Holden Jackaroo / Isuzu Trooper - 4L30-E Automatic Transmission with Torque Pro OBD-2

  A few things I have done to improve the Holden Jackaroo (aka Isuzu Trooper) UBS-26 4WD. Holden Jackaroo is built by Isuzu Japan, which is owned by General Motors. Hence, the 6EV1 engine designed by GM, but fortunately it is built in an Isuzu factory in Japan. 

January 2023 - I finally got the Torque Pro OBD2 App to give me the Automatic Transmission information, most importantly, the Automatic Transmission Fluid Temperature (ATFT)  data, I been mucking around with it for a couple years, but finally got it to work, I found some extra clues on the IzuzuPlanet discussion forum, there been talk for a long while, but some details were misconstruded, I guess some people quote  details, as generalizations without making specific  and exact references to specific models/year ranges etc.

For my vehicle, a 2002 build,  with a 3.5litre V6 petrol (6VE1 32bit) built in Japan, with a Borg Warner 4speed (4L30-E 32bit) Automatic Transmission, built in Strasbourg, France, there were slight variations of the OBD2 codes. Anyway, I can now measure the ATFT and see how it behaves under different driving conditions. Under extreme 4WDing on very hot days, it was hard to tell if I pushing the auto to its limits or past its limits, but in testing during summer I got  to do some road tests, put it under heavy load on hot days to get the tests results I needed to see, to then know what I needed to do to improve cooling performance of both engine and automatic transmission. I can now get the Air Fuel Ratio (AFR) data as well.  You don't want unnecessary extra fuel being consumed.

Basically, I learnt from the specifications that this 4WD designed to  cover a wide range, but realistically, in terms of engine cooling  and auto transmission cooling, it is really meant to be used in cold climates,  that running in hot climates like Australia, you pushing it to the limits and shortening the life of the engine and auto transmission and I think this is probably the case for most cars and 4WD's, the operating range and emissions controls are designed specifically for cold climates like Siberia, or northern Japan, or Canada, you can pick the deliberate things they did.  So for running this in above Zero degree C conditions (0-50degreeC) is a good range  for Australian conditions, then you can modify things to work better for this range.

What did I do:

1. cold boxing the air intake system to reduce manifold air intake temperature, running 20 degrees above ambient is ridiculous in Australia,  pre-heating the air is great for Siberia, but is bad for Australian conditions  causing the engine to chew more fuel.

2. replaced the ageing radiator, with a full aluminum radiator with dual tube, 40mm core, instead of 26mm core. Using two x 12inch high power Davies Craig fans (22amp @ 13.8V each) pulling air, giving 2500CFM, controlled via thermostat control box.

3. added Plate and tube oil transmission cooler from Davies Craig with 8inch fan pulling air, fitted in series with radiator feedline. This is recommended for towing, but equally important for 4WD'ing, as climbing mountain tracks causes a big load on the transmission and raises the fluid temperature very fast.

The engine temp sits in low 80's driving along open road, the fans kick in at 85 deg C, pulling it straight back to 80deg C within a minute,  The ATFT runs in the 70's deg C on flat open road,  the fan kicks in at 88deg going up hills and pulls the temperature back to the low 80's. Now I should not need to keep stopping when driving up mountains.

on this day, is after installing new 40mm core radiator, ambient temperature was 35degreesC,  the engine doing great, but ATFT shot up to 114 degreesC after coming up a long hill at 70km/h  it took 10minutes on flat road before it dropped again. AFR 14.7%  good, considering it was hot & humid day.

this is testing on another hot day, after installing the auto transmission oil cooler,  it was only a short trip to find some steep hills to get the ATFT up, got to 88degreesC  and 8inch fan kicked in.

here is PID Editor in Torque Prod app,  to get ATFT  you need a PID of 221940, Min is 0 degC, Max is 200degC, Equation is A-40   and Header value is 6c18f1(hex) 

NOTE: depending on the Holden Jackaroo model and year, (same applies to Holden Rodeo) you may need to use  Header code of 6c18f1   or  try 6c10f1 (hex)

In summary, if you have a 4WD and using it for off road activity where you driving  on bush tracks and mountains and doing a lot of low speed driving and it has a auto transmission, then I recommend you add an transmission oil cooler, preferably with a fan and thermostat control to reduce the heat build up. If the 4WD is older then radiator may have reduced efficiency due to clogging of tubes due to build up, then when its times to replace it, get a higher performance radiator with thicker core.

