ShiftSense Pro - transmission shift controller for Gen3 Tacoma

Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous! I got out, put the roof back, rolled down all the windows and went for a drive; even hit a car show. When I got home I realized I never one time thought about the transmission shifting or what gear I was in. I'm starting to enjoy driving the truck. For those of you just starting out with the shift sense pro, you may feel like it is reving too much because you are used to it shifting so early. I drove in regular automatic mode and it simply drove me crazy! All of the shifting and bogging was so annoying; my truck literally shutters using automatic mode. TOYOTA COULD CHANGE these shift points on these trucks and have much better satisfied customers. THEY could do more for all of us. I said months ago, "Someone needs to 'hack' this transmission to do what TOYOTA should do!". A special thanks to @dcz108 I wish him great success with this device and his continued improvements.

 

I just used the red 3M doubles sided tape that came with the unit. After I swap the chip I'll
move the unit under the Qi pad.

 

Installed the SSP about a week ago and as reported works great. Big difference over stock...big thumbs up!

 

Has anyone pulled a travel trailer with this yet with good results?

 

We just got back from a weekend of camping and I played around with different modes to see what worked best for towing. We have a large pop up weighing roughly 2k pounds dry.

The shift sense seems to work fine. A couple of times on the interstate going downhill, I would gain speed to about 74 or so and the truck would shift to 6th. Keep your speed down where it should be for towing and it will work fine.

I think my preference for towing is still either s4 or s5 (depending on how fast I'll be going) with ECT on and shift sense not engaged. I prefer throttle feel of ECT when towing....otherwise it feels like my foot is to the floor constantly. ECT with shift sense does work ok, but sometimes it ends up being the truck controlling downshifts or holding gear rather than the shift sense....it's not as effective with ECT on while towing IMO.

My towing experience in general with the truck........
The trip there (about 200 miles) we got about 17mpg averaging about 70 mph! The way home we had a strong headwind and mpg went down to under 14.....also caused the truck to gear hunt quite a bit between fourth and fifth gear going about 70 mph. This truck is a capable tow vehicle, but I wouldn't want to tow with it all the time (for work as an example). I think the best towing scenario with this truck would be driving state highways at about 55-60 mph and locking it in s4.....it would happily tow about anything (within reason) in that setting I think.

 

Order #1222, placed 5/26, delivered 6/12. Can't wait to go home and install!

 

Order 1210 received, installed and driven today! I will gladly buy another one if it comes in a in-console mounting option. Now to go pick up my Toyota sales guy for a test drive. They took his truck from him because of the differential seal recall. OP, if you are ever VFR to KILM, the beer and oysters are on me!

 

I'm order #1227. I'm ready to try it out!

 

Got mine today. Took longer to read the instructions and go through the test procedure than it did to install. Thought I could flex the plastic center console piece enough to slid it under the Qi charger. And I could, just not without breaking the tab of at the front.

Have not driven it yet. I will take it for a spin tomorrow.

 

Dope!!! Let's get some grub and go wheeling too.

 

Order #1219 received and installed!
I tucked the device under the Qi charger - I like clean minimalist interiors too much to have it out. Used zip ties for wire bundling and attached it to a preexisting wire above and out of the way of the under-the-steering wheel airbag.

Like most everybody, I am very, very pleased. It shifts pretty much how I would shift if it were a MT.

Running a 2.5" leveling kit, 33" tires, MBRP exhaust and AFE CAI.
While I'd never expect to see true MPG or MPH gains with exhaust/intake mods on a V6 3.5 4x4, I do expect to feel a little more power/torque in certain power bands around 40-60 mph while accelerating, and I have on this truck - However, it feels like the Shiftsense Pro is allowing me to get the most out of my exhaust/intake mods by keeping it in the "proper" power band, you know, like not shifting into 6th while at 50 mph. (please don't let this turn into an anti-CAI thread ).

Kudos to OP - great device, nice price, and with fantastic results. You sir, are a true TW hero.

Love my 3rd gen even more now

 

1293 here, eagerly awaiting my SSP

 

I would keep the gear change option open for sure if you do much interstate driving. OP needs to sell a lot of these to bribe someone for access for the 6th gear. I'm loving mine now, especially when pulling out of the neighborhood on to the main highway. No more S-mode manual shifting, unless I want to of course.

 

How did you manage to place it under the Qi charger? Did you just slide it under there and closed the console up?

 

Pretty much - it fits quite nicely under there. I fashioned the wires nice and neat and while the fit is snug, it's not by any means tight or stressing the shift sense or the vehicle in any way.

 

Order #1203 received and installed yesterday. I tested it on my regular commute (highway / city / stop & go / freeway) and I'm impressed. I think for my purposes I'd actually like to try the old chip with longer 4th gear as well. Maybe I'll ask the OP if he can send me one of those.

I really like the product -- it addresses my two main concerns with regular D-mode:
1. When coasting into a turn the transmission upshifts immediately which means coming out of the turn there's no power for acceleration until the transmission is done downshifting two gears which takes too long.
2. Transmission is in wrong gear when trying to quickly pass on the freeway and it takes way too long to downshift. Also, it usually ends up downshifting too far which means the engine is now revving too high and the truck is still not making progress. When it finally is in the right gear it is too late to pull out and I have to hit the brakes.

Both of this are fixed with SSP because it only upshifts when the engine can actually pull the next gear.

Besides, I think the safety features it has show great engineering (for example: SSP disables itself when manually shifted or when put in 4-lo).
SSP is a much simpler solution than trying to crack the ECM/TCM programming and reflash them. Plus, running SSP doesn't affect the truck's warranty.

 

Order #1325! New member here, first time Toyota owner and hope to stay that way with the OP's magic box. Coming from '98 and '06 Grand Cherokees previously, I'm really trying to love my truck but the only thing I think about while driving is the (poor) shifting, it just ain't right. Talk about distracted driving! Can't wait to see how this feels, will report back soon.

 

Welcome! And keep us updated.

 

I checked your site and didn't see it mentioned (and don't want to read through the 1,300 posts on this thread,) but does this unit solve the dragging shift issue? It seems like sometimes the trucks shift programming is geared too much towards comfort and not towards what is actually good for the transmission. I can almost smell the clutches getting smoked between shifts sometimes LOL.

 

@1bad. Since you do not want to read, we won't type an answer. Should you decide you want to read, we won't need to.