Trans upgrade. dont know where to start
 

I have a 1997 F350 7.3 with the E40D with 4.10 gears on 8" of lift and 39.5 Toyo Open country M/Ts with 165k on it. runs like a champ. it has a perfect body. the tranny shifts smooth, doesnt slam gears, torque converter locks up great. and i want to keep it that way.

IHAVE a 4" exhaust. Cold air intake. my plan is to make the truck extremely reliable.

I KNOW I WANT to do a 4 gauge pillar with Boost,HPOP,Trans temp, and EGT. i want to run a TS 6 POS with a mild tow haul tune. and an intercooler to keep the EGT'S down


I THINK I WANT a big tranny cooler, a valve body and Accumulator body from MTS diesel with a reflash of the TS to support the transkit . how ever i have read and read and read and i dont know what each really accomplishes and weather or not they will keep my E40D in good shape.

is what i want ok. or am i missing the Point to keep that E40D alive for another 165k miles

help me out, brent

You can never go wrong with a larger transmission cooler. Smooth shifting is actually what wears these transmissions out. You don't want it to slam into each gear, but it should shift firmly and that will extend the transmission life. One thing I've always used on both my 93 and my 95 is a B&M shift improver. It firms up the shifts, although it doesn't change the shift pattern. A shift kit will do that. They're only 40 bucks and connect with two wires. It takes 20 minutes to install. It has three modes; daily driving, towing and off. I've been using them for eight years. Also, I change my transmission fluid and filter every two years. That's based on 10 to 15,000 miles per year. Keeping an eye on transmission temperatures during towing or hauling a heavy load will definitely extend the life of your transmission.

To build an E4OD that will last and put up with the abuse of a modded diesel really requires it to be torn down. I typically add an additional clutch disc to the forward, intermediate and low/reverse clutches when I build them. There are also a few cooling and lube mods that need to be done to the pump and center support.

But, you can do the valve bodies and it will help, but by themselves they are a bandaid. If you wanted to do them yourself, I recommend the Superior Power Tow kit. That will come with all of the valves and springs you'll need to mod both your accumulator body and main valve body.

The B&M resistor sets do work, but, as a rule, I'm not a fan of electronically manipulating the line pressure.

Didn't they upgrade the hydraulic pump to a larger diameter input shaft in 1995? I thought I read that somewhere. Either way, is there a better pump out there that would be a good upgrade for the E4OD?

There's nothing wrong with the E4OD pump itself. There is a key lubrication modification that should be made to the pump housing, but the pump itself performs just fine.

Ford did add a ball bearing to the center support in '95, which required a redesigned intermediate shaft, but the input shaft has always been the same.