Tacoma - OVTUNE - VFTUNER - Update Info and Original Development

Awesome!!!! Thanks!

EDIT: Just got an email with a refund for the discount for the July 4th code!

 

Packed up and anxious to see how she'll tows with the tune. Will report back.

 

I got a reply in less than an hour. I flashed my ecu with no issues.

 

Holy $%#...now I understand why you guys are so excited about this tune hopefully fixing our trucks. I managed to put 700 miles on my truck in the first month of ownership basically commuting and driving around town on the weekends here in Atlanta where there have been NO hills at all of any length....completely flat. I have been disappointed about my MPG and and the poor drivability but last night I ended up driving in an area with some extended low grade hills. This thing is a nightmare trying to maintain any sort of speed on the slightest of hill. If the truck is in cruise it shifts back and forth like it's trying a make a big martini or something (shaken not stirred). If it's not in cruise you have to constantly adjust pedal pressure to keep it in a torque sweet spot in a way I've never had to do with any other vehicle to stop it from hunting...IF you can. I was disappointed before last night, now I'm pissed. I soooooo want to love this truck. It handles great, looks great, stops great, it even "feels" great...but it drives like shit. After last night I don't even like it. What makes it worse is we bought a 2016 Honda Odyssey last fall...it is essentially the same weight and has a 3.5 liter 6 speed auto rated at 248 HP and 250 ft/lb of torque. It gets 19 mpg around town and 27 on the hwy (Yes, I know, aerodynamics and 4x4 drivetrain, I don't expect the Tacoma to do that well but it should be able to get within 70% of it) but more importantly the engine/transmission is a &^%*ing DREAM compared to this Tacoma. I've driven that thing all over the east coast (mountains to the sea) and it's engine/transmission, which is essentially moving the same weight, is LIGHT YEARS ahead of my Tacoma in drivability. If you transferred the drivability of the Honda engine/tranny to my Tacoma, I'd be as happy as a pig in sh1t. There is no way I'm going to leave this thing as is. I had plans to use it quite frequently in the NOGA mountains towing a light camper around....no #$%*ing I would want to do that sort of driving with this truck. It will either need to be sorted by Toyota (fat chance) or sorted with a tune or traded in. I will probably be waiting another month or so before I do anything but I'm going to talk to the dealer about the issues (expecting nothing) and watching this space intently. This was a forced purchase (totaled my 2005 Tundra) and I admit I didn't join the forums until I owned the Tacoma. It's drivability wasn't so obvious in my short test drive and I just kinda of gave Toyota the benefit of the doubt based on all my previous Toyota trucks as opposed to researching the sh1t out of it...like I usually do on any purchase over $10. I've learned an expensive lessen.

I want to give a big thank you to the early adopters...seriously. I'm just not the sort who can jump on brand new stuff out of the gate, I need to see independent results (yes I recognize the irony), so I really appreciate you guys who are willing to do it and report back here honestly so people like me can feel better about our decisions. I will be following this space intently looking for reviews. $765 on a tune is much less than the $5-10k hit I'll take on trading it in on a Tundra (or equivalent).

 

How are the trucks doing that have the tune installed? Not seeing much on reviews! Is this tune working out to everyone's hope's? I am waiting for some reviews that have some real impact before i make a decision on adding this, as it would be money taken away from my gear change! I have read the few reviews so far but haven't heard anyone being blown away by the improvements!

 

There are at least 4 reviews in the thread. None negative. Here is mine.

 

No i didn't mean they are negative, they seem to be positive so far! But just haven't enough! I guess from what i have read its been slow going getting out the tune to everyone, i know alot of guys have ordered and are waiting for the final install key's. I have been away from the thread for a while.

 

People that have them need to put some miles on the truck, just like when it is brand new. It takes time for the ECU to get its bearings and fine tune for your typical driving conditions. I just loaded mine last night and only made a 5 mile trip to the store and back.

I can tell it hasn't settled in yet. There are still some erratic behaviors exactly the same as when I picked up the truck brand new. For example, 3rd gear 2000 rpm up a mild hill, it stutters on and off a little bit. I want to be clear, THIS IS NOT THE FAULT OF THE TUNE. It happened when the truck was brand new until I had a couple tanks of gas through it.

My initial impression with only a few miles: If this is only the alpha release, I can't wait to see what happens after a few more months of development.....

Throttle response is there, but will probably get better with more miles on it. My right foot does seem to be better connected to the throttle body.

Power *may* be better, but my butt dyno isn't calibrated.

I will definitely not hesitate to give feedback once I get more miles on it.

 

I have never had a tuner for any vehicle i have owned so i dont have much knowledge as to how fast the truck and tune start working together, so there is a learning curve (TIME) for the ECU figure out the tune?

 

I just flashed mine back stock. I am going to see if it still has the fluttering issue. As for reviews, you can feel the power and throttle difference. With 285's I can hold gears longer. The power delivery is more linear. I just drove mine up and down the street with the stock tune and it's back being slow as hell until you reach around 3500 rpms then it builds power. If the fluttering issue is solved with the stock tune, I will wait until it's updated and the data logger is out then flash the tune back.

 

This is what Ive been saying all along.

And I think these 2 posts sum up the entire tacoma power debate.

 

It has nothing to do with the tune. The same thing happens when you remove your battery and reset the ECU. It has to go through the same re-learn process.

 

How many miles did you have on the OV tune?

 

Not differing expectations at all, Im simply saying how most vehicles act while driving through mountain passes. Plus that 5 ton can only maintain 45-50 mph while the taco goes 70 mph

 

Was it doing this prior to tuning it?

 

Was your car doing this at all before flashing it? Is there a certain rpm or certain throttle range that it happens in?

There shouldn't be any flutter or power loss or oscillations of power on the calibrated file

 

I noticed the fluttering on my newly flashed truck this morning. I assumed it was a result of the ECU relearning. I did not know others had this issue as well.

 

I believe it was it just was not near a noticeable. It does it more in 4th 5th and 6th gear on flat surfaces with light throttle. It kinda jerks back and forth. I'm going to drive it for a few days and see how it does. From reading on this forum it sounds like they symptoms of a bad crank positioning sensor. Mine is not under the recall. We will see how it does stock. 85 percent of the time it was fine. It only happens with light throttle. I thought it was bad gas because I filled it up 30 minutes before I flashed it. I did put sea foam in it and ran it a half a tank down and used 93 from a different station and there was no change. I also removed my cai and reinstalled the factory one one and reset the ecu and it did the same. I cleaned the MAF yesterday and drove it around about 90 miles and it did the same. I have not driven it alot with the factory tune on it but I will let you know how it goes in a couple of days.

 

About 250. It was glorious the whole time.

 

Guys / Gals one thing with the way the progressive maps work in this ecu is that it needs several drive cycles where the engine is up to temp so that it can learn and store the multiplier / ratios for the torque and throttle-i maps and ignition.

If you guys are continually resetting your ECU and unplugging the battery the ECU has to start the process over from nothing every time.


as far as worrying about dealer detection, they use the same tool that we have at our disposal. Dealerships only have what toyota provides. We have this. The software cannot distinguish anything more than the current version of the tune by calibration ID that is on the ECU. Your calibration ID does not change ever.


however, if your truck has issues stuttering, misfiring, etc before the tune, a tune will not fix this because the truck should not be doing that.