Raptor tune is in.

[Leethal Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close Leethal]

As you have documented the performance results which show what was promised and/or advertised was not what you received I would request a refund based on the goods supplied are not fit for purpose. They appear to have accepted your test data so I can’t see how they could dispute a refund.

Not fit for purpose for sure.

['Dan' Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close 'Dan']

The tuners response reminds me of the old saying. “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit”
It really sounds like waffle to me, more power for less fuel burn, hhmm sounds like perpetual motion ....

Just my thoughts after 40+ years in the gane

You're not suggesting you can't make more power with less fuel burn though are you? A car running 10:1 AFR is going to make less power and use more fuel than a car running 12:1 AFR all other things being equal. That is exactly more power for less fuel burn (up to a limit of course). It's not perpetual motion to improve the effeciency of a system. Am I misunderstanding what you're saying though?

Still seems like a shit response to his queries though, I wouldn't be satisfied with that because I feel like there should be some questioning about the car itself and trying to understand what's going on rather than throwing tunes at it. For so many others to have had a noticable gain, but Zero to not only have no gain but considerably worse economy (alarm bells immediately), that's not right and something is amiss.

Yep - $1300 down the drain on this one a copping it on the chin.... kicking myself as I should have known better and got sucked in by all the hype on the FJ forums... )#)*%)^%)#.....

Oh well... you live and you learn... given "0" gain and potential long term issues, Ive put it back to standard file and will be starting to do some research to see if I can off load the power gate device somehow (apparently its locked to my car now). if not, I may just get some satisfaction out of crushing it in the shop press...

I'd definitely go back to standard file also and go over the car, I remember you saying you had a scan guage, does it read fault codes? If not, for about $20 all up yopu can get a basic bluetooth dongle and Torque Pro app to read and clear codes (and monitor heaps of sensors etc) Did I say all that already, can't remember. That is if you wanna pursue trying to get an outcome, if you've already made your call then return to stock and show us all a video of you crushing the powergate for our entertainment

['Dan' Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close 'Dan']

As you have documented the performance results which show what was promised and/or advertised was not what you received I would request a refund based on the goods supplied are not fit for purpose. They appear to have accepted your test data so I can’t see how they could dispute a refund.

Not fit for purpose for sure.

Agree, if you are not going to try and "sort" it, I would be going the refund route.

True what they say about them being "married" the car, that's how the PGs work so you can't sell it to someone else, it's a shit system. I'm sure a Master AlienTech dealer could do something about it though and if you got a refund and sent it back I bet they could clear the codes on it and re-use it.

Push hard for a refund if that's your preference - they should be helping you sort it.

[rascal Member Find all posts View Profile Close rascal]

I'd also be heading down the refund process. Somethings definitely not right..

Though you might have more luck with that if the PG casing doesn't have witness marks from the shop press.....

[Leethal Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close Leethal]

Dan, your correct a poorly tuned engine running rich can be tuned for more power less fuel burn but not an engine that is tuned well. Most production engines will have a bit of fudge factor in their tune to allow for the poor fuel, harsh operating environment etc. my comment is that to promise more power less fuel burn in general is suspect. Put the car on a dyno and know how and where it will be used, yes a reasonable chance of improvements but I doubt both on a generic tune upload. I suspect they are trying to improve power such that one can hold a higher gear longer and get lower consumption that way.
My supercharged 90 had more power (lots) and very consistent and often better fuel economy but that was an engine that standard has a crappy AF ratio that just begged to be corrected.

['Dan' Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close 'Dan']

To be fair, what they state is "Air fuel ratios tuned for a balance of power and economy".

They don't say more power for less fuel, to me that's more power for the same fuel, or a touch better economy and a touch better power - a balance.

I'd agree the bigger economy gain is the better lock up behavior in 5th, and that reflects what I see in my car.

For Zero to get 5L worse per hundred vs everyone else outcomes that are markedly different tells me there's something afoot specifically with his tune/his car. 1GR's are known for experiencing shocking economy later in life too, which comes on suddenly and there was a body of work done on chasing that on the 1GR Facebook group which found injectors were at fault (but don't throw faults). I think we established my car and his had fairly big difference in k's. Rascal what kinda K's are on your bus?

He can either dig deeper to find out what's going on to get the outcome he paid for (I'd expect bulk help from the tuner for this) or throw in the towel I guess?

Easy for me to say because my car improved afterwards so I don't feel shafted - except by the freight process when they lost my ECU for a week, not joking!

[rascal Member Find all posts View Profile Close rascal]

. I think we established my car and his had fairly big difference in k's. Rascal what kinda K's are on your bus?

Mines just clicked over 90,000.

['Dan' Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close 'Dan']

And I'm at 84, so similar enough.

['Dan' Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close 'Dan']

WAs just looking at Torque Pro and noted it will give you timing advance figures. Would be a good way to see what the difference is between untuned and 98 tune.

[zerosecta Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close zerosecta]

Got Car Scanner Pro - I'll see if it does the same. I know it has a recording function so will be easy to do say a 1-3k run with each tune and record what happens to play it back and compare.

['Dan' Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close 'Dan']

Got Car Scanner Pro - I'll see if it does the same. I know it has a recording function so will be easy to do say a 1-3k run with each tune and record what happens to play it back and compare.

