Instructions for custom tuning the truck with HPTuners.

Would you say the lockup is more useful in 6th if supercharged and tuned on 93? I think there is a lot of potential torque there if I can harness it without harming the transmission.

 

Correct, there is no lockup in 4th gear normally, but there is in cruise control and if stuff gets hot.

Why the percentages are the way they are, I have no idea. Like my 5th gear is like this:



Why does it say 100% 4x times? I have no idea. I'm guessing 100% is the theoretical max, but in the event the APP is messed up then the actual electronic limit is 256% so that's why it gets listed? Different year trucks have different percentage readings too.

If you right click the axis numbers, and go to column or row axis, and click edit then you can change the axis values. This graph will pop up and you can click the cells to change them. Though I'm not aware of being able to add or delete cells.

 

Like Centex said, there's a lot of preferences. My 4th gear is set for lockup at 1800rpm and unlock at 1500rpm. Stock is that lockup never happens for normal driving. But since I have 5.29s, I'm not moving essentially until the truck is at 2000rpm, so it's set to be unlocked if I'm coming to a stop essentially or taking off, and locked up the rest of the time. Same thing for 6th, the one guy said he doesn't like 6th having lockup so it's at a higher rpm--for me I have 4/5/6 lockup instantly but I spin really high rpm, having an extra couple hundred rpm in 6th for more torque would put me at 3000rpm when cruising on the interstate! Something I don't need, plus I have plenty of power anyways, and if the torque converter is unlocked it's getting hotter. My focus is on keeping everything as cool as possible, and with everything I have the trans already runs hotter than usual.

Something else I do is set all the trans lockups to the same, so cruise, normal, etc. are all the same, so regardless what mode the trans is in it's operating as I expect. The one thing I've been playing with is having tow haul as a torque converter lockup button since 1/2/3 never lockup, so if I'm towing up a really steep hill in 3rd I can lock it up. Though it seems to act a little strange doing that so far, so I'll probably just revert tow haul to doing nothing.

 

I disagree on not locking in 6th. At that point it’s for efficiency and mileage, not power.

 

I have not, the only time I see IAT mentioned is Engine -> Idle -> Airflow -> Startup -> Startup Airflow IAT. That might be a table only VFT can access? I know that was one of his big claims was having a better tuning solution for IAT.

 

Those aren’t engine rpm’s in the table, it’s transmission output shaft rpm. Very different.

 

In 4th gear they're the same value, which is why Silver was using that as an example. But yes, sorry if I misspoke.

 

Ah. Understood. Carry on.

 

I haven't looked at my TC tables, but my shift scheduling tables go up to 128% (i have a 2010) like snivilous said in case of a sensor error. Does anyone have a NA setup with modified shift scheduled they'd like to share? And perhaps some air/spark too?

 

Here's mine. Been able to gain a full 1mpg gain so far. Let me know if this link doesn't work. I am by no means a professional tuner so anyone feel free to criticize. I'm pretty happy with how it runs. I do need to adjust the TPS a bit more as it's still a touch to sensitive but it's way better than stock. I've spent time in the base spark advance, tps voltage, maf voltage, tcc lockup, trans pressures, and a few other places. I haven't started touching fueling yet since I don't have a wideband.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4q6qtux89h2s58e/Cruise v3 - 1.5 wot - TPSv3 - TCC Flex Slip Remove - TCC 4th Appv2 - MAF x 1.04v2 - High Octane Spark increase.hpt?dl=0

 

May depend upon what kind of grades you climb in 6th in your area. Mine will climb a 7% grade in 6th at 65-70mph rather well. My truck is 5280lbs.

 

Ya, it must be the 5.29s and the tires. I changed mine yesterday and like it so far, I haven't noticed any negatives for my use case...yet. I'm at 2050rpms at 75mph.

I wonder if some of the other T/H specific settings are affecting your experiment.

 

I have some decent hills around here for sure. It’s probably not a huge deal if I have the lockup set more aggressively for daily driving. I also tow a 7500lb camper though, which I always use tow/haul for when towing. Would it be a bad idea to change the TC lockup for tow/haul if I’m actually towing heavy with it?

 

My trans has had weird behaviours ever since the OVT trans tune years ago, so that may affect things to. I still have to go to S6 for the truck to remember it has a 5th and 6th gear.

Not at all. I thought tow/haul already dropped the lockup values so it happens earlier, but maybe I was just looking at the hot tow/haul and not the normal mode.

I'm not a transmission or tuning expert, but I don't know what downsides there are to the converter being locked. I certainly can't tell any difference besides slightly less rpm and a cooler trans with consistent temperature.

 

Ahh, I'd forgotten about that carryover issue.

The one thing that might happen is that when when locked in 6th and getting into it, the ECU might start pulling timing if it begins to detect what we called High Gear/Low RPM (HG/LR) ping when tuning manual trans boosted Tacomas. This would reduce power and you'd either have to manually downshift (or prompt one with a throttle stab) or tune to have it unlocked for the few extra RPMs. Trial and error!

