[audioholic]

Originally Posted by ecenandu

I too work in similar field as yours, I'm worried how much DFMEA(Design Failure Mode and Effect Analysis) and FMEA(Failure Mode Effect Analysis) has this product gone through. The users so far hasn't come up with any erratic behaviours. My main worry is this, sticky throttle, unintended acceleration.

So are you not happy about the price of the product?


This product PedalTune, we are paying for more for the marketing, dealer profit and R&D cost than the bill of materials. Isn't this true for most of the electronic products out there? In our field, how much should an end user pay for sensor replacements?

Since the only technical information available on this product is in the manufacturers website, here is what it has to say:

Hardware
High-Precision Microcontroller Specially developed for the automotive application -40 ° C to + 125 ° C Integrated Active Low Energy Power Management Cable Made by DTE with original safety connectors

Software
Original DTE-PedalBox control software Vehicle-specific PedalBox profile developed and coordinated by DTE

I do respect the technical competence of whoever built this product, be it the hardware or the software so will not make any claims on how reliable this would be since we do not know what is the development environment that is present in the organisation. Hence, whether they have done FMEA, or whether the software is unit-tested or so is not known. So we should not be commenting on the reliability part. Also, reliability does not mean running this system for X amount of time and done. Some bugs might be hidden under a huge set of requisites, which might pop out at a very rare event. Hence, thats again unknown unless they provide some test reports and stuff. Neither would that come out to the public domain easily.

[GTO]

Moderator Note: Some posts have been cleaned up on this thread. Team-BHP does NOT permit personal attacks. It is mandatory to keep things calm & respectful on this forum.

[ImmortalZ]

Originally Posted by frankmehta

Physics lessons apart, which cars with drive by wire throttle respond to your pedal inputs alone? You are telling me, today's drive by wire cars respond exactly the same way as a cable driven throttle car would do, say, at 50 percent pedal pressure, and directly proportional to that at 70 percent pressure? There are so many parameters that your foot and brain together can't modulate!

I can tell you how many different things DBW lets you achieve.

Cruise control, lean burn and reduced pumping loss operating modes, different throttle response curves (ECO modes and such) and so on and so forth.

And no, I didn't tell whatever you said over there. Reread my post. I simply told you that this is a device that modifies the output of the accelerator pedal position sensor to achieve what you could achieve by simply pressing the pedal harder/faster.

Sitting where it is, there is no way, technically, to do what it claims to do. It is just making the ECU do what it usually does when you give it a higher throttle input. There is no way this thing is influencing the ECU in any other way.

And if this is a digital box sitting in between the APP and the ECU, you're adding an ADC - processing - DAC to the chain, which adds delay; which is not going to do anything about throttle lag other than adding to it. Just because my engine revvs faster, I'm not going to be going faster - because the black box just added a few milliseconds delay before it actually started revving.

If this is an analog box, it ain't communicating with anything.

To quote you,

1. Fuelling
2. Driver's Wish Map
3. Modulation of Engine RPM
4. Turbo Spool (due to RPM modulation)
5. Throttle Pedal Voltage
6. DSG Shifting (which is a consequence of the Throttle pedal voltage)

ALL of them are a consequence of the throttle pedal voltage.

Guess what an ECU does? Fuelling (and spark and hundreds of other things) according to engine load. Which is a function of the APP.
Guess what happens when you press the A pedal? RPMs rise!
Guess what happens when you press the A pedal? RPMs rise! Engine burns more fuel, which produces more exhaust gas! More. Turbo. Spool.
Gues what happens when you press the A pedal quote a lot? The ECU is like, "I need more torque than what I can make in the current gear!" TCU is like, "I can fix that! One downshift, coming right up!"

Here is the stock DBW map(s) of a 8th generation (or later) Civic. You can see all the parameters that govern its operation, as far as the engine is concerned. All the other devices like cruise control and VSA work with the ECU over CANBUS.

Originally Posted by frankmehta

Today's world of electric throttle has way too many variations that our brain can perceive and handle.

Sure can. They were designed by a brain. Or a few of them.

This box is nothing but a fancy looking Tri-phase.

I'm going to throw down the gauntlet here. I'm going to get my hands on one of these things, do some simple analysis on what it does. Then I'm going to burn my money, crack it open and post some pictures.

And then I'll make one of my own.

