2016 OVTune Tacoma 3.5L Manual Transmission / Engine ECU Reflash

I installed the 87 octane tune yesterday evening.
The first stop was the gas station to fill up then Target. I purposely took the long route to get a feel of the tune. I had the wife and baby in the car. I gave my wife the ELI5 of what a tune is and what this tune is trying to achieve. It's important to note that she is a proper M/T driver and hated driving the truck ever since I got it. When I asked why she couldn't really say why other than to say it was difficult to drive and that annoyed her. On the way home she says, "It feels smoother... almost like you got new tires".

The most immediate thing I noticed is the idle. It was quieter and definitely smoother. Most times I thought it sounded a little "diesely" pre-tune..
Second thing I noticed right away is the lurching from 1st to 2nd has been significantly, probably completely eliminated.
Third, it just felt better, but I didn't want to accept it yet, most of it could all be in my head, need to drive more!

Before I get to this morning's drive to work I should mention that for the past 6 months or so my MPG display avg has been 14.7 MPG (I have sliders and a OE Tonneau cover). I think the dip from my 16 MPG to 14.7 MPG is because I got tired of feeling like I was driving a tractor. I wasn't efficient in timing my speed to make the stale green lights so I said fuck it and pushed the truck hard and that was just so I can KEEP UP with the flow of traffic. 95% of my driving is done on city streets. That and I cannot tolerate the majority of Prius drivers who appear to constantly be texting or just mildly retarded drivers, but that's another subject.

This morning was a 25 minute commute and I am much happier now as there is a noticeable delivery of power (get up and go). I am now comfortably with the flow of traffic. I am not having to hold the gears longer just to hear the engine noise and not go anywhere. I also tested acceleration in higher gears and there is also a noticeable pick up which is nice although I would downshift is most cases.

I also noticed the 14.7 MPG read out climbed to 15.4 MPG by the time I got to work. I believe I will continue to see an improvement.

I will update more after this tank of gas in a few weeks.. I'll be out of town for work and wife will be driving it so I will make sure to ask her how she feels about the drive post tune.

 

Thanks for the update. How is the throttle response?

 

Pre-tune throttle response - poor
Post-tune throttle response - good

 

That's good to hear. I'm planning to go with the 87 tune.

 

91 tune is also driving crappy again. At 40+ % throttle input it starts breaking up in between 3-4k and records misfires in techstream. Stock tune does not do this at all, but the throttle mappings are noticeably worse on the stock tune. Attached is a second gear pull WOT on the stock tune, you can see the throttle input is 100% but the ECU limits the actual throttle opening quite a bit, but there are no misfires. Still waiting on OVTune to get back to me.

 

Your other post with the OVT didn't show the Accelerator Position to compare the mapping to the Throttle Sensor. The stock tune looks like it lags and gets worse the deeper you go into the pedal. I'm curious to see what the OVT looks like? How much better does it map and does it allow a greater max opening? 63% max seems way low.

 

Sure attached, keep in mind with the misfires im not going WOT but it gives a decent idea on the mapping. Another issue is that since its misfiring the ECU is probably pulling throttle out of it so it may not be entirely accurate unfortunately.

 

Thanks. That seems to be a much better match. There are a couple interesting over-shoots though? It looks like that is where the misfires are happening?

Myself, I still struggle (read: pisses me off) with electronic throttles that WOT at the pedal doesn't equal WOT at the TB.

Good stuff! Sorry for the trouble that you are having though.

 

Are you able to determine which cylinders are misfiring? The graph references all cylinders but I'd be curious if it is a specific set of cylinders each time that experience the misfires. I wonder if it's a timing issue or fueling issue that could be causing spark blowout and therefore a misfire is logged. Do you feel or hear the misfires?

 

The individual cylinders were shown in the previous post:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...gine-ecu-reflash.515734/page-68#post-16796225

 

I'm an AT but I think whether we all realize it or not, most of these trucks are regularly misfiring but most of the time you don't feel it and I never hear it. Its more of a softness in the pedal momentarily for me or a slight hesitation on acceleration. In my case, it's pretty random across all cylinders. Interested to see more data from others on this topic - our beloved tuner has stated the crappy ignition logic on Toyotas part is partly to blame here which hasn't yet been fully addressed. This will be fun to watch unfold nonetheless. It almost feels like Toyota designed these knowing they would misfire quite a bit - anything under 35 misfires in a 100 revolution cycle doesn't flag any codes, freeze frame data, nothing. 35 misfires in a 100 revolution cycle!? Every engine will misfire sometimes but these things...

 

Ok, sorry missed that post. But it is only showing 3 of the cylinders so I'm assuming the other 3 did not report a misfire.

Am i right in reading that the count was 1-2 per cylinder? The above graph showed in all cylinder count that did not go above 3. I'm not familiar with the Techstream software that is why i'm asking.

Every vehicle will see random misfires once in a while under full throttle. A single digit misfire count on a cylinder is nothing to worry about.

 

The others did not register misfires. The issue is there is a noticeable drop in power as the engine breaks up, when the ECU detects misfires at high load its going to pull timing the throttle back to protect itself. It falls on its face as the misfires start occurring as well as me leveling off on the throttle to protect the engine. Im not interested in poking a $41k truck with a stick to get more misfires to pop up without being on a dyno with an AFR sensor without any proper tuning software I can use to monitor the thing. The stock tune rarely records a misfire in techstream, maybe one or 2 per mile or so even at WOT as shown in the above screenshot.

Edit: I honestly wouldnt be shocked if most other trucks running 1.03 have this same issue im having and either dont realize it because they dont know what it feels like/know what to look for or its not as severe.

 

Gotcha. Odd. That graph is just vague on the misfires. Yes they're there but it's hard to correlate in counts per revolution.

Agreed that if it's acting up definitely don't stay in it. I also agree it'd be better to have it on a dyno with a wide band to really see what's going on.

Does techstream at-least capture the narrow band voltage? I'd like to see if you're above or below current lambda.

I also wonder if timing and fueling map is off and you're getting spark blow out. Might need to narrow the gap on the plugs. You could pull a plug on a misfiring cylinder and see how it looks. Might give you some insight.

 

It does and I recorded it but you can only have 8 graphs up in techstream at once lol. Ill post up afr voltage with misfires in a little bit.

Pretty sure the OEM plugs are some type of coated plug (iridium most likely) which if manually re gaped they will be ruined. Secondly stock gap is .044 which is standard for an NA modern engine running pump gas that isnt trying to win a race.

 

agreed. some iridium plugs can be re-gapped. but they are more difficult.

honestly i think it'd be nice of ovt offered a throttle map adjustment tune only without adjusting timing,fuel, etc. i'd take that at a discount price over a pedal commander or sprint booster.

 

Thats probably what im going to ask for as thats my biggest complaint right now.

Here are the AFRs this is the stock tune:

This is the 91 OV tune.

 

Looking at misfire margin % under load its far worse on the 91 OV tune. Apparently numbers above 30% are normal.

91 OVtune:

Stock:

 

I'll have an update on this today as soon as I am done on the dyno with some new development

 

LCA bushings replaced at 35,000? Watcha been doin?