CONCLUSION
Project LBMC is a solid hauling machine. So far, it's taken what we've thrown at it in stride, completing tasks with relative ease and grace. However, if we had it to do all over again, we would consider changing at least one of these things:
Automatic transmission. Maybe. We would like to push this thing a little harder up the mountains while towing heavy (10,000 lbs. plus), but we're nervous about grenading the transmission overdrive with excessive pressure. We have enough power that the transmission won't shift out of overdrive unless we do it manually, which means we have to keep a close eye on our boost pressure to avoid exceeding that threshold where our overdrive will blow. We would consider purchasing a six-speed manual, which should take more abuse than the overdrive in an automatic. Gears. Possibly. We may swap our axle gears to 4:10s to ease a little of that pressure on the overdrive. We'll let you know about this.
Under/Overdrive. Could be amazing. If we add an under/overdrive unit (auxiliary transmission), we will be adding another gear set which will allow us to run in third gear in the transmission (best for strength) and gear up to overdrive speeds through the auxiliary transmission. We'll look into these options and keep you posted.
If you have suggestions or ideas for Project LBMC, e-mail them to dteditor@dieseltechmagazine.com.