Throttle Controllers, Myth or Magic? Sprint Booster Testing @Pure Automotive

[OrbitalEllipses]

Originally Posted by Turbowned

Honestly I just miss the old mechanical throttle cable.

Ditto.

[arghx7]

Remapping the throttle in the ECU should do the same thing, but having a couple mods you can switch into would be fun until the novelty wears off.

While I may sometimes miss the direct feeling of connection to the throttle plate, the overall simplicity and increased reliability of electronic throttle makes me prefer it to mechanical throttles.

Remember that electronic throttles eliminated cruise control actuators, special traction control motors, mechanical fast idle valves, idle air control valves, throttle cable & possibly cruise control cables, etc.

[Hardrock4445]

Just step on it faster.... No?

[Nardi330]

It's a bit like power/sport button/mode on some cars. It is a "feel good" mod.

[mswhong]

ok.. so from my understanding, this works by you having faster access to the power-band? I mean, it revs much faster, therefore you must be getting to where the power lies much quicker yes?

Why not go for a LWP then? I think that'd be much more beneficial for anyone's hip pocket.. given that this does cost more than a LWP

[sierra]

I got into trouble on an Oz forum a few years ago for asking too many questions about this product and ended up being told to modify my posts so I deleted them all.

BUT to be fair, I think you are all missing the one virtue it has above changing the throttle position input. It appears to amplify the signal or speed up the response between the pedal and the ECU. In some cars this is pitiful and this product would be worth the $300 just to cure that delay. I think it might be made worse by a small ECU struggling to process the information but the result makes driving a manual a painful process.

[nikitopo]

I am bringing up an old subject.

Sprint booster devices are not only about gas petal response. They send a higher voltage value(*) to the ECU, which is a way of requesting more power. In a sense, they use an indirect method to change the ECU's throttle tables. We made a test once, on a modern Subaru engine, by adjusting directly the throttle mapping tables. We found that there were noticeable performance increases. In fact much more noticeable than playing with the air-fuel ratios. Manufacturers play these days with the engine's inputs and outputs and add in the ECU additional internal parameters. Main reasons are the fuel consumptions and the emission regulations. By changing the throttle table values, you can somehow break these restrictions. Of course, no company that sells such devices will ever admit this. They prefer to say that their devices do not alter the engine's configuration and that they do not break the rules.

(*) It is approximately a 30% increase. For example if the max. value of the ordinary gas petal is 4.5V, then the sprint booster's max. value goes close to 6V.

PS: If someone has already changed the ECU mappings, then the advantages of a spring booster device will be minimal. If someone still see a difference, then it means that the ECU adjustment wasn't optimal

[sw20kosh]

This is a joke.

[steve99]

Originally Posted by nikitopo

I am bringing up an old subject.

Sprint booster devices are not only about gas petal response. They send a higher voltage value(*) to the ECU, which is a way of requesting more power. In a sense, they use an indirect method to change the ECU's throttle tables. We made a test once, on a modern Subaru engine, by adjusting directly the throttle mapping tables. We found that there were noticeable performance increases. In fact much more noticeable than playing with the air-fuel ratios. Manufacturers play these days with the engine's inputs and outputs and add in the ECU additional internal parameters. Main reasons are the fuel consumptions and the emission regulations. By changing the throttle table values, you can somehow break these restrictions. Of course, no company that sells such devices will ever admit this. They prefer to say that their devices do not alter the engine's configuration and that they do not break the rules.

(*) It is approximately a 30% increase. For example if the max. value of the ordinary gas petal is 4.5V, then the sprint booster's max. value goes close to 6V.

PS: If someone has already changed the ECU mappings, then the advantages of a spring booster device will be minimal. If someone still see a difference, then it means that the ECU adjustment wasn't optimal

That's total BS !

[humfrz]

humfrz

[nikitopo]

Originally Posted by steve99

That's total BS !

Do you know what is hapenning when you amplify the throttle signal? Have you ever tried this product? Some friends tested it and there were actual performance improvements. Faster passing, more responsive uphill driving and an overall improved feeling. I said already that it is not better if you compare it with an ECU re-mapping. It is better only if you don't want to mess-up directly with the factory settings and if you don't want to give an access of your car to people that think that they know everything.

[steve99]

Originally Posted by nikitopo

Do you know what is hapenning when you amplify the throttle signal? Have you ever tried this product? Some friends tested it and there were actual performance improvements. Faster passing, more responsive uphill driving and an overall improved feeling. I said already that it is not better if you compare it with an ECU re-mapping. It is better only if you don't want to mess-up directly with the factory settings and if you don't want to give an access of your car to people that think that they know everything.

Mate you could amply the throttle signal to 400v and it wont get you any more power.


That thing just adjusts the voltage output of the stock accelerator pedal sensor, such that say a small movement of the accelerator pedal can now cause a larger voltage to be applied to the ECU input and hence cause a larger throttle plate movement for a smaller accelerator pedal input change.


This will certainly give you the impression that the car has more power or acceleration, but the simple fact is its not going to produce any more power or torque than if you just were more aggressive with the standard setup.


The ecu has say a 0 to 5v input and this is interpreted as the accelerator pedal movement say 0v is no throttle and 5v is full throttle. Your device can adjust the rate of change of this voltage, but putting more volts than 5v onto this input of the ECU achieved nothing as the ecu has already interpreted it as 100% throttle application at 5v so feeding 6v or 8v into it achieves nil.


you can achieve the same result by adjusting the throttle tables in the ecu code, but again you produce NO extra power or torque. your just adjusting the "feel" of the throttle pedal to make it more or less aggressive.


for the cost of that device you could likely get a proper ecutek or oft or other tune and actually achieve power and torque increases, by actually changing the ignition timing, fueling, intake and exhaust cam timing.


If you want one of those throttle controllers then buy one but the claims are false and misleading.

[churchx]

steve99: it's as you wrote on all accounts of how it works and what provides, what not .. but still, that 'feel good' bit, that some testing it reported. - Yes, it won't bring more power, but seems that those that tried, prefer throttle opening curve with this to that of OEM .. so at very least imho this might be worthwile mod to try to implement with OFT, alongside other existing mods, like cold start, economy mods and such. Just like clutch pedal bite point adjustment or short throw shifters, it may enhance enjoyment of driving and imho worth experimenting with, even if there is no actual performance improvement except subjective feel. But it's fun we are after in these cars, no?

[humfrz]

Reminds me of back-in-the-day, when "they" were selling those "things" that were placed between the intake manifold and the carburetor ....... yep, it claimed to increase gas mileage by 25%.......

Further back, if one drilled a hole in the intake manifold of a Model A Ford, one could achieve a 20% increase in gas mileage .....

Even further back, the bigger the buggy whip one had, the faster the horse would run......for a while ........


Personally, if I want to go faster (to an extent), I just mash down harder on the gas pedal .......


humfrz