Gear Hunting - Tuning Options

[T4RandTacos]

Hey everyone, after spending its life cruising the Gulf Coast I finally road tripped northeast through the Smokies and Shenandoah and can fully appreciate the dreaded gear hunting at highway speeds. Sitting in cruise control at 75mph going up and down I-81 hills, this thing was flip-flopping gears every 5 seconds around 2500/3000 RPM. Big question, outside of the supercharger, anyone with the 2020+ models have any feedback or recommendations on tune options now that they've cracked the ECU and TCU? Not looking for huge power gains, but if I can avoid the CVT-feel and indecisiveness between high gears at high speed I'd happily fork over a few hundred bucks. Looking at Overland Tailor near me in Birmingham or farming out to another southeast/east coast shop before I make the permanent move to somewhere less flat than southwest Florida. Thanks all!

 

[LunarORP]

They are definitely cracked now. YotaWerx for sure

 

[thatoneguy]

When you catch it gear hunting 4th/5th on a long uphill, you can at least put the trans in "S4" and prohibit 5th gear until the road mellows out.

Cruise control is remarkably unsophisticated in these. I hardly use it, because it'll have far better transmission behavior for me to manually control the speed on hills.

 

[Every Day OutDoors]

Ahhh I brought this up in my 1 year review video on a 2018 like 4 years ago and people lost their minds that I butched about something involving the 4runner. YouTube comments are the greatest....lol I have no fixes besides never using the cruise which I am used to because I never use the cruise in my Peterbilt which I average 560 miles a day in 5 days a week. I think any power adder would be a good thing I just never think about it much now because it's not my daily driver anymore

 

[osugsxr]

Hey everyone, after spending its life cruising the Gulf Coast I finally road tripped northeast through the Smokies and Shenandoah and can fully appreciate the dreaded gear hunting at highway speeds. Sitting in cruise control at 75mph going up and down I-81 hills, this thing was flip-flopping gears every 5 seconds around 2500/3000 RPM. Big question, outside of the supercharger, anyone with the 2020+ models have any feedback or recommendations on tune options now that they've cracked the ECU and TCU? Not looking for huge power gains, but if I can avoid the CVT-feel and indecisiveness between high gears at high speed I'd happily fork over a few hundred bucks. Looking at Overland Tailor near me in Birmingham or farming out to another southeast/east coast shop before I make the permanent move to somewhere less flat than southwest Florida. Thanks all!

check out Kdmax tune on tacoma forums, there is a tune for 4runners now. Its more of a remapping and reviews are promising

 

[rdruss]

It takes more HP to operate in an overdrive gear versus a direct gear, thus, when you have a marginally powered vehicle to start with using OD in rolling terrain will result in a lot of gear hunting. As you experienced.

 

[Whippersnapper02]

Downshift so it doesn’t gear hunt.

 

[mbm112]

I’ve got the KDMax tune. Doesn’t do much for power, but it made throttle response better and shift mapping is much improved too. It’ll hold onto gears longer before downshifting or unlocking the TC, so it’s more consistent traveling up and down I70 in the mountains.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[97BlackAckCL]

I have the VR Tuning stage 1 ECU tune, and highly recommend it. It really improved the shifts and smoothed out the transmission performance and overall power band. There are several options now, but I went with this one because there were no vendors near me to flash the YotaWerx tune and I was able to flash my ECU myself in about 5 mins.

VR Tuned ECU Flash Tune Toyota 4Runner Dual VVT-I 270HP | VRT-TOY-4RN-270

 

[honda250xtitan]

x2 on vivid racing tune.

 

[Bmnorm2]

Since you live close to Birmingham I would go with Overland Tailor. They have full ECU and TCU tuning capabilities for 2020+.

2015-2019 is ECU tuning only, no TCU, so not sure how some of the other commenters with vehicles in that year range claim their tune changed the transmission controls/shift mapping. Maybe this has since changed?

 

[T4RandTacos]

Appreciate all the input! I took my supercharger fund and bought a W123 turbodiesel, so smaller upgrades are the move for the foreseeable future - even if I'm sacrificing the full power upgrade of the SC, daily improvements are a win. Leaning toward the Overland guys in Birmingham just due to lack of expertise and personal fears of messing up anything electronic/ECU/etc related, need ole girl to last me a long time. Glad to hear several of you have had good experiences running the tunes and are open to recommending them, more than a little peace of mind.

 

[Bmnorm2]

Details on the W123?!

I’ve got a Dodge D250 with Cummins 5.9L I6 turbo diesel.

If you do go with OTT, please post a review. I am considering them as well.

 

[Steve40th396]

Just curious, an you tune the 2019s for transmission shift points?

 

[jdm-v35]

Just curious, an you tune the 2019s for transmission shift points?

They have only cracked TCU for 2020+

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Just got an email from VR Tuning with a 20% off coupon for anyone interested

DANTUNE20

I have no association with them other than I purchased and use their tune :reddance: