune, someone else would have to chime in, as you still need a physical harness/adapter to communicate from the trans to the computer, from there, it becomes geek speak.

My understanding of the bowler harness is that it handles reverse lights, reverse lock-out and vehicle speed sensor so the speedo is correct. I do not believe it will address the trans gear ratio changes and potentially the 'shift assist' rev hang, torque management settings or cruise control.

 

[Angrey]

My understanding of the bowler harness is that it handles reverse lights, reverse lock-out and vehicle speed sensor so the speedo is correct. I do not believe it will address the trans gear ratio changes and potentially the 'shift assist' rev hang, torque management settings or cruise control.

I didn't realize 2017 came with rev matching. If you have rev matching, then yes, from what I've heard it's a problem.

As far as cruise control and such, the harness is meant to trick the computer or arrange the sensor signals so that the computer thinks the original trans is still there. The box does as you say and sends an adjusted setting to correct for speed, etc.

I guess I'm confused because prior to the 2019, the swap is pretty simple and straight forward. Do you have a different ECU or something?

 

[J17GT]

I didn't realize 2017 came with rev matching. If you have rev matching, then yes, from what I've heard it's a problem.

As far as cruise control and such, the harness is meant to trick the computer or arrange the sensor signals so that the computer thinks the original trans is still there. The box does as you say and sends an adjusted setting to correct for speed, etc.

I guess I'm confused because prior to the 2019, the swap is pretty simple and straight forward. Do you have a different ECU or something?

I don't mean rev matching. What I'm referring to is how the car lowers the rpms to just the right place between upshifts. All swaps for my model years complain about rev hang problems between shifts and it's worked out via tuning.

 

[Tricky Dickey]

You’ll still have to have the tune fixed for cruise and good luck with that. Mine never worked and I had the Bowler box. Some people do from what I understand but mine never was right. I’m auto swapped now.

 

[Ruiner46]

@J17GT You don't need the bowler harness or any other conversion box if you have HP Tuners. I changed my tune myself and the car runs fine with cruise working and no issues. I have datalogged the VSS and it is accurate. I can give you a list of the exact changes to make depending on which gear ratio you buy. I disabled the rev hang in my Whipple tune. It's worth noting that I don't use Whipple's power by gear feature, so I can't say whether it will still work after the swap.

You will need to wire the Tremec speed sensor into the harness correctly, along with the reverse light. The new speed sensor is 2-wire, and the factory harness is 3-wire. You don't need the power wire in the factory harness, just the signal and ground. You will also need a way to deal with the reverse lockout. For me, I ordered a lockout delete which just replaces it with a stiff spring to keep out of reverse. The lockout delete also makes install easier because you don't have to clearance the tunnel.

Regarding the last posts in this thread before the recent bump, I never gave an update. I had issues with the MMR trigger wheel and measured thickness variations just as bad as aleccolin leading to excessive flywheel runout. I returned it and went back to the stock wheel. I got my clutch and flywheel balanced as an assembly, and now I have no vibration issues. Highly recommend checking out the clutch and flywheel to anyone who does an install so you don't have to install the trans twice...

 

[J17GT]

@Ruiner46 I don’t have HP Tuners yet, but would be possibly willing to give it a shot. I don’t use the reduce power by gear feature at all with the Whipple tune. I’m getting the wide ratio magnum 2.97, 2.10, 1.43, 1, .80, .63. I might change my 3.73 rear gears out for 4.09s.

Would be great to see the settings you change in HP tuners for it all to work. As I mentioned, I’m completely satisfied with the Whipple tune and would only change what is necessary for the magnum to work. Thanks man!

 

[Ruiner46]

Here are the tune differences from HPTuners for my car. Changes are shown highlighted on the green fields.

First is the nominal gear ratio tables in the transmission tab. My car is the close ratio, so here you would enter your numbers for the wide ratio. You can also see where I disabled the gear shift hang. This table says automatic transmission in the description for some reason, but I changed them anyway.

Next is the gear ratio min max values. For this, I calculated the percentage above and below the nominal values in the stock tune. Then I applied this percentage to the new gear ratios to arrive at these numbers.

I ran the same calculation on the wide ratios, and these are the values that I recommend:

Finally is the VSS Pulses per rev, located in the Speedo tab. Change from 34 to 12.

 

[J17GT]

@Ruiner46 this is awesome! Thank you! Seems pretty straight forward. Any changes to torque management? I saw over on the HP Tuners forums that some guys were having issues torque control or torque management.

