Tacoma - OVTUNE - VFTUNER - Update Info and Original Development

04B31 Tune files will be ready and sent out tomorrow for customers waiting

 

Took a 250 mile trip in the WV mountains this past weekend with 4 people in the cab and probably 400 lbs of gear in the back. Used cruise control for 3/4 of that distance. Pre-1.05 or stock with that kind of load on those kinds of hills using cruise, the truck would have gotten 13 mpg and spent a lot of time screaming in 3rd gear at 5K rpm. Instead, it got 21 mpg and spent most of its time in 5th and 6th. When it did drop to 4th, it held it only until the gradient eased instead of clinging to 4th until I manually disabled cruise.

Oh yeah, my truck is stock except for a Leer topper. To the guy who asked if the tune is worth it for a stock truck, the answer is YES, a thousand times YES.

 

Used cruise control the first time the other day with 1.05. Don't use cruise control very often, and on the Toyota tune it absolutely sucked. CC with 1.05 was awesome. Will definitely using it a lot more now thanks to OV tune!

 

Just thought I'd chime in in case there are others with the URD MKII Y pipe (rear 2 cat delete) mod. Before I tuned installing the Y pipe threw a CEL and the code was related to the O2 sensors even though Gadget over at URD has said it shouldn't do so. That being said, I tried to clear the CEL many times but every time it came back after driving. After I flashed, no more CEL and over 1000+ miles on it so far and still hasn't come back. This has saved me $ because I was considering buying the O2 sensor simulator to get rid of the CEL however OVTune has fixed this on its own! Not sure if it was intended with the tune but just thought I'd let you guys know for anyone out there with this specific mod. After having paired the tune with the Y pipe, cat back exhaust and intake the truck definitely has gotten it's balls back, thank you @OVTune ! I feel like the tune has definitely amplified the effects of the mods, can't wait until custom tuning comes to further fine tune everything.

 

I really didnt think it would be as easy as swapping the 2 pins, but it looks like it is...

Just swap pin 1 (red) and pin 3 (green) on connector T23... (i assume much easier than accessing the ECU)...
(obviously no warranty if this makes your truck explode...)

 

Holy crap!! That's great! I'm going to see if I can find some of the connectors and make a jumper to swap.

 

Actually, I’d guess that’s it’s mostly the older guys lol. Boomers + computers... typically a terrible recipe

 

Are you running 1.05 yet?

 

Quick question, does Windows 7 work to load the tune? Asking because I have an old ASUS NetBook which I don’t use anymore, but cant upgrade to Windows 10 due to hardware requirements. Haven’t found a difinitive answer to this in my search on this thread and I’d like to save the coin on a new laptop / tablet purchase for other truck mods instead.

 

Yes, Win 7 works. That was the OS I used until laptop died.

 

So far not a single issue at all on MT, no idle issue, no odd misfires, nothing.

 

This issue doesn't happen on all trucks, as I think I've explained about a billion times. These same stuttering misfires exist on stock. It has always been a problem, from day one. 1.05 allows for more load / throttle range at those RPMS so it exacerbates an existing issue.

I'm still trying to figure out and solve why this happens.

 

Yes - this was more pronounced as well. Perhaps some of the efficiency gains implemented in 1.05 are keeping the truck in the range for resonance. All these trucks vibrate to varying degrees at a certain RPM - its harmonics and poor design IMHO but yes I did experience more on 1.05 than the TSB. as well as the misfires. this morning on a 30 degree cold start on the TSB I had 3 misfires and didn't even have time to let it warm up for more than 30-60 seconds before I took off (immediately taking off in this truck normally results in additional misfires). Had up to 20 on the same trip on 1.05

I will say, my truck isn't quite performing the same on the TSB now as it did before I ran 1.05/87 and 1.05/93. I still had some knock and misfires after reflashing B04/stock/TSB. The shifting and whatnot were back to normal but after a few days I was still getting some engine roughness so I assume that was perhaps some long term values that remain stored. I still don't understand exactly how it all works, but I do know that it seems "remnants" of whatever calibration you had on the truck before flashing sometimes remain. I ended up reflashing the TSB again and it did settle down considerably and I haven't had any "audible" knock and my knock f/b values aren't going haywire anymore. It stays close to -3 as it should most of the time, occasionally ticks down to -3 or -5 between shifts but my knock correction learn values are sitting around 26 degrees for the most part running 93 on the TSB - but I am getting a lot more engine vibrations still at highway speeds. I'm sure it will work itself out eventually. At least nothing is knocking anymore (at least not enough to tell) and my misfire behavior is within the negligible range now.

