Nexus Collaboration: YWNexus Blackhawk

Keep any eye on VFTuner forum. It up to them to get us the access to tune the 2.7

 

there's not much activity on that forum but i'll keep an eye on it

 

Cool. Let me know.

 

Alright guys heads up, gonna be a long ish review, if you want the sum of it, go to the last paragraph.
So guys I got my files and absolutely didn't p1ss around. I slapped on +P due to prices of fuel and I am curious to compare my 2 years of ovtune 2.0 tunes running premium ever since then and now im running this supposedly same Hp ratings as those (i dynoed and showed 220,240 to wheels) which I am very much seeing so far with N+P .

So where to start off, I am a sport shifter, I shift constantly. Im always doing something, Downshifts are the smoothest i have ever felt. Might I add this is all within only the 100 miles ive roughly done and ive completely reset everything as instructed by these amazing group of guys! I did a nice half pull out of the lot and dam does this have pick up!

The tip in with my hiking boots is a bit hard to control. I so far only feel a little too touchy for my liking but ill keep her going as is until i really have an issue that i cant control the truck. This tune with my trucks setup is showing 6th gear and using all TC and Engine load. I'm absolutely amazed to say the best highway drive with this truck was today with this tune. Cruise control was happy. I have lots of videos to put together but you can see that on the next review i put together on youtube.

Overall, I am having fun with this tune so far, truck is a blast. I feel it pulling all through the gears and rpms now. Truck wants to go and my brakes can't keep up! Ect is fun as said for sure but i find drive just enough. MPG will be reported later but the truck feels smarter as I want to put it. She knows when to shift, where to put it in the right gear at the right time. I held 5th through all my up hill here and there drive. I had a quiet drive which is why i say its the best cruise I ever had! SPORT MODE shifts are quicker too. Lots of fun and thank you boys for the agm boost. She starts up real quick.

 

Our absolute pleasure! It's been a privilege to provide you the first tune you've been on since the handheld. Looking forward to the future as we expand and improve.

 

There's only so much you can do.

 

You are correct, there are a finite number of changes you can make. But the number of maps and size of some of the arrays we have access to, plus periodic updates of what maps do what expands what tunes change. Then you can also get a domino effect where changing just one shift point can throw off a lot of other values/maps. Furthermore, there is likely a very small number of maps with similarly set values between the tunes offered for the 3GT.

I posted all that because I assume you weren't referencing max HP and torque. If so, I'm not aware of a single tune for the 3GT that only focused on higher numbers. They can offer other things like less gear hunting, better throttle response, better shift points, etc. as well. If a tune were to only focus on the max numbers then there would be no reason to adjust anything outside of the WOT range. Which would actually be significantly easier since even the 3D maps would be narrowed down to about 2 columns.

I see you've been around for a while and have tested quite a bit of tunes, so I imagine this post makes sense to you. But feel free to ask for clarification or more questions as needed. I quickly typed this up while getting ready to go make dinner, so I may have inadvertantly omitted details.

 

As a Software Engineer I can say this: Software is never done, it's just allowed to escape.

 

Made the jump to +P Premium last Friday, as far as initial impressions go...WOW. This tune drives perfect, WAY better than KDM Pro and even better than +P. Tip in is perfect, a little stronger than +P but less than KDM Pro with sport throttle. KDM Pro held gears a little too long on acceleration and I felt +P shifted a tad early at times, but Premium shifts are perfectly timed. KDM would get hung up in gears and not shift up when it should, no issues with that with +P or Premium, but Premium has the power to lug higher gears regularly. Only have about 200miles on it so far, but so far there has been no jerky throttle, no weird/hard shifts, no gear hunting, and not once have I questioned the timing of any shift or felt the need to switch to S mode like I did regularly with KDM and here and there with +P.

On my mostly freeway commute to work (75mi round trip, 75mph) KDM Pro would get dead pedal every time it downshifted to 5th and just lose speed until it finally dropped down to 4th, then get stuck in 4th after cresting the hills and I'd have to put it in S mode to shift it back to 5th. This would happen on 4-5 hills on my commute. With Nexus +P there was no dead pedal in 5th gear, but there were still 2-3 hills it would downshift to 4th on, and it would shift back up to 6th timely after cresting the hill. On my drive in this morning, Premium held 5th gear on every single hill, not a single downshift to 4th, and on most of them had the power to shift back to 5th before it even crested the hill. The are a few long slight inclines that KDM Pro would be in 5th the whole way and +P would shift to 5th part way up, Premium held 6th gear the whole way up those. With 33's and stock gearing I was getting 16mpg on my way to work with KDM Pro and 16.5-17 with +P...on my drive in this morning I got 18.6mpg which is what I was getting with stock tune and tires. On the way home I would see 21-22mpg stock, 19 with KDM (same dead pedal and 4th gear downshift issues) and 20 with +P...today I had a head wind the entire way on the freeway, hit stop and go traffic for about 5 miles, and hit 3 red lights on the highway requiring acceleration from 0-65mph, and I still got 19mpg.

Over the weekend I made a lot of short trips running around town, the lowest MPG's I saw for any trip was 13.7 on a drive that included multiple WOT runs to test power, the rest were in the 16-17mpg range, and I've had a few around town trips close to 20mpg.

I'm also currently running an intake yielding 1-1.5mpg less than my other setup...which I'll be putting back on this weekend to see if it bumps mileage up even more.

This tune is simply amazing and I highly recommend it.

 

Thanks for the review man! It's been fun playing around with intake combinations. As discussed in person, we've tested a few and you should see wonderful results going back to the AFE without issues.

 

Happy to test the M/T variant. I can test, give you very detailed feedback (I am very sensitive to driving dynamics of cars) and data log. 2022 TRD-Offroad. Currently running KDMax Pro and ran Coyoza before.

