OV Tune

Well I finally broke down and got my Tacoma tuned. I can't believe the difference in the truck so far.
Quicker response, smoother shifting and no gear hunting. Everyone told me it was a noticeable difference , but like a lot of times ,you just don't believe them. Damm wish I would have listened sooner. A big shout out to the Gentleman who did mine in Burlington today. I didn't get his name but he was quick and very professional, thanks so much

 

I got one today too (kdmax) but for a 2.7. Yeah agree definitely worth it. Had a pedal commander for 2 years and the tune is much better.

 

Rob Motive says don't get a Tune instead get the pedal commander which is cheaper and works wonders. He has been skeptical about some stranger touching his Tacoma computer in case they screw the whole system up if the tech guys is not experienced enough. I don't have any of them but very happy with the performance of my Taco. just saying.

 

that rob motive guy is cringy as hell and has an obsession with uploading as many videos as possible when half of them are the same as previous video. he tried to make all kinds of claims about that sprint booster too that im pretty sure they were paying him to advertise. at the end of the day all those throttle boosters do is simply install inline from the gas pedal and ramp up the signal voltage to the ecu. this give false sense of more power and throttle acceleration by giving you say 50% throttle when you push the pedal down 20%. you can replace this product entirely. and i mean this literally. by simply pressing the gas pedal more in the first place.

also those pedal commanders when turned up have been known to send voltage spikes to the ecu putting truck into limp mode and throwing codes.

 

I previously had a sprint booster i got off local for a good deal so i got it for time being now i have the kdmax pro tune and been happy with it so far and get better mpg

 

To tell you the truth I would not touch any of these Tunes, Pedal Commander or Sprint booster etc etc. Can't understand all this hype about those programs. I guess this is the only Generation of Tacos that have all that Computerized stuff to be able to do the tunes. My previous Tacos 93-98-2004-2008 never had any of this stuff on them and they ran fine. just saying

 

If you got a KDMax tune in Burlington (Essex Jct) Vermont that would be Jesse (@JDSmith). Great guy, very knowledgeable.

 

any difference in power aside from the smoother shifting and less gear hunting?

 

I agree on the pedal connectors but a tune is much difference. Your truck right now has a tune on it, so it clearly shows you have no idea what your talking about and have never read into tuning.

 

All of your previous Tacos had much the same stuff, well except maybe the 93.

The tune Toyota put in the third gens is of about the same quality as the SR shocks, not good. They made it meet emissions and then seemed to have stopped refining it.

The factory computer uses a bunch of lookup tables to determine how much fuel, spark, or valve timing the engine should use. All a tune does is refine those values a little bit so where the factory tune may have values of say 20.5, 23.7, and 30.2 now a tuner goes in and can set them to 20.5, 25.6, and 30.0 in order to say smooth a rough spot out. In fact a lot of tuning is in fact just smoothing out spikes in the factory tables.

Tuning computer controlled vehicles has been around since the late 80s, with a quality tuner there is nothing to be concerned about. It's no different than changing jets in a carburator, or changing the points, you just have more controls and an easier way to do it

 

I agree with you I know nothing about tune. I just learned from you that I have a tune on my truck lol. I am old school kind of guy and not to savy on new tech stuff. The way I look at it is if runs good then why fuck with it just saying.

 

Even as someone who went from tuning my own truck to doing tunes for others, I understand that tunes are not for everyone. If you are satisfied with the way your truck drives with the stock factory tune then don't mess with it. That said, if you ever get a chance to test drive 3rd gen truck that has been tuned I'd encourage you to give it a try so that you can see the difference for yourself. Most tuners (myself included) will let you test drive your newly tuned truck before you pay us. If you aren't happy we don't want your money and will flash you right back to stock.

 

Yes the truck is noticeably faster.

 

toyota has to make their cars for the masses and that means making an OEM tune that appeases to government regulations and dumbed down to the population. part of this formula is "hey lets purposely underpower our platforms by a decent margin from the factory"... and boom, theres a part of the toyota realiability formula. these aftermarket tunes take the power that toyota is hiding from you and make it so that your power is unlocked while still keeping the toyota realiability factor. Old school cars actually have decent tunes from the factory but with the new gov regulations, new tech, and the idea that new cars have to be more numb for the masses has made it so that new cars are terrible to drive. they are more focused on safety and regulations then actually driving the car.

 

I would like to see someone time some 0-60s tuned vs not. Seat of the pants in my experience would tell me a tune is not faster at all, it just has the illusion of feeling faster from the more sensitive throttle. If you really hammer on the pedal with the stock tune, it does go.

For the record, I monitor engine vitals through my radio. I can see A/F ratio, engine load, timing advance, mpg, exhaust temp, etc. None of those are different in any condition of my logging….tuned or not.

 

Can you tell me how you can check those vitals on your radio. Do you have a special program installed/ downloaded to find that info. just curious

 

I doubt there is a significant difference in 0-60 times on the Taco, it seems that tunes don't gain much in overall power. It's actually a bit disappointing how hard it is to squeeze power out of these engines (from my limited knowledge anyways)

But 0-60 is very little of what a tune is for and is a very poor measure of a tune. A tune should help all around, especially at part throttle where folks spend most of their time. It can solve issues like the ugly throttle hang above 3600, or the herky jerky power delivery, etc. And yes it can sharpen the throttle opening, but that can also be improved throttle response due to changes to engine parameters.

Measuring those items is good but it's very hard to spot the difference. How does one tell that there is a 4 degree increase in spark at 40% load and 29% throttle opening? Yet that can make a difference.

 

Good points. After being tuned a year, I actually feel the stock tune is much more smooth than anything else aftermarket. I had herky jerky starts countless times with tunes.

I did regear, which helped a lot. I didn’t like the stock tune with the stock gears. I also only ever ran regular 87 octane fuel back then. When I was tuned I switched to premium and I haven’t switched back. There seems to be an improvement for sure, like it doesn’t pull timing as badly. I switched to premium before the regear and it seemed to help, so it’s not just a placebo effect from the less effort being required by the lower gears.

Understood, I can’t monitor everything perfect although I can see throttle opening, pedal position, and engine load. I would have to watch it like a hawk to know all numbers at all times….my main point about seeing those numbers is that the big picture is all the numbers look right about the same across all the tunes.

As for rev hang and the 3600 rpm “boost”, I never felt either of those change at all with any tune. Everyone says they do, but those seem exactly the same to me. Many people are happy with their tunes, and I am pretty picky and critical but what opened my eyes was going back to stock after being used to the tune. With low gearing, I prefer stock for easier control. If I was on stock gears, I’d probably want to be tuned just so it didn’t feel as gutless. The sensitive throttle helps the stock gears feel better. It makes the low gears feel annoying and hard to control. In my opinion, anyways.

 

Maestro RR2 which is hooked up to OBDII, it ties into a wire harness from iDataLink (the creator of Maestro) which the radio plugs into. It is also what adapts my steering wheel controls (programmable) to the aftermarket radio. I flipped my volume and seek steering controls as well during that project.

 

Nice response, thanks!

What tune did you go with? IMO it seems like some tunes go for peak power and may make some of the negative points just as bad, if not worse. Yet it seems like other tunes go for "smoothness", for lack of a better term, and maybe give up some peak power. Not saying one or the other is bad, just depends on user preference. This is one of the reasons I have not yet tuned my truck.

If you can export your engine parameters I find using tools in Microsoft Excel to be better for looking at some of the data. You can do things like create 3D plots of RPM, load, and PEAK spark advance. Or RPM, throttle, and fuel trim.