PSA - As Mat has said numerous times, if you have legitimate issues (I don't like the shifting isn't an issue - it's a preference; knocking and high misfires are issues) - flash to stock and submit a ticket. Those of you guys who keep talking about knocking and high misfire counts do run the potential risk of shortening the lifespan of your engine and causing damage. NOTE: This doesn't appear to affect more than a subset of trucks, but there does seem to be enough of a sample size on the forum to call it a pattern

 

I've been watching these 2 values since flashing. Mine always were stable -3 and 18 on 87 with slight changes under the load. I don't hear knocks on 1.05 that were audible even on TSB. I did not notice any vibrations. Will monitor till weekend and probably got back to stock TSB, etc.
Thanks.

 

Yeah sounds like you have avoided knock behavior which would be the worst of it - the misfires are questionable... not something you want to have happening all the time due to cat degradation. But what’s funny / ironic is that the truck doesn’t trigger codes until there are 35 misfires in a 100 trigger cycle IIRC so you could technically have what I would call an obscene amount of misfires and not get any CEL - but I guess the thinking is that it will adjust timing to reduce before they get that severe ?! Who knows

To all else - please don’t take my post as a reason to go find issues that aren’t there but for those who do have those legitimate issues, follow the process to get it right!

 

It's a pretty standard OBD PID, so unlikely to be wrong.
Some trucks just have a big misfiring problem. The most I have ever seen on our test truck is around 2-3 in a drive cycle. But I do recall at one point Bshammers truck on.. 1.03? having an absurd amount like 30+ one time. @bshammer0 can correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a while since then.

Also if you start logging misfires right from a cold dead start you are likely to pick some up. The Engine runs a lot of ignition retard during this time and it will probably pick up some misfires. These should not be counted towards normal driving misfires.

So far it looks like on trucks that have this problem, if ANY ignition table is touched you get misfires. Some of it doesn't make any sense. For example if you raise ignition 1 degree only above 5000 rpm.... misfires everywhere. That's why I completely redesigned the ignition tables and it still didn't work on these problem trucks.

Search back enough pages you'll see this is not a new issue. It didn't just magically appear with 1.05. It's been a problem for the longest time.

 

I've had high misfire counts on some test versions of the tunes, and on 1.03 and 1.04 (they were about the same) I would get up to 10-12 on a cold start driving cycle then intermittently if doing city driving (stop / start / low load misfires generally). So, yes it didn't magically appear w/ 1.05 however it was up to double what I witnessed on prior versions of the tune. This morning, another cold start and quick drive off at 28 degrees and had 2 misfires for a 45 min drive cycle commuting in the city. Weird. Thing is with the TSB, the misfires pretty much never ever happen aside from those first few minutes when the engine is warming and retarding ignition. On the tune it would happen intermittently when coming to a stop, in between gear changes at times, etc.,

It's just weirdness with my truck. but it's running fine on the TSB. find myself using S-mode a lot to counteract shifting but it's smooth, no (detectible) knock, minimal misfires. One day... ha

 

Can you tell there are misfires sitting in the cab?

 

Unless you are getting a a lot, it's very unlikely. The ECU counts a misfire as any time the crank shaft position trigger wheel time between intervals has changed beyond expectation.

Basically if there is 30 triggers on the wheel and for 29 of the teeth the interval between is "1ms" and from 29 to 30 is "1.2ms" a misfire is counted. So any time the crank trigger speed does not increase as expected for an ignition event (fire) a misfire is counted.

If a cylinder truly wasn't firing at all the engine would run absolutely terrible

 

Yes I am trying to get everything left out today, any pending MTs, 04B31, etc.

I'll be off the forums for a bit to get through everything