Bullydog and Unichip

I've been searching for some time for a cure to my 2012 Tacoma 6SPD rev hang. Does anybody know of any of these tuners would be able to fix it? It seems like the Unichip has potential as you can buy custom tunes for your vehicle. I just wanted to see of anyone has any experience with either of these tuners in their vehicles and what the results were.

 

I have a unichip in a Supercharged 2013 tacoma 4.0L. The number of available unichip off the shelf tunes was somewhat limited in my experience. But, the unichip does seem to be a robust option for anyone with tuning skills. It gets expensive though. You have to have tuning software and a dyno.

Unichip website shows:

Hammer time Performance (Tuner)
11120 S Crown Way Wellington, FL 33414
(561) 656-1154

and

Smith Motor Works (Tuner)
1500 Beck Avenue
Panama City, FL 32401-1220


I don't know either one of these tuners. Maybe a place to start if you go with Unichip

 

Pretty sure its when you go to shift gears at say 3 grand and it hangs out there for a second and then the RPM's start to drop.

With drive by wire, the throttle plate closes a little slower than your foot coming off the gas.

Newer cars do that because of emissions. When the throttle plate closes there's a sudden lack of air, which means you run really rich for a second, causing more unburnt hydrocarbons to exit the engine, which means you're producing more harmful emissions.

New Hyundai's are reallllly bad for it. It was brutal driving them around because it was literally 3 seconds before it would drop.

If you really suck at finding gears you probably would find it beneficial!

I don't find it bad at all in my truck, although its a 4banger.

 

Did you feel the Unichip helped/changed anything?

 

Thanks for the help so far guys!

drjpwaldo, so to confirm, the unichip allows complete reprogramming and control of the engine? If so I would think that this would allow the rev hang to be tuned out.

Kyle Nowad,

Someone above stated it correctly for the most part. The computer controls the speed at which the throttle returns to idle in order to prevent my truck from supposedly killing more whales than it already has. No matter what the RPM range the engine doesn't return to idle very fast. It's at it's worse when shifting from second to third gear, if shifting at or around 2k RPM sometimes the revs won't drop at all for three or so seconds. It's very obnoxious and makes shifting quickly and smoothly impossible.

 

I spoke to Unichip and a local company who tunes for them, Central Florida Turbo. Both companies were very helpful and after some explaining, Central Florida Turbo is confident that they will be able to tune out the rev hang using the unichip.

 

If you truck has not already been tuned, it seems unlikely that a piggy-back ecu would "tune out" a rev hang. But thats just a guess.

 

I am absolutely certain one thing changed: I lost 1.5 to 2 MPG!!

I assume that with the more aggressive timing, it is throwing more fuel in to keep things cool and help with knock. I do feel that it pulls a bit harder and engine speed climbs faster. What i really need is a custom tune. I have not yet found anyone to do an "electronic tune" remotely. Still learning about the Unichip though. There is a dealer in town but I have had a recent bad experience with him, so not going there.

 

I think the experts would def. know better than me.

The unichip seems to be a pretty comprehensive piggyback ECU capable of just about anything with the right sensors and tuning.

 

Generally when the engine senses knock it simply pulls timing, not adding fuel. More than likely the tune adds timing and changes fuel mapping.

I was the lead Tuner/installer at GodSpeed Dynoworks and we had Unichip as one of our products, I didnt particularly love it and we ended up dropping them.
I'm not saying they dont work, I just preferred other platforms.

The problem these days is the vehicles are so "smart" doing one thing can and usually will change other things.

Do you have a wideband AFR gauge on the truck to see what your fuel ratio is?

 

Pretty much every tuner increases power by increasing the gas charge and advancing timing. That and air in/out, pretty much the end of how you make or lose power in an engine. The side effect of a tuner is people tend to be more aggressive on the gas so the can 'feel' those whopping 5hp they're supposed to feel. All together mpg usually gets worse until driving habbits return to normal.

 

My unichip experience....cliff notes: pre programmed tune no good its been setting in its box since 2011.

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/performance-tuning/164074-unichips-play-n-play-kit.html