Drive by Wire Throttle Calibration Procedure

[TORQUERULES]

I wasn't sure if this had ever been posted on here or not, but I wanted to share with everyone the procedure for making sure that your throttle is calibrated correctly to eliminate any dead spots or non-linearity. You'll be surprised how many of us never really had a properly calibrated throttle. Drive by wire can be really sketchy which is why many of us try to help it a little bit with tuning and something like a pedal commander.

Anyway, here is the procedure:

1. Turn your ignition on, but do not start the truck.
2. Now push the throttle pedal SLOWLY in it's full arc from no throttle to flat to the floor. Be steady. It should take you about 10 seconds or more.
3. Quickly release the pedal as soon as you hit the floor.
4. Turn your ignition off.
5. Repeat steps 1-4 two more times and then start the truck.

You should see a difference in your throttle response as soon as you drive your truck. Now if your throttle happens to already be properly calibrated and never really had any issues you may not see a difference, but many of you will.

This will work with a tune and a pedal commander type device as well. They will actually do their job better. Just make sure if you have something like a pedal commander that is turned off when you do the procedure just to make sure it doesn't throw things off. Don't worry about your tune, it will not affect that at all.

As an example I have my tunes set up to have sport mode throttle tables in all modes and on top of that I use a pedal commander on City just to find my sweet spot and to give me a little extra adjustability either way if I want it.

This procedure worked wonders for me and it should work wonders for you too so give it a try.

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[navsnipe]

I wasn't sure if this had ever been posted on here or not, but I wanted to share with everyone the procedure for making sure that your throttle is calibrated correctly to eliminate any dead spots or non-linearity. You'll be surprised how many of us never really had a properly calibrated throttle. Drive by wire can be really sketchy which is why many of us try to help it a little bit with tuning and something like a pedal commander.

Anyway, here is the procedure:

1. Turn your ignition on, but do not start the truck.
2. Now push the throttle pedal SLOWLY in it's full arc from no throttle to flat to the floor. Be steady. It should take you about 10 seconds or more.
3. Quickly release the pedal as soon as you hit the floor.
4. Turn your ignition off.
5. Repeat steps 1-4 two more times and then start the truck.

You should see a difference in your throttle response as soon as you drive your truck. Now if your throttle happens to already be properly calibrated and never really had any issues you may not see a difference, but many of you will.

This will work with a tune and a pedal commander type device as well. They will actually do their job better. Just make sure if you have something like a pedal commander that is turned off when you do the procedure just to make sure it doesn't throw things off. Don't worry about your tune, it will not affect that at all.

As an example I have my tunes set up to have sport mode throttle tables in all modes and on top of that I use a pedal commander on City just to find my sweet spot and to give me a little extra adjustability either way if I want it.

This procedure worked wonders for me and it should work wonders for you too so give it a try.

I'm curious how/where you discovered this procedure. I will give it a try tomorrow morning before heading to work.

 

[Ranger X]

I’m curious as to why this has not been brought up in the past, ? I am anxiously awaiting the replies from the form gurus on whether or not this is fake news

 

[Muddy Fenders]

I've done this before on one of my F150's in the past.
I had what I perceived to be a laggy throttle.
Made no difference.
If I am not mistaken, I had seen it in one of the tech manual sections on here, so it has been available.

 

[TORQUERULES]

I'm curious how/where you discovered this procedure. I will give it a try tomorrow morning before heading to work.

Mustang forums. I've seen it for both Ecoboost and Coyote.

 

[TORQUERULES]

I’m curious as to why this has not been brought up in the past, ? I am anxiously awaiting the replies from the form gurus on whether or not this is fake news

I was skeptical too, but tried it and it made a difference. Pretty noticable. More noticeable than a placebo effect. But, you have to try it first.

 

[TORQUERULES]

I've done this before on one of my F150's in the past.
I had what I perceived to be a laggy throttle.
Made no difference.
If I am not mistaken, I had seen it in one of the tech manual sections on here, so it has been available.

It's kind of like that. I've seen a few say no effect, byt many say it did work. Again, I just tried it and it helped. Not that I really thought I had issues, but once I did this I really did notice a positive difference and I'm glad that I did.

 

[TORQUERULES]

Here's a link to one place I saw this: Mustang Ecoboost forums:

https://www.mustangecoboost.net/thr...es-for-improved-response-anyone-can-do.19903/

 

[TORQUERULES]

Just like the naysayers concerning throttle enhancers, or heck even tunes, there are those who will s**t on it, but I figured "what the heck" and I felt a difference. And this is from a guy (me) who has been through many tune iterations, etc. So lots of chances to get pretty tuned into how my truck responds.

 

[BassRanger]

I've seen this "procedure" posted across multiple vehicle platforms dating back to the early 2000's. However, I've never seen this documented anywhere in any vehicle manufacturers owner's, service, or workshop manuals, nor have I seen any parameters in a tune that would allow for such calibration. I don't doubt this procedure had some validity, on some vehicle at some time, but the fact that it's the same song and dance pretty much copy and pasted across so many different vehicles for the last 20 years that makes me iffy.

The thing with modern drive by wire such as that on our truck, there's not really anything to "calibrate" on the driver side. The accelerator pedal on your vehicle is nothing more than a pedal position sensor. It's a set of redundant potentimeters that receive a reference voltage from the ecu and send a return voltage. The ECU interpolates this return voltage as your pedal position. It's a fairly analog process. If anything got out of whack with the sweep of the potentiometers, there really isn't anything you could do other than replace the pedal.

Not saying it does or doesn't work, and it's free to try, but you'd figure if vehicle manufactures were including a calibration mode like this on their vehicles it would be documented somewhere in some official literature. ?‍

 

[TORQUERULES]

Listen, I'm not trying to sell you anything and I am not saying it's the best thing since sliced bread. I'm sharing because I saw this, was skeptical, but tried it and it worked in my experience.

Just like the obsession with those stupid Blackstone oil analysis, when you can just change your oil often and use good quality, it's up to the user to decide. Some may think it's crap, and some may try it and it works for them.

So take that for what it is. You guys figure it out.

 

[P. A. Schilke]

Hi Folks,

In this world of adaptive Algorithms, I suspect there is some truth to this, as it hastens adaptive learning for a specific system. I think owners of more mature Rangers will not see any "improvement" JMO...

best,
Phil

 

[TORQUERULES]

Hi Folks,

In this world of adaptive Algorithms, I suspect there is some truth to this, as it hastens adaptive learning for a specific system. I think owners of more mature Rangers will not see any "improvement" JMO...

best,
Phil

29,000 miles here. But, as I have worked with many tunes, etc. KAM for instance has been cleared each time, so that does have an affect. I also suspect if one gets stuck in non-optimal driving conditions for extended mileage, that that can have a hand in it as well.

 

[TORQUERULES]

For a instance, every once in a while I clear the TCU adaptive memory with my tuner if the A10 starts having any wonky shifts and then take it on the open road and drive it how I want without traffic hinderances, etc. This will straighten shifting right up.

 

[Frenchy]

@BassRanger hit this dead on. As said the pedal is just a sensor that does not need calibration. The throttle body on the other hand does have an idle learn. The procedure for that I'm not sure of.

@P. A. Schilke is correct about the adaptive learning as well
The PCM learns you so if you have not changed tunes or anything else for a while there is very little chance it will make a difference what so ever.

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