(By the way, there is nothing to be ashamed about reading technical papers and Googling to find what people who are far more knowledgeable and smarter than me have figured out about a topic. I assume you have read textbooks too, yes?)

[frankmehta]

Now you're talking! Go install one in your car if you can. Once you have done it, please publish your findings here. If it's half as bad as you say it is, I'll pay for it!

[ecenandu]

Originally Posted by audioholic

So we should not be commenting on the reliability part. Also, reliability does not mean running this system for X amount of time and done. Some bugs might be hidden under a huge set of requisites, which might pop out at a very rare event. Hence, thats again unknown unless they provide some test reports and stuff. Neither would that come out to the public domain easily.

Buddy, I think I didn't explain properly in the previous post. By reliability I meant, the product should be consistent with the results and not throw tantrums. A stand alone ECU user can relate, especially the turbo'ed petrol cars.

Regarding bugs, you are spot on with the point I was trying to convey. Hence asked Frank for an unbiased review on the product, regarding any glitches or similar issue. As pointed out by you some bugs in the software are hard to find and no amount of testing can guarantee a bug free software.

Speaking of bugs, here is a scenario which could happen if all the stars align .

With my previous employer, I helped the calibration team to step up a baseline MAPs for a bike. One parameter was Max throttle velocity, which is the maximum change in ADC value(voltage read by ECU from sensor) between two consecutive sampling of throttle sensor. We asked many test riders to whack open the throttle as fast as possible, the calibration team came up with a suitable value after collecting all that data.

The reason to tell this was, if the velocity is exceeded then an error counter will be incremented and after 'X' increments the ECU will report an error and Check Engine Lamp will be turned ON.

So, if we use this pedal box, there is a possibility of exceeding the throttle velocity as what this box actually does is artificially reduce the throttle travel.

I am not saying this strategy is commonly used but just wanted to highlight a scenario.

Originally Posted by ImmortalZ

Cruise control, lean burn and reduced pumping loss operating modes, different throttle response curves (ECO modes and such) and so on and so forth.

I'm going to throw down the gauntlet here. I'm going to get my hands on one of these things, do some simple analysis on what it does. Then I'm going to burn my money, crack it open and post some pictures.

And then I'll make one of my own.

Awesome, if you do that will be awesome.

Going ADC-DAC route will be flexible for them, as this company cater to different cars. Are they giving the same hardware - software config with different connectors for different cars ?

I hope you have a digital oscilloscope to log the data, maybe not.

I am biased, since I am from software field all the solution I can think of is by using software, but the same might be achievable via even simpler hardware solution.

Originally Posted by frankmehta

Now you're talking! Go install one in your car if you can. Once you have done it, please publish your findings here. If it's half as bad as you say it is, I'll pay for it!

Buddy, I don't think anyone here, atleast the people quoted in this post is telling the product is bad. At least that is the vibe I'm getting after reading what they have posted before. All they are telling is, this is not a sophisticated solution as you think it is, thats all. Correct me if I'm wrong, guys.

[batterylow]

So this is like an electronic quick-throttle?

[Akshay1234]

Originally Posted by frankmehta

You raise a valid point with respect to the part-throttle response for sure. It's leagues ahead.
ABout the 0-100 timings, you may be slightly off. My Honda does 0-100 in 10 seconds without the PedalTune and 9.6 seconds with it. As I keep saying, this PedalTune is NOT just throttle voltage modulation. It's a lot of other things.

Without getting into the debate, can I request you to do an experiment with the Pedal tune at its race setting, and the stock setting.

Keep the DSG in sport mode, and at a speed where it stays in gear but doesn't upshift (maybe 30kmph where it will be in 2nd, but not upshift to 3rd? You would know better) and try the timing to a 100 or 120 from there with the pedal tune in stock and race setting.

Again without getting into how it works, or what it does. My hunch is the .4 second difference from 0-100 was because of the DSG lag when you floor the accelerator from a standstill. A rolling start will be a better way to gauge the difference.

Would be interested to see if even with the rolling start its faster by more than .1 or .2, or whether its exactly the same.

[frankmehta]

Originally Posted by Akshay1234

Without getting into the debate, can I request you to do an experiment with the Pedal tune at its race setting, and the stock setting.

Keep the DSG in sport mode, and at a speed where it stays in gear but doesn't upshift (maybe 30kmph where it will be in 2nd, but not upshift to 3rd? You would know better) and try the timing to a 100 or 120 from there with the pedal tune in stock and race setting.

