Button shifted F350

Coxey Diesel · Jan 27, 2013

That's sweet!

George4 · Jan 27, 2013

UNLIMITED_DIESEL said:
A write up would be awesome. Great Job Dan!

+1 on a write up

FrankTheTank · Jan 27, 2013

Awesome! Thats all i can say.

Dieselboy. · Jan 29, 2013

Not much to a write up, but here are some pics

Here are the different clock springs. The black one is the stock XL one.

This is the plugs under the dash, you can see the 4 wires pulled for the digital inputs and common

Another angle of the 4 pins, Arm, Upshift, Downshift, Common

This is the end of the wiring harness from the clock spring that I connected my Digital inputs to.

This is where I ran the wires into the cab for all my PCS stuff

4 Digital inputs ran from the PCS into the cab

Just before putting the airbag on, Dave modified this. Im guessing he connected it so the resumer button sends power to the on/off. Ill let him fill us in.

Finished

This is a screenshot of my Digital input screen and how its setup via programming. It correlates which input to what button, active hi or low for power and a reverse logic.
Pretty strait foward, as PCS has taken the guess work out of it. Basically was as simple as swapping wheels and hooking up wires.
Dave did modify the steering wheel as you can see in one pic. I had to hunt for a proper clockspring as the 99-01 are different from the 02 and up. The new one is from an 05.
The hardest part was getting the old wheel off.

Wackerjr · Jan 29, 2013

why not just tap the wires coming out of the bottom of the column, and not use the second clock spring?? Seems as though you could use the rt side buttons with the cruise disabled, and not have to go through all the extra work.... Just wondering

FrankTheTank · Jan 29, 2013

I dont think his orginal wheel had cruse... it was an XL.

Dieselboy. · Jan 29, 2013

Yes. Was originally an xl truck.

Dieselboy. · Feb 3, 2013

This is my next project. I had these custom made, they will work with the dash lights and illuminate blue, and then will light up when selected on.

I will be putting them in my f650 dash.

George4 · Feb 3, 2013

sweet. What is calibration b?

Dieselboy. · Feb 3, 2013

George4 said:
sweet. What is calibration b?

The pcs has 2 calibrations per file. So I have my daily driver file as A. And calibration b could have altered shift and tc strategies for towing, drag racing, sled pull or just different daily file.

ColtonP · Feb 3, 2013

Awesome!

Vader's Fury · Feb 4, 2013

Who did you have them made by? If you can not post it, can you pm me.

I need some switches like this for my project.

HD F250 · Feb 4, 2013

Very cool!

Charles · Feb 4, 2013

Wackerjr said:
why not just tap the wires coming out of the bottom of the column, and not use the second clock spring?? Seems as though you could use the rt side buttons with the cruise disabled, and not have to go through all the extra work.... Just wondering

Also because those are more complex to use as they aren't discrete switches but a multiplex unit instead. Each of those buttons (resume, set, coast) is simply a resistance to ground of differing values in a resistor network that the pcm reads in through an ADC. IIRC, the static value for that input is like 6.6 volts on a pull up resistor. When you hit "On" it goes to a regulated 10v. When you hit "off" it pulls it to ground, so those are easy. But the other three just drop it below 6.6 by various amounts, like 4.xx, 2.xx and 1.xx volts or something similar although the actual values slip my mind right now.

Regardless, point being, to use the other three you'd probably need a module between the two with an ADC or a voltage based trigger to output 3 discrete lines to the PCS. I don't know if the PCS has anything built in that could do that work for you, although I guess it might.

Dieselboy. · Feb 4, 2013

Vader's Fury said:
Who did you have them made by? If you can not post it, can you pm me.

I need some switches like this for my project.

Had them made by jim@OTRATTW. Was 80$ for all 4 with the mount

Charles I was waiting for you to chime in.
I recently acquired a sensor to reference boost with. I'm going to install that to tune line pressure.
Wondering if you could chime in on the MAP/MAF selection. I can only go as high as 59.5psi but I'm sure you see more then that

Charles · Feb 5, 2013

Dieselboy. said:
Had them made by jim@OTRATTW. Was 80$ for all 4 with the mount

Charles I was waiting for you to chime in.
I recently acquired a sensor to reference boost with. I'm going to install that to tune line pressure.
Wondering if you could chime in on the MAP/MAF selection. I can only go as high as 59.5psi but I'm sure you see more then that

I run a 60lb sensor because even though the truck makes more power higher, by 60lbs I can call for the full line and it will be good enough for the remaining boost rise beyond without banging hard at 60. If I went to a 100lb sensor I would lose good resolution at low boost and the truck would be ill-shifting around town unable to discern between say 5 and 10lbs of boost very well.

I thought about running a 75 and may still.

Looks like you did well on the buttons, but from a human factors engineering standpoint I can't help but point out that at full power those buttons will be going from 9'oclock to 3'oclock, back to 7'oclock, so on and so forth while you're skiing around at 50+mph. Good luck chasing them around that wheel to make an upshift, lol.

The old, spin, spin, spin, spin while rolling the wheel back and forth, chopping the throttle and stabbing third gear isn't going to happen IMO. If I kept my hand over those buttons I'd be putting the nose of the truck through the ditch shortly thereafter because if my left hand is at 9'oclock, I can only cut the wheel about 45 degrees left before my elbow gets caught on my side. So the first time the ass swings back left I'm going into the right ditch, lol.

Which explains the only reason I've never put shift controls on the steering area. Cars that do that also have a steering ratio that allows lock to lock to happen in like 2 revs or less. Often times much less. Our trucks are like 3 turns lock to lock. You have to move your steering hand through a huge range of motion to control the truck.

For hauling ass I would have a second set of controls that my right hand could actuate separate from the wheel that's spinning violently left and right chasing the ass of the truck.

Vader's Fury · Feb 5, 2013

A hand held plow controller would be fun.....

Palm the wheel with your left hand and shift with the right.

George4 · Feb 5, 2013

Dieselboy. said:
Charles I was waiting for you to chime in.
I recently acquired a sensor to reference boost with. I'm going to install that to tune line pressure.
Wondering if you could chime in on the MAP/MAF selection. I can only go as high as 59.5psi but I'm sure you see more then that

Not to get too far off of subject, but are you guys upgrading your MAP to read higher numbers? How high will the stock MAP read? I am intreasted because I would like to keep reading boost from my MAP on my Livewire instead of adding anouther gauge. I did not see a MAP/MAF selection, maybe I am blind. Can you post a link to where you are talking about this? Thanks