diff --git a/dankclaw/frank-large/quadlet/frank-large.container b/dankclaw/frank-large/quadlet/frank-large.container
index 16942eb..3a4f3f7 100644
--- a/dankclaw/frank-large/quadlet/frank-large.container
+++ b/dankclaw/frank-large/quadlet/frank-large.container
@@ -126,7 +126,11 @@ Environment=HALOGEN_KV_SLOTS=4
 # not shrink the pool, it stops the server booting at all — and the unit still
 # reads active with the container "Up (starting)", so the health check waits
 # out LLM_WAIT rather than failing fast.
-Environment=HALOGEN_MAX_TOK=16384
+
+# EXPERIMENT 2026-09-12 (operator call): back to upstream's default 32768.
+# Model predicts 524288 needs 35.0 against a 29.5 budget, so HALOGEN_KV_POOL_FIT
+# should clamp the pool to 262144 (~27.8) at boot. Watch the ledger.
+Environment=HALOGEN_MAX_TOK=32768
 # RAM left for the n-gram table the engine reads through the page cache.
 # Above the vendor's 20 because a dozen containers share this host; too low
 # and long prompts crawl with the disk busy.