Again without getting into how it works, or what it does. My hunch is the .4 second difference from 0-100 was because of the DSG lag when you floor the accelerator from a standstill. A rolling start will be a better way to gauge the difference.

Would be interested to see if even with the rolling start its faster by more than .1 or .2, or whether its exactly the same.

Just got back from 3 (a total of 6) back to back runs in the Crio with and without the PedalTune on.
As a control, I kept the PedalTune at it's lowest possible setting, that is, the Eco--- mode (also the setting that yields the best results in my Honda at full throttle, because anything more, and there's a lot of unnecessary wheelspin)
Torque Pro was used to measure the timings, via my built in OBD2 device.
All other testing procedures remained constant.
Run 1:
0-100 kmph WITHOUT PedalTune: 9.86 seconds
0-100 kmph WITH PedalTune: 9.21 seconds

Run 2:
0-100 kmph WITHOUT PedalTune: 9.79 seconds
0-100 kmph WITH PedalTune: 9.38 seconds

Run 3:
0-100 kmph WITHOUT PedalTune: 9.72 seconds
0-100 kmph WITH PedalTune: 9.59 seconds

I might just test the Polo soon to conclude my results, but I don't think there will be a large difference in variation. .3-.4 second improvement to a 100 kmph with just a 'silly' electronic device seems good enough to me.

[Dr.Naren]

I was very skeptical about the pedal tune box as there won't be real BHP / Torque gains. But, after following your posts I can understand that pedal tune actually helps in cutting down the "lag". Also its clearly reflected on your 0-100 timing. 0.5 seconds gain is really good. If people can spend more than 30K for a remap and get 1.5 seconds gain, there is nothing wrong to pay half or 1/3 Rd the price for this box .

I have already contacted TTS Auto regarding pedal tune for S-Cross 1.6. I have sent them the picture of accelerator pedal sensor. I can't wait to try it out.

[VeyronSuperSprt]

For all those sceptics on this thread - customisable pedal response is used by Audi in some of their high performance cars.

So it's not something that is put together by a roadside hack but a reasonably tried and tested concept that works well in some expensive cars.

[Dr.Naren]

UPDATE :

Naresh did not have pedal tune box for Indian S-Cross. I think the connectors are different. But to my surprise, he sends me a video today saying I have made this box for you. I was very impressed as the connectors looked same as my OEM one and he took only a day to make it. I would be getting the box in few days, excited!!

I am not looking for any gains in power/ Torque. Suppose if I floor the pedal at 30 KMPH in 3 Rd gear, it takes few seconds for the engine to respond. If the box can cut this "lag", I would be more than happy.

[VeyronSuperSprt]

Originally Posted by Dr.Naren

Suppose if I floor the pedal at 30 KMPH in 3 Rd gear, it takes few seconds for the engine to respond. If the box can cut this "lag", I would be more than happy.

This will not happen.

The customisable pedal response does not increase max speed / max power which is what happens when you floor the throttle. It is only during part throttle input that you will find an increased response.

[Dr.Naren]

Originally Posted by VeyronSuperSprt

This will not happen.

The customisable pedal response does not increase max speed / max power which is what happens when you floor the throttle. It is only during part throttle input that you will find an increased response.

No, I am not looking at max speed / power increase. I have observed that all modern cars take a good time for the engine to respond especially at lower revv. If a pedal tune box cut this "lag", it would be great. I am talking about the gain in terms of seconds for the engine to respond after your press the pedal.

[VeyronSuperSprt]

Originally Posted by Dr.Naren

I am talking about the gain in terms of seconds for the engine to respond after your press the pedal.

Customisable pedal response is ideally suited for high power NA petrol engines where the response gives you such a high, it's almost like taking Prozac.

In turbo diesels it is a bit of a hazard as the turbo kick will come in much earlier than you expect resulting in you hitting the car in front of you aren't careful - especially in heavy traffic.

[Dr.Naren]

Originally Posted by VeyronSuperSprt

In turbo diesels it is a bit of a hazard as the turbo kick will come in much earlier than you expect resulting in you hitting the car in front of you aren't careful - especially in heavy traffic.

Not to forget, it's called customisable throttle response . There are different modes / sensitivity levels. I could adjust it accordingly from ECO to Race mode .