 

Just finished my first tank on Nexus +P Premium...first time I've seen over 320 miles on a tank since I moved up to 33" tires! This tank was about 75 % freeway (combination of 75-80mph and a few miles of stop and go every day)/25% city, a little more city driving than I normally do. 18.6mpg on the display, came out to 18.2mpg calculated at the pump. Since bumping up to 33's I averaged 16.5mpg on both stock tune and KDM Pro. I averaged 19mpg on stock tires, so I'm beyond ecstatic to be almost back up to stock mileage with 33's and stock gearing.

Note: I was getting 19mpg on stock tires on summer gas, swapped to 33's right around the same time winter blend hit

 

TL;DR: Just do it. Yes, the internet posts are accurate, Nexus works well. The truck performance/driveability is greatly improved to the point of being a different truck.

Statement: Nexus +P transformed my truck's performance and driveabilty. The change is real despite my initial scepticism. I mean how could it be that good with just some software tweaks?!?

Background: This is my first Tacoma (2022 OR AT) and first tune. I've followed OV Tune, and subsequently various tuners, for 2+ years and recently pulled the trigger.

Mooseditty is not aware but he was the one who stood out when I started following the TW tuning posts and was a big part of my decision to go with Nexus. He came across as a stand up guy and has yet to disappoint.

I had a small hiccup during the self-install, completely unrelated with their tune, and the Nexus team immediately responded with help.

Performance: The truck will squirt off the line when asked. It strongly accelerates for the ubiquitous merging onto the freeway in the 40 - 60 mph range. The typical hesitation sag when you stab it is gone in all RPM ranges. Stab the throttle and she rockets (compared to factory). HP is always good but subjectively my butt is feeling the new torque when I need to accelerate and it's fun.

My first experience with the new tip-in was ... uh oh ... but after about two minutes my foot adjusted and is not an issue at all. The tip-in is actually fun and should have been there from the factory.

Shifting is smooth and I like the RPM shift ranges. It's not perfect (yet) but very much improved.

Again it's subjective but even the idle seems more stable, it just purrs.

Everyone discusses MPG ... while I'm much improved over the past few years I still drive kind of fast. So, yeah, for now we won't discuss MPG.

I'll close with big thanks to Nexus and look forward to any improvements.

P.S. I need to stop wondering how much different +P Premimum is.

 

Hey guys I'm back again with a week long and about let's say 300 ish miles I've put on total with P+.

Still loving it, absolutely. I learned from my toyota tech it is very possibly to drive this tune with a light foot. I still have no dam clue how to. Truck is way too much fun and she doesn't feel like 5500lbs !
It blows me away to see regular fuel kicking ass with a weighted offroad truck.
Throttle response is being worked on with me still, I find it may needing a general turn down cuz under 30mph she's sensitive a bit and 4th gear won't hit unless I get there and therefore 3rd gear is peppy n sensitive in city limits BUT these dumb canucks cant drive in my city so. However I may have different driving habits in my future so I will report back if I need a change.
Overall for my week long update, and now I am on vacation so no more taco driving for me.
Here is a 1 min video of my little driving habits and just showing you how fun the tune is. Watching the CFE bar will help you guys understand my throttle position. I drive like this all the time and downshift 90%. Can't believe that there's no like idk how to describe it but almost sounds like two downshifts going 2nd to first when I was stock and sometimes ovtune 2.0 but now it revs right up and down and sounds great. Listen at the end. Mbrp is so great to have, you can hear all kinds of noises and my truck sounds happy. First gear I find longer with throttle input, 2nd gear all way through just goes but then you go 3rd. Guys I kid you not..I never seen 90mph so dam often on this truck it's crazy. There's a great amount of power delivery in the right places.

 

I do believe I am sold and want to move ahead with this tune, it sounds awesome, but there are two things holding me back right now:

1) I read that this tune is still in development, I guess I'm inclined to wait until the tuners have tweaked everything to the max before I do it. Not sure if there is a projected date for this to go prime time?
2) As far as I know, the nearest tuner Moose is ~4 hours away from me, so that's a bit of a barrier. I know I could pick up the software and cable to do it myself, but that's another ~$400

It's great there are guys working hard to improve the driveability of the truck, and I appreciate everyone's feedback on the tune. You are all great salespeople and are what has convinced me to invest in it.

 

Every tune is still in development. Anyone who says otherwise isn't being honest with themselves. We are a team of perfectionists. We won't be happy until every single discovery is corrected. There are things we've found that EVERY tune has an issue with, but probably either haven't seen it yet or aren't logging for it, but it's there and it'll be corrected. The "meat and potatoes" of Nexus is not going to change unless there's some killer breakthrough that make it drive like a rocket. We do provide updates if that helps.

 

Well I'm sure your tune will be updated with the new release of vf tuner 1.6 and also the the new EROM patch . So far nexus is really gaining wind in it's sail from many kdm users switching over. But I'm still waiting on your further development with upcoming updates to vf tuner. Looks to me you guys will have much more access to the transmission and more areas of the ECU. It gets me excited. Lol

 

We are eagerly awaiting the 1.6 release for sure. An update to the EROM parch is one aspect. We lost some control with 1.5.x that has set us back a bit. In case people are wondering what the hold-up is. Fuel delivery on the 2gr sucks. No question about it. It just sucks. Closed loop to open loop, port to direct, bank imbalances... It sucks.

 

Just building on the prior comment and the excitement lol. It does look like 1.6 is going to give you guys a lot more access especially to the transmission. Stoked to see what else you all can improve!

Really enjoying the tune so far.

 

See I'm not the only one hiding in the background waiting patiently for new goodies . Lol