2nd Gen Pedal commander review.

So, TimPall13, which pedal commander did you buy? did I miss seeing it?

 

@buckmaster243

 

The box and website says it's the Pedal Commander PC38 for Toyota. If you go to their website or Amazon you can put in all your vehicle info and find one that works for you. Mines the non bluetooth one so I cant give an opinion on the bluetooth version.

 

Is your truck lifted? I would love to see if this pedal commander could help to regain some power after the lift and 285s.

 

My truck is lifted with 285s and a cvt tent. Even with the added weight it does give good acceleration depending on what setting your in.

 

So, if you remove it, you can really see the difference? Are you sure that it's not a placebo effect?

 

Yall realize you gain ZERO power with a pedal commander. ALL its doing is tricking the ecu into thinking you are pushing the pedal down more than you are, essentially making a more aggressive throttle pedal mapping.

 

Yeah you do notice a difference. Like nd4spdbh said it doesnt give you anymore power. It just removes the lag out of the throttle for faster throttle response when accelerating. It also depends on what mode it's in. I drive mostly in city mode and it acts like factory throttle but more responsive. Where in sport mode its fast throttle response and for automatics it downshifts quickly for faster acceleration.

 

But for us with bigger tires and Sluggish Tacomas, if we gain a little bit of faster acceleration, cannot be that considered some how as a gain of power?

 

Haha I guess you could call it that. Some people like technical terms so it doesnt give false info. So no physical HP gains but it does make it feel like you have an extra horse pulling your coach from a dead stop. If that comparison counts as horse power gain?

 

You will have no faster acceleration, simply just a more aggressive throttle pedal. thats is.

 

Wouldn’t it be bad for your engine? By speeding up the throttle response exponentially wouldn’t it put more stress on the engine ?

 

No

 

This isn't entirely correct. The "lag" of the normal throttle curve, is due to the throttle valve bowing negatively, in respect to a linear line. Where pedal pressure equals throttle open position.

By now with what you've seen and fiddled with on the HP Tuner, I am pretty positive that your comment would change if you responded today.

A pedal commander changes that curve to near linear, linear, or above linear. From initial pedal pressure to somewhere up the graph where it merges back into linear.

Thus having the throttle open more at initial pedal input, means the engine will get more air & fuel, thus more allowed power sooner. Translating into quicker acceleration off of the line. Compared to the stock throttle mapped curve.

Here is a picture from my Haltech, for reference of the curve versus linear travel.

 

I love me some discussion with torspd!

I am going to have to respectfully disagree, the pedal commander simply goes inline with the throttle pedal simulating different (greater) throttle pedal inputs vs what you are doing. The ECU sees nothing more than the same accelerator pedal % as before and it is not changing the throttle pedal to throttle plate mapping within the ecu like you describe.

The pedal commander will definitely open the throttle plate more at less of an actual input at the physical pedal, BUT that is only due to it amplifying the signal to the ecu simulating a larger accelerator pedal % thus moving you further up the stock ecu's accelerator pedal to throttle plate graph. Its absolutely not the same as changing that table within the ecu to be more aggressive and open the throttle plate more at the same pedal % input to the ecu.

 

As do I mate.

You said it yourself. It doesn't matter what strategy they use to get more open position from 0% APP on. Only that the device does.

 

But answer me this! does the stock accelerator pedal map change at all in the ECU with this device? No... the device only simulates you pushing on the pedal more, the ecu knows no different between stock or with the device inline.

 

this is true and if your map is a mess (as it is on the factory 3g tunes before 2018) then the map will stay a mess. the PC isn't even connected to your ECU or any memory tables... at all.

 

Doesn't matter. Not the point either. Only that the throttle opens more at an earlier pedal percent, which then allows quicker acceleration off of the line, than a non modified pedal input.

 

but to the ECU its not an early pedal %