Throttle Controller review (does NOT reduce lag)
 

Tip of the hat to TSloper, who inspired this post.

THIS ITEM DOES NOTHING TO REDUCE THROTTLE LAG!!

I just installed mine and did some careful testing on an unused, straight road (old Hwy 51 between LaPlace and Manchac, if you're wondering). Without the controller installed at all, in 4th gear at 50mph, you can stomp the gas and immediately let off, and the car just barely scoots ahead.

This is "throttle lag". It's where the car doesn't react to your input of "more gas/air" for a slight delay (someone else here recorded 50ms, which I 100% believe).

Then, I installed the controller (brand new controller, set up properly). Sure enough, regardless of the setting, when you hit the gas (same experiment parameters as above) and let up, you just get a blip. THE LAG IS STILL THERE!

What this does is remap the throttle tip-in (meaning, a mathematical table that reads what percentage you are pressing the pedal and opens the throttle a corresponding, but not always equal, amount). The following tables illustrate what I'm talking about.

https://s3.postimg.org/fob04z24z/image.png

Basically, what you are seeing is that, in a low-powered car, which the manufacturer wants to make you think is fast, when you press the throttle a little bit, you get a LOT of gas.

Compare that to a high-powered car, where if you gave it that much gas at only 10% pedal travel, the resulting torque would spin the tires at every redlight. So, they reduce the amount of throttle initially. This is the easiest and most effective way to make high-hp cars (like ours, on up to something like a LaFerrari) comfortable to drive on the street in daily traffic.

Now, back to my experiment. I have already verified that the controller doesn't get rid of "lag". But, what did it do to my tip-in table? Well, I again put the car in 4th gear. But, this time I got a long stick (actually, it's my garage parking card, mounted on a metal rod) and wedged it between my gas and seat (again - zero traffic on this road). By moving the seat forward, I could give the car more gas. I moved the seat to where I was going 50mph in 4th.

The controller was set at SP0. I moved it to SP1. No difference. By SP3, I was up to 54mph and holding. At SP4, I went to around 60mph. I didn't want to keep waiting for the speeds to equalize after that (I mean, I am driving with a stick on the throttle!), so I cranked it up to SP7. The damn car was going 70mph in under 5 seconds! And, remember, I haven't moved the seat or pressed the gas pedal one little bit more.

So, what does this tell me? Basically, GM set our tip-in mapping to something around the "High Powered Car" table. This controller moves it more towards "Normal Powered Car".

What's our lesson here?

TLDR:
1) The throttle controller does NOT reduce lag.
2) It simply give you more power for lower gas pedal travel values.

So in other words, not worth the $! lol.

Well, if you want to change the mapping, then totally worth it!

In fact, I'm probably going to keep it. For a road course with sharp corners, I want a very forgiving throttle. In other words, I want to be able to hit the gas and not have the car put 300lb/ft of torque to the ground at 10% throttle. I want to roll into the throttle gently as I come out of the turn.

So, for a course like that, I might even use EP2 or so. For daily driving, SP0 works for me.

Or . . . I might just sell it. I'll give it a week.

Just a selection of tables. There are quite a few, though. SP (Sport Program, or Sport "something") has 9. SP0 is stock, and SP1-9 accelerates that curve. Then, I think there are 9 EP (Economy Program?) that go the other direction.

Oh, and you can't actually see the tables. But, you CAN see how much throttle you are giving the car. It's in 5% increments. So, as you press the throttle, you'll see it say 15, which means 15% throttle. If you change the setting to SP9 or something, that same gas pedal pressure will yield 20 or 25.

Actually, I'm thinking of something EXACTLY like that. My wife doesn't know how to drive a stick, but she's going to learn soon (starting out with my '84 Chevy 3/4 ton truck). I'm wondering if putting it on one of the EP settings will make it easier for her to feel what's going on. Or, perhaps a higher SP setting so that just a little gas pedal movement gives enough gas to not stall.

I'm not saying this thing is bad. I actually like it. But, it doesn't do what I wanted initially. But, now that I think about it, nothing can (nothing short of a tune).

I should have thought logically. It has a 50ms delay. What causes that delay? Well, the computer has to read my input. Then, it compares my input against several tables, which also have inputs such as air temp, air density, wheel speed, etc. It uses all that information to figure out exactly how much throttle to give the car.

All that processing takes time. Not much, but some. There is no way you can ADD another layer of processing and have it REDUCE that amount of time.

That's like saying, "It takes me 1 hour to get to work. That's made of 20 minutes to drive to drop off the kids, 10 minutes to grab a coffee, then 30 minutes to drive to work . . . I'll bet that if I go pick up my laundry in addition to all that, though, I can shave off at least 10 minutes!"

Could be a zillion things. Even a programmed lag so that the car doesn't take off as soon as you touch the pedal.

But, my guess is that it just takes a few milliseconds to perform all the calculations. I mean, we don't exactly have supercomputers as ECUs.

My programmer once told me that, while there is more processing power in our cars than on the moon landings, there is more power in our phones than in our ECU. LOTS more!!

This source says that most cars run on an 8-bit or 16-bit ECU (not the infotainment or anything else, but just the ECU). https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-cu...sale-currently

I did find an article that said that the 2011 Buick Regal had the fastest ECU of any production car. It was a whopping 128Mhz processor! Put another way, this is just as fast as a PC was in 1993. So, cars are about 20 years behind the times, which means our ECUs are probably running the equivalent of 1997 processors.

Uhh...what did you think a throttle controller did? It's no secret that it just manipulates throttle position.

Well, there are hundreds of posts on here (and on other forums) where people say that it eliminates lag. Even video reviews where they say the same thing.

I drank the kool aid.

http://www.camaro6.com/forums/showth...t=throttle+lag

http://www.camaro6.com/forums/showth...t=throttle+lag

http://www.camaro6.com/forums/showth...t=throttle+lag

http://www.camaro6.com/forums/showth...tle+lag&page=2

Everyone (minus a few of the more enlightened people) says it reduces/eliminates lag. Even the manufacturers and sponsors! Unfortunately, it just ain't true!!

I think it is more that it eliminates the impression of lag.

Send the one you have BACK, it cold heartedly makes a difference. I can barely put mine past sp3 or 4...It's an insane difference. People have been known to get a bad apple here and there.

Your foot can make the same difference. The throttle controller does nothing that your foot can't. If you want a dramatic driving difference then floor it all the time.

Newest 6th gen throttle controller!

Could the "lag" be attributed to the quiet little "torque management" drivetrain safety software in there?

Buy one and see