 

[aleccolin]

FWIW, based on some digging I did previously, it doesn't appear that the VSS being either calibrated incorrectly, or unplugged altogether, will prevent your speedo from working. The ECU uses multiple inputs, the primary one being from the wheel speed sensors. It uses the VSS in conjunction for stability control, etc. The VSS should really be more considered an output shaft speed sensor, which it's actually referred to as such in a few places I saw.

 

[Ruiner46]

@Ruiner46 this is awesome! Thank you! Seems pretty straight forward. Any changes to torque management? I saw over on the HP Tuners forums that some guys were having issues torque control or torque management.

I made no changes to the torque tables. I am not a tuner and those tables scare me. I drove the car long enough to break in the clutch, and make sure nothing was wrong. Now it's in my garage having a return fuel system, injectors, and headers installed, so I'll be switching to a custom tune soon.

 

[Plimmer]

@Ruiner46 this is awesome! Thank you! Seems pretty straight forward. Any changes to torque management? I saw over on the HP Tuners forums that some guys were having issues torque control or torque management.

I made the same changes when I swapped to a magnum. I didn’t have to make any torque management changes.

If you are getting torque management issues after the swap you could disable the gearbox protection and driveshaft protection, etc to see if that makes the problem go away.

Also, I made a cheap push button on a timer to activate the reverse solenoid. But the solenoid elimination might be better because it gives more clearance.

Last thing to recommend to you is get a QA1 driveshaft. Don’t waste your time with cheap junk from DSS, it won’t be balanced and it will vibrate like crazy.

 

[J17GT]

I made the same changes when I swapped to a magnum. I didn’t have to make any torque management changes.

If you are getting torque management issues after the swap you could disable the gearbox protection and driveshaft protection, etc to see if that makes the problem go away.

Also, I made a cheap push button on a timer to activate the reverse solenoid. But the solenoid elimination might be better because it gives more clearance.

Last thing to recommend to you is get a QA1 driveshaft. Don’t waste your time with cheap junk from DSS, it won’t be balanced and it will vibrate like crazy.

I did get the QA1 driveshaft as I have one on the car now. Wouldn’t consider any others!

 

[Slomar]

Hello Taylor, No it wouldn't have worked. I called them also. It turns out that the problem is with the Rev. match. The MT82 D4 has a six wire plug coming off of a sensor mounted to the side of the transmission case that works in conjunction with a strong magnet located on the inside of the transmission that tells the PCM what gear it is in and/or what gear the driver is attempting to put it in when downshifting and the PCM then "blips" the throttle to match the speed of the transmission so the downshift is smoother and easier to achieve. It sounds complicated and it is confusing but basically there is no way for the Tremec to provide all of the data to the cars PCM to make it all work together and because the missing data is shared with so many other things you loose so much functionality that it just simply is not worth the trouble. Tremec makes probably the best transmissions in the world and the T56 Magnum XL is no exception. However, because of the newest technology that Ford wants to keep as secret as long as possible, no other transmission will work in place of the MT82 D4 for the 2019 Mustang and I feel safe to say any transmission with the Rev. match option.

What about a 2019 going from a 10r80 to a t56 ?

 

[tamadrummer1120]

Quick update for those that might be more visual guys... This is a simple sketch up of how I ran my wiring for this module. It follows the instructions posted above by @db252 but gives you a little cheat sheet. Please note: I chose not to use the VBPWR from the ECM because I thought it was a bad idea to supply the reverse lockout solenoid power through the ECM. Others may disagree, and I am ok with that. It is obviously a lot easier to use the power that is already down there, but I would rather be safe than sorry when it comes to the factory computer. I used a Bussman Add-a-Fuse to a switched 12VDC source (Fuse F38 in the engine compartment), and ran a new power wire to the RED wire on the Bowler. I then inserted the 3A fuse provided with the Bowler unit into my Add-a-Fuse opening. Please review and comment if anyone sees anything wrong. Also, I did this for my TR6060, but it applies to both transmissions.

I had a quick question about the wiring end. I am installing my 6060 this week and I have bowler harness which is identical for the t56.

1. I do not recall any plug for a "skip shift" solenoid on my 2017 mt82, was that eliminated by then? I assume the tr6060 doesn't have that useless feature.

2. Sorry for my ignorance but I removed my MT82 a couple months back and I sold it to a local guy who needed one so I cant recall but is there only an OSS and Reverse connectors on the vehicle end? I had a buddy over and didn't want to take too much time up so we were trying to get it out quickly.

3. Specific to the diagram made above, BN-BU is just the 3rd wire on the OSS needing a new chassis ground right? It says in their manual the signal ground can just be capped and not used. Any reason you couldnt just run the bowler unit ground wire and this BN-BU unit together and ground them as a single wire?

Thanks

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