Sounds like a plan, hopefully it can also tell you what your throttle percentages are and instant fuel consumption etc.

I'm sure they'll be a relatively simple explanation for why your result is so different to the rest of us e,the fuel consumption part as to me that is the big indication that something is not right.

Good luck, I'm happy to do some testing and logging here with my stuff if that helps you at all I've just put a full tank of 98 in it.

[zerosecta Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close zerosecta]

Got the dongle out this morning and yes - Car Scanner pro has tons of sensors all working so I'll be able to setup recording for relevant sensors. Not sure I can be bothered tbh - I'm going to get in contact with Tim this week and see wether I can recoup some money by sending him the device back now we've determined this process is not quite as one size fits all as you'd need it to be.

I did however run a few acceleration tests using the app. - did three runs.. 1. with Original File, 2. the second file they sent me and 3 the third file.

Flat straight section of road, did each going in the same direction from exactly the same Strat position - basically buried foot to the floor until it hit about 125klm/h

The app and obd2 goodie do all the work - recording time at 0-60, 80, 100 and 120.

Results: The difference between all three files at all 4 markers is an avg of.... wait for it.... 0.1504seconds. Interestingly the tune files seem to be a tad quicker in the 0-08 range but then drop off a bit in the 80 - 120 range.
So all in all $1299 for the end result of simply burning heaps more fuel...

I did also do a couple of straight line runs going ~75klm/h on each file to check l/100 on the scan gauge. no surprises there... on the original file getting 9l. on the tune files between 11-13. same speed same revs give take 10 or 15 rpm out of ~1400

So I will be the first to say - these testing methods are by no means an exactly science - I get that. but I drove up and down that section of road about 25 times and the results where pretty consistent.
Basically only diff with the files installed is higher fuel burn

['Dan' Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close 'Dan']

I get what you mean about it not being scientific, but it's very real world testing and no less relevant IMO. I'm assuming you had 98 in the car for these tests (obviously the higher end tunes wont go faster if there's only 91 in the tank).

I also note that the mention it taking a few tanks for a higher tune to properly settle in, from this I take it to mean they alter the allowable max timing advance, it attempts that number and if ping is detected it drops the max timing back which is why I was focused on max timing sensors if you have them - all you can do in an NA car is lean it out a bit and add timing (plus in ours you can adjust VVTI engagement points to better suit exhaust/intake mods).

If all 3 tunes show no change in max timing advance or it differs widely from mine or Rascal that's another piece of info that's useful.

The increased fuel usage is still a worry, what is the throttle input % between each tune at that same 1400rpm?

I wish I had dyno plots or 0-100 runs to share, maybe I should get some, because the extra low end torque and top end punch in my car is obvious enough to me under foot that I wasn't worried enough to need testing if you get me - plus my economy got a little better so that's always an easy one to help justify to effort.

['Dan' Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close 'Dan']

Some anecdotal figures for comparison for others.

On the drive in this morning I was checking a few sensors. At WOT I was seeing around 36 degrees of timing advance, ambient air temp around 6 degrees - this was after I'd been driving a while so water/trans temps all up to normal etc.

Cruising, around 24-26 degrees at 100 which is like 1700 or so rpm I think?

Max I ever saw was 43-44 or so, when you let off the throttle (normal).

I used the flattest bit of road I could find (dips slightly at the start then rises slightly in the middle) and did a very basic 0-100km/h using Torque and the phones 1hz GPS, it does use extrapolating to try and be more accurate, but I didn't have my 10hz I use for racing with me and I'm not sure Torque could use it anyway. The number was 9s, which seems slow as #### to me, but no doubt the car feels faster than it did before doing mods/tune etc.

I had a quick search around and official times vary quite a bit but 9s -10s seems to be about the going time for a stock one (120/150 similar), though I've seen high 8's listed also.

When you consider extra weight of steel bar, winch, second battery, bigger ATs, lifted, transfer case guard, UHF, 12v system in the back, full tank of fuel, some tools/gear in the back, all the usual shit inside (2 car seats etc), it seems "decent"?

There's over 100kg extra on the nose from the bar, winch, and battery alone.

https://www.car.info/en-se/toyota/la...-40-v6-6716876
https://fastestlaps.com/models/toyot...uiser-prado-vx

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyjoFB36UXI
This guy was working hard on his shift points etc and got closer to 8, half a tank of fuel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSYqZpnHvkE

All this is just to add "something" to the discussion and try to help out.

What did you see on your 0-100 run? Rascal maybe you can do one as well? IF we find out that we're both sub 10s and you're comfortably over 10s or something then that's more info we can use.

[zerosecta Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close zerosecta]

My 0-100's. Accessories wise more or less same as you with 285/70/17 tyres. Interestingly - original file sitting right in the middle and we really only talking sub seconds in variance.

original file - 10.827
tune 2. - 10.350
tune 3. - 11.249

Have discussed my specific results (in particular only notable difference being higher fuel burn) with Raptor and they kindly offered a no questions asked refund - so in the end I'm overall happy with the outcome now as I've come out of it with a learning rather than just feeling like I've got nothing for my money.