What's the proper way to use the jake brake

[Chamberpains]

Cummins Insite is the program you use change the engine brake delay. Its under features and parameters.

Just like Rawze said, the higher the RPM the harder the jakes hold you back. On my CM870, fully loaded grossed out at 80,000# set on 3rd stage jake, it would hold me back at 55 mph 1800 rpms on a 8-9% grade without touching the brakes. Cummins has by far the best engine brake in the world. I went from changing brakes once a year with my Detroit 60 series to maybe 1 time in 3 years with my Cummin ISX. And that was more do to cracked brake lining and scored drums from crappy after market brakes and dirty roads.

As far as damage to the engine... there should be none through normal operating RPM's. Ever.

As far as letting it run up in the 2000+ rpm range to hold you back. That might be the range where Rawze is worried about a valve hanging while hard jaking. Up in those rpm's that would be a lot of speed mixed with high PSI. I could see that potentially be a recipe for disaster. But on occasion I've downshift early (usually by mistake) and had the RPM's rocket up to 2100 under full load and was unable to correct it because of the terrain and Absolutely nothing ill happened. In fact the damn thing slammed the jakes on so hard it tugged me forward in the seat. And that engine had a million plus miles on it.