If you quickly blip the accelerator to the floor and release just before you begin to decelerate it will shift the transmission down hard and let you use engine braking.

For me so far I have gotten it to go from 4th to 2nd just with a throttle blip, I wonder if it would do 5th to 2nd?

 

Why not just use the gear selector to lock out the higher gears? When you press the pedal to the floor, you put the powertrain into an emergency state. Not good for the longevity of your transmission.

 

An emergency state? Really?

You're doing it faster than the throttle sensor can even react to.....I doubt it gets very butt hurt about the situation.

 

or just have it in tow/haul and it'll downshift and engine brake more aggressively than in sport or normal mode...

 

Tell us more about this "emergency state" you speak of that excessively wears the transmission.

 

Tow/Haul does the same thing when you blip the throttle...in my 2011 anyway. Touch the brakes hard and it will downshift accordingly; lets you come out of the corners a gear or two lower than if you were running in normal mode.....plus that engine braking just sounds great through an aftermarket exhaust system, haha. Blip the throttle and it thinks you're about to mash the pedal so again, it downshifts accordingly.

Thats the whole point of Tow/Haul or Sport mode; different shift paramaters, more aggressive engine braking, holds a gear longer through acceleration, goes into/comes out of the corner in a lower gear.

 

OK, "emergency" was a poor word to use there. But my point is still the same: You are telling the drivetrain that you want full power immediately, when you really just want engine braking.

So again I ask, why not just lock out the higher gears and allow the transmission to take gears away in a controlled, sequential manner? You'll get the same effect, without undue stress on the transmission. And hey, you don't even have to guess whether it will drop into 3rd or 2nd!

 

Are we sure it thinks it's going to full power or is it programmed to respond with a downshift to a throttle blip?

Fwiw, it always drops to 2nd when I do it, but I just figured it out yesterday by accident and I haven't tried it in 5th or 6th, just 3rd and 4th. When in 2nd it won't drop to 1st.

 

It's dropping to a lower gear to match the engine RPMs, which are about to be put into range for peak power/tq. So yes, it thinks it is about to get a surge of power and torque and is reacting accordingly.

 

I don't know. Sometimes programmers do weird things with electronic switches. There is a certain motorcycle out there that rolling off the throttle (less than 0%) at a stop will disengage or engage the active cooling system.

I wouldn't assume this is not a design feature for engine braking. With all that said, you could very well be right as well.

We may never know.

That then brings the question, does the transmission care if it downshifts for a deceleration event or an acceleration event? Is there any difference in its internal preparations?