Traction Issues

It has been raining almost everyday here in Kuala Lumpur, and with all the ongoing roadworks around the city centre its certainly isn't very pleasant to drive around with all the stop and go, bumper to bumper traffic.

Some of you already might have know that the current NCP93 Toyota Vios is equipped with an electronic throttle or better known as the drive by wire system (or fly by wire), which I agree it is actually a very good design for fuel efficiency and other neat stuffs like anti-lag and traction control.

Most will probably agree with me that the drive by wire system in our car is certainly not the smartest, and the comments I often hear are "dumb", "laggy" and "slow" etc.

And hence there are after market electronic throttle tuning products like BRM21 HAC and Pivot 3 Drive Throttle Controller.

Because the opening of the throttle plate doesn't correspond directly with your pedal position, with all the rain going on I'm actually getting wheel spins from time to time during traffic light take offs and its getting really annoying.

Couple of times the car next to me actually thought that I was trying provoke him in to a traffic light challenge and he starts spinning his wheels as well. This is the time where some sort of traction control will be really appreciated.

The sad part is that the JDM Toyota Vios doesn't come equipped with traction control unlike the USDM or European Yaris whereby traction control and vehicle stability control is offered be it standard or optional.

Also if you were to plug in an OBD2 scanner and you'll discover that our cars are actually equipped with speed sensors on all 4 wheels, and from there you will be able to monitor all the individual wheel speed.

Yes, no doubt I love the kind of torque the car is producing now but power is really nothing if you can't transfer them properly to the wheels and control it.

So I'm pondering now perhaps its time to ditch the car and get myself a proper sports car with a full time 4 wheel drive system like the Evo or Subie?

Yes most probably, but before doing so I will still continue to complete all the current pending mods that are lined up on hand.

Sigh, don't think the current 205/45 profile tires has sufficient grip
*depressed*

Innovate Motorsports Wideband Controller

For any natural aspiration to turbo conversion project, a wideband controller is almost a must have item for the absolute serious tuners and enthusiasts.

Most natural aspirated cars comes factory fitted with a narrow band sensor where it could only read air fuel ratios between 14.5 and 15.1, which is pretty much useless for turbo cars whereby the air fuel ratio ranges are much more wider.

Toyota Vios turbo has been using the LC-1 wideband controller from Innovate Motorsports since the very first day it left GT Auto's garage, and the reason why we chose Innovate over other brands like AEM, DynoJet and Zeitronix is pretty much self explanatory here.

The test conducted by Ford Muscle clearly shows that the Innovate LC-1 wins hands down in terms of accuracy and response time over others, put aside the other features such as the logging capabilities of the software.

Besides that, the thing we like about the LC-1 is that it has 2 programmable analog outputs, a feature very useful for tuners to tune OBD-II compliant cars where the ECU relies on 2 narrowband sensors to adjust the air fuel ratio during closed loop operation.

OBD-II car owners should take notice what I am about to post next.

With the analog output feature, we're able to fool the stock ECU to keep the fuel trims in check by wiring an analog output to simulate narrow band reading to the ECU so that it does not correct any adjustments made by the E-Manage piggyback unit during closed loop.

Think of it as an O2 remapping device if you will, and the only other devices that we have seen in the market which has similar capabilities is the AEM F/IC piggyback, HKS F-Con iS and the F-Manage from Trust Japan, whereby even the mighty R35 GTR's ecu was also defeated by it.

As far we know, Innovate is the only producer of digital wideband controller in the market which is capable of auto self calibration, whereby the rest are all analog based and had to rely on the factory sensor calibration. This is a major factor to consider when deciding on your purchase of a wideband controller because when the sensor ages, so will the accuracy of the reading.

So if you were somehow unlucky and purchased a unit which is not capable of calibration, you wouldn't have any idea when the sensor is going bad. There won't be any compensations for changes in temperature, altitude and sensor condition.

In simple terms, your engine is basically blinded but with its eyes wide open. In this case, you might as well just throw it away and run your car fully map based, lose your fuel economy rather than risking an engine blow.

LC-1/XD-16 kit package

XD-16 gauge showing stoich during idling