The best and brightest head to the SEMA Show not only to show their wares, but to showcase some brilliant innovations and fixes to known issues within a certain market. In the case of Sonnax, this year saw the release of the Smart-Tech overdrive clutch housing for various Chrysler transmissions including the 45RFE, 545RFE, 65RFE, 66RFE, and 68RFE.
We spoke with Sonnax’s Gregg Nader to get a better understanding of what made this clutch housing stand out. “We think it’s a revolutionary improvement to the factory setup,” he said. “It eliminates the very thin, fragile, single-sided clutches that come stock, and replaces them with materials twice as thick.”
What’s more, the housing borrows technology from Sonnax’s development on the 4L60 transmission. This comes in the form of a bolt-on backing plate, which allows for double-sided clutches inside the housing and reduction of flexing when the clutch is applied to the backing plate.
A spacer comes with the kit, and presses onto the original inner retainer housing. Its job is to increase the apply area of the piston by 16 percent while still using the original retainer, keeping the overall cost of the kit down.
“The bottom line is, our housing kit offers a very substantial increase in overdrive clutch capacity,” said Nader. “With our product, users will be able to trust that their transmissions go the distance in heavy-duty scenarios.”
Making a diesel more stout and resilient is something we can all get behind. For more information, check out Sonnax on its website.
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