covid lockdown update in NSW

 since NSW been in lockdown since mid-June, I taken opportunity of having the 4wd in the garage and in pieces, doing lots of upgrade and modifications including, fixing  12v DC cabling for radios, doing measurements of DC cable feed losses to radio with load and without load, one thing I discovered was that I had added  two big 60amp  relays evenly feeding the radios in the car, these are switched via the Accessories switching 12v direct from battery feed, via  300amp distribution box  (which feeds battery to radios, spotlights and radiator cooling fans, essentially additional high current devices not handled by main fusebox) to the radios and split by the two relays to share the load between all the radios. Looking at volts at the battery and measuring  at the radio, I only seeing  a couple hundred mV losses end to end, at full TX power,  most of that loss is across the relay. The 4GA cable is doing its job. I did add two new brass battery terminal connectors to replace the crappy terminal connectors supplied by Isuzu.

Realistically, I could have fed all the radios via one relay, as I not expecting to run multiple radios at once, even though two radios are for VHF & HF APRS,  but they are short term bursts of Tx, anyway,  I played safe by having two 60amp relays in case  a relay failed, then I don't lose all communications, which is very important if travelling in the outback. Having overkill on the relays means not pitting contacts from on-off keying of relays  every time I go in the car.  The idea of the relays was ability to isolate radios from power,  i.e I don't want a radio to fail or have it keying up by itself when the car is parked, so if I not in the car, then all radios are isolated, same applies to all other electronics in the car, isolated when  switched off.

Also replaced some older antenna sockets, they manage to get moisture in the SO-239 bases, the gold centre pin plating gets tarnished, replaced them, now  distant repeaters are much better in signal strength.

Did some more under body coating with Tar based paint,  it 's to reduce the pitting of underbody frame and panels from driving on dirt roads, the paint inside the rear bumper looked like 20 years of sandblasting. I first cleaned it all up with high pressure water cleaner, repainted with satin black rust guard, then coated over with Tar paint. This should slow down the damage to underbody paintwork from driving on dirt roads. I also custom made some smaller mud flaps to go underneath, minimize rocks flying up and hitting things, particularly  to protect things like brake and fuel lines and wiring  near fuel tank.

Looking forward to lockdown ending one day, so I can take the 4wd out in the country. The guys in my local radio club itching to go away somewhere too. Hopefully, we can coincide a trip away with a radio contest.

Modifications for the TYT TH-9800 FM quad-bander mobile transceiver

These TH-9800  quad band FM transceivers  (a clone of the Yaesu FT-8900 transceiver) have an issue of blowing the transmit driver FET.  I have documented a modification to fix this, as it would be a considerable amount of work to replace the drive FET, or even the PA FET for that matter. Easier to do the mod and run at less output power, better than having a dead tx PA. It basically adding a 8v (7808) regulator into the supply circuit for the Driver FET,  which is fed hot from the 13.8v DC input.

http://www.qsl.net/vk2kfj/th9800.html

Reducing RFI from your vehicle for operating mobile

I have documented the modifications to my 4WD  vehicle that I use for mobile and portable operation. It was only that in past year I have decided to operate HF, whereas in the past I only ever had VHF and UHF equipment, so RFI radiating out and also from within the vehicle was not so much of a problem, but is more so for HF.  My web page includes photos.

http://www.qsl.net/vk2kfj/holden_jackaroo.html

4th October, 2015 - my first 3.4Ghz contact, 0110 to 0115 UTC, worked VK2JDS and VK2AVR/p , distance 500 metres at QF46, we finished modifications and tested our transverter units that came from Geelong ARC, .75w o/p FM, 60/9 signals at each end, ready to do some serious 3.4 GHz terrestrial activity. Now have 1296Mhz, 3.4GHz and 10Ghz transverters ready to go.

http://vk3atl.org/3400.php

Kenwood TR9130 and TR9500 modifications

I finally got a round to documenting some mods I did to my Kenwood TR-9130 2metre All-Mode trasceiver and TR-9500 70cm All-mode transceiver.  Basically I replaced the incandescant lamp with green LEDs to provide a better backlit Signal meter, plus some other improvements.


see the modifications here on my website:

http://www.qsl.net/vk2kfj/tr9130_tr9500.html