our tranny has tiptronic, goes 1,2,3,4 then im guessing "D" is 5th gear....but how come when i put it in first and floor it, i have to switch to second before 5300 RPM? i want it to go to redline then i switch but when i do it skips 2nd and goes straight to 3rd, why is this? and what is a good way to switch gears for best performance in tip mode?

 

2nd and 3rd are pretty close in ratio, the big change is 4th and then 5th... so the idea of a shift is sending as much power to the wheels as possible and for a longer time so the car can accelerate, if by skipping 2nd, you are still right in the upper part of the power band and you feel the car pulling after the shift that is a smart move the tiptronic does, it shifts to the optimal gear even when in manual mode so you don't put too much stress on the engine and tranny...or worse case, for some reason it just skipped a gear, if it keeps on doing it and you feel it's not right (the car falls on it's face after the shift because the rpms go too low) hope you have warranty...

 

My car don't do that, I slap it down to 1st and it won't shift to 2nd till about 6,175 RPM, to 3rd same thing. But I do have the RENNtech tune, I don't know how it would have done before because I didn't go ***** out till the car had 1,000 mile's on it. In 1st gear I can take it all the way up to 5,900 to 6,000 RPM, let off it and it will stay in first.

 

My car has done this on several occasions.....It's not really a consistant though.

 

You think it's possible for RENNtech to tune the motor and tranny all in one flash? That would be awesome if so. I know I was in slap mode once and in first, took it all the way up and went to slow down and it made a hard up shift. If their tune redefined the tranny, it would be worth their higher prices.

 

Mine with no tune won't change either unless it hits the 6,175 rpm.

 

All I know for sure is that my car was a totally different car after installing the RENNtech kit. I do know the S/C kicks in at a lower RPM than OEM, the redline was raised to 6,200 RPM and there is no speed limiter. I believe the ECU controls pretty well everything so tweeking the tranny is probably not out of the question. I don't know if a stock SRT6 will do this, but if I'm following a car at 50ish and I want to pass. If I kick the gas pedal and it down shifts (not touching the shifter) then decide not to pass for some reason the car will stay in the lower gear until I start playing with the gas pedal. I'm not real familure with how a stock SRT6 act's since I installed the RENNtech kit right after buying the car. When I bought my SRT6 I was looking into upgrade's, back then the only options were RENNtech, Evosport & Kleeman. I looked at the price's and said NO F#%*'IN way, three weeks later I was forking out the 3K for the RENNtech kit. If I had it to do over even with the cheaper prices with other performance shops I'd still go with RENNtech, plain and simple they are the leading company in AMG performance and I don't think anybody can argure that fact.

 

Probably either the traction control or transmission adaptive programming are second guessing you. Can you take it to 6k RPM in 2nd? Will first hold to 6k in manual mode when it's not a WOT launch?

 

Why are you shifting it is my first question..?

Let it shift for you. Once you have it in first, just get on it and hang on! The trans will shift when it needs to.

I experienced this at the track as well...and it was caused by wheel spin. If I spun the tires the car would jump into 2nd gear REALLY quick and I wouldn't even notice because the tires were spinning, I'd hit it to shift and I'd be in 3rd.

SQ

 

Steve,

I notice the 'holding a gear' thing too and mine is bone stock (except for the brakes). So I believe this is the 'smart' part of the transmission doing it's job.

I don't manually shift very often unless I feel the need to down shift myself. Usually, that's at a stop and I drop it into first and then let the transmission do the rest. Mostly I don't even have to do that. If you put it in 'S' mode (Summer) it will always start in first gear. If you have it in 'W' mode (Winter) it will always start in 2nd UNLESS you manually put it down in 1st gear prior to 'launch'.

Hope that helps.

 

Yeah, I was kind of in the air about how it would hold in a lower gear like that, the first time it done it I though something broke. Since I really didn't drive it much and it had not done it before I put the kit in it, I thought it may have been part of the ECU tune. When I was questioning RENNtech about what their ECU tune done, I believe they did mention something about the tranny, but it was probably shift points or something like that.

 

If you guys wanna kill your trannys i'd recommend to rev it to redline in any gear, then shift! Why the hell would anyone wanna do this to their crossfires? Are these the same people complaining about all the problems their encountering with their crossfires? I think so!

 

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT??? are you talking about the same unit that bolts up to the engine used for shifting gears or a different one? I wonder if its the one that's built in part by Mclaren rated to handle 700+ ft lbs of torque, and automatically learns to adjust to your driving habits? If its that one the only problems that has ever occurred are fluid contamination and bad o ring. Both of which could kill a tranny if not taken care of. I have not seen anything about an AMG transmission going bad from redlining your car.

 

He drives a different SRT -

Slowly
Roll-into
Throttle...

 

I don't mean to be a smart a$$, but do you understand how the "slap-stick" mode works. It is designed to put it in first gear and just go like hell till the brains of the car tells the tranny to shift. I don't think the regular xfire has the design in the tranny so that if you kick the pedal down to pass a car and then let off for some reason it will stay in the lower gear till you are ready to go for it, thus the - Street & Racing Technology.

 

When I shift "manually", and I'm hard into the throttle, even if I shift early, the trans will not shift to the next gear until right at redline! The trans shifts where it "thinks" is the best point to optimize performance for the way the car is being driven.

 

All I know for sure is that my car was a totally different car after installing the RENNtech kit. I do know the S/C kicks in at a lower RPM than OEM, the redline was raised to 6,200 RPM and there is no speed limiter.

How fast does it go now without the speed limiter of 158 mph?

 

It's seen 186 mph and still pulling pretty good when I let off, it was taching around 5,700 maybe 5,800 RPM. Help me find a place somewhere close to southern Indiana to open it up legally and we'll see if it would hit the 200 mark.

 

How's about the brick yard?

Coyote

 

Please sell your car rite now and buy a Pacifica. I can't stand to see/hear people that buy SRT(STREET AND RACING TECHNOLOGY) vehicles and putt around in them like an old grandma all the time. These cars were built to take a beating and that's exactly what they deserve.