Jake Brake or Transmission Retarder, or Both

[davidbrady]

Ernie,

Having had the three stage jake on my LXi and having only the retarder on my H3 I can say that you can descend faster with the Jake. With the retarder I need to keep my speeds down below what I normally would in my LXi to achieve a balance between heat generated by the retarder and that rejected by the cooling system. As you know, the heat flow needs to be in equilibrium or else temperatures will climb.

The nice thing about the retarder is that it puts out more stopping power and it'll produce that stopping power all the way to virtually a standstill whereas on the LXi the jake would disengage at 15mph or so. Also the six stage retarder on my H3 works in conjunction with the brake pedal. The harder I push on the pedal the more retarder stopping power dialed in. It's a wonderful system, especially for stop and go traffic or around town. Truthfully, I'd like to have both the jake and the retarder. I can't do without my retarder; it's that good on the Prevost, but for long, long 6% descents on a hot day you can't beat the jake and the jake will get you down 5 to 10 mph faster.