 

I tried to view the file, but don’t have drop box so not sure if I can without opening an account. I was mainly curious what changes you made to the trans pressures? I had read on the HPtuners forum some posts by SlowNStock not to increase the max pressure, but incremental changes (5-10%) in the 40% throttle and up range without increasing the max pressure could be beneficial. It can be done similarly for the torque management but that looks a tad more complicated perhaps. I may see how my TC changes feel before messing with anything else. Still have to decide how to set up tow/haul with the TC.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's not specific to the converter being locked. That's just high engine load at low rpm, and those associated timing values should be adjusted if there's knock feedback happening.

Unless you're talking about lugging the engine, but the truck will downshift.

 

Its free to make a Dropbox but I’ll see if I can share another way since I can’t load straight to the forum. I bumped them up about 5%. Nothing drastic. To much can put undue strain on parts. I didn’t mess with torque management at all. I’m not building a drag truck and that stuff saves transmissions. I left tow haul alone but used some of the figures to add to the regular file. Like the throttle sensitivity. Stock was sluggish and tow/haul to much. So I took the two figures, figured out the difference between the two, added that to the base file, and then started adjusting from there. No sense in reinventing the wheel. Same with the converter lock up.

 

I'll look at it on my computer at work tomorrow (that's where I do my tuning) The only thing I've changed on mine are decreasing the torque management tables by 10%, decreasing output shaft speed slightly and increasing app% in shift scheduling. I'll try yours out and see how it goes..

 

I feel like we're getting to the point where several aspects come into play. TC lock/release, shift scheduling, and likely at least one or two others where now I think I'm having trouble keeping all the plates spinning.

I guess it might come down to how we want to tune our trucks to have them respond in a particular scenario. I imagine going up a mountain pass and as the grade increases and I try to maintain speed by slowly adding throttle. I'm in 6th and the TC is locked. At a particular accelerator pedal position I imagine having guessed correctly how to program the TC to unlock at just the right moment to get me just enough slippage and rpms to maintain 6th gear and make my merry way up the mountain....

...but that would generate heat, and if you're towing, you are wanting to avoid that. In that scenario you might have the TC remain locked and have things tuned in the realm of timing adjustments and knock mitigation to do it.

I suppose that there's always the option of doing what the N/A trucks do and run at the hill in S4 or S5.

I don't know, I've been staring at these tables all day I think I've absorb more than I was thinking I would and now I have monkey mind, too many things to process in the moment. I'm glad that at least some of it's making sense.

 

In that scenario I’d rather drop to 5th or 4th and lock the converter than try to maintain in 6th. That’s what all these gears are for. Ain’t gonna hurt nothing to run the rpm’s up. 6th and 5th gears are OD and not meant for loads like that. Drop the gears, lock the converter, get the rpm’s up and the engine in its power band, and set the cruise.

 

I thought this was a pretty good read on torque converters. I may just lower the RPM mine locks up at in 5th and 6th by 10-20% for now and see how it feels. It seems like if the TC is locked up and there is too much load it can cause the lockup clutch to slip, heat up and wear out. I’d be worried about that happening mainly while towing heavy and forcing lockup when it probably shouldn’t be locked. There seems to be a line that must be drawn between the TC being locked but slipping and causing heat and wear, and being unlocked and the intentional fluid slipping of the TC (as designed) building up heat. My thought is if the TC is unlocked that yes it will build heat, but it is basically designed to do that and the trans fluid cooler is there to help mitigate it.

My newb take is it is probably more advantageous to have more aggressive lockup for normal driving for efficiency and less aggressive lockup, (safer for the TC lockup clutch) when towing.

https://official.bankspower.com/tech_article/understanding-torque-converters/

 

The lower the rpm you lock at, the more likely you are to slip the clutch as the oil pump doesn’t have enough pressure built up to keep the clutches from slipping. These aren’t diesels and don’t have the torque down low like they do so there’s no real advantage in having them lock up real low in the rpm range, you’ll just hurt stuff. I’ve always gone by the rule of thumb that if the converter is locked and the engine is struggling to accelerate then it shouldn’t be locked. It’s why on my Durango I removed the 3rd and 4th lock up and only allow it in 5-8 but on my tundra I set it to lock in 4-6.

When towing, I want the converter locked starting in third or maybe second gear so I can keep the heat out but keep the power to the ground. I’m also not allowing the engine to lug a trailer around in OD at 1300rpm either. Tow/haul changes the shift points and keeps the rpm’s up to keep the engine in its power band which means higher rpm’s and higher pressures in the transmission so I don’t worry about keeping the converter locked. One could argue that locking in 1st gear would help but I’ve never liked how that felt and prefer to rely on the torque multiplication from the fluid coupling to get me moving before I lock it up.

 

Yep, we're tuning for our personal preference/comfort zone for how we use our trucks.

 

What octane gas are you using?

 

Just 87. At 13.7mpg and $3+ gal, it ain't worth the couple extra ponies.

 

Ok just wanted to make sure, shoot it's over 5 a gallon here in socal....

 

LOL, a thirty-five minute drive this afternoon. We'll see if it lasts and which way it goes.

 

Once I do long tubes I’ll go for 93 but otherwise I’m fine. I’ve got no knock retard cruising and between 1-1.5* at WOT which I’m comfortable with. I need to get a wideband and start tuning the fueling and in general add more timing to the cruising ranges to try and maximize mileage. This is why I like being able to tune myself and not rely on canned tunes.

 

@centex when you hit 4th gear does it lug a little bit when the TC locks?