E40D Update

I have been overhauling E40D's, for about 5 years now, and this time, I have found some "tricks" that work, and.... a few that do not. This is the way, with repair. The vehicles come in, and, unfortunately, until I have had the opportunity to overhaul many, I really do not know where a particular transmission's "strengths and weaknesses" lie. My E40D page details out the "high points" that I do to every E40D, but, lately, Ford has become "smarter" and has built in some checks, within the computer strategy, that has turned out to be incompatible with the ATG E-pak that I have been installing, previously, with huge success.

Routine

I had an E40D come in, on the back of a tow truck, about 1 year ago, with a "blown up" transmission. I routinely pulled it apart, and rebuilt it, updating the center support, replacing all bushings, installing a shiftkit, and E-pak, and our special "super duty" torque converter, that we have made special, because of the torque converter problems that we have experienced in the past. The transmission worked perfectly; much better than it did originally, when it was new, according to the customer. End of story; right?

The Problem:

Wrong! Three, or four months later, the truck returned to our shop, intermittently going into "fail code". We pulled the transmission apart, and found everything to be "perfect" within the unit, and so, reinstalled the unit, and cleared all codes. As before, the transmission performed perfectly, on our test-drive. Again, the customer took the truck, and again, after a couple of months, reappeared, with the same "fail code" problem, which was, like before, concerning the lockup circuit, and, from what we could tell, was being set by the difference in lockup strategy, modified by the "E-pak". We removed the E-pak, and installed a new original Ford solenoid pack, which took care of the "fail code" problem, which only happened under certain conditions, which we (actually our service writer) learned how to duplicate. The problem now was, the customer had gotten accustomed to the more desirable shift characteristics that the E-pak had furnished, and did not want the "mushy" shift that the Ford pack yielded.

The solution:

The solution turned out to be quite simple. A representative from ATG contacted me, after reading some of my articles, and wanted to tell me about additional ATG products that I might find helpful. He began telling me about their new "Interceptor", made for the E40D. Instead of installing the E-pak, he suggested installing the Interceptor, which allowed for complete adjustment of line pressure, and lockup timing. After installing the Interceptor, in my "problem child" E40D, with a factory Ford solenoid pack, I was able to increase line pressure boost, which "crisped-up" the shifts. In addition, the Interceptor has an adjustment for a lockup "time delay", which helped my particular truck, because this truck had a tendency to unlock under slight deceleration (normal), when you were going around a lazy corner, and then, when you hit the throttle again, after completing the turn, the transmission would lockup, and then down shift, causing the driver to feel "all sorts of weird things". By setting this lockup delay, I was able to get the lockup to delay and not engage just prior to a downshift.
I will be using the Interceptor on all of my E40D overhauls from now on.

So what is this "Interceptor", and how hard is it to install? Find out