Sensitive throttle pedal in non sporty cars? Blame the average driver
 

DBW Throttle Characteristics - The AUTOSPORT Bulletin Board

" . . . . drivers considered subjectively to be more aggressive in nature preferred a lower IIP (Throttle gain). This indicates that they prefer or require more control over the available power"

So more aggressive drivers who actually *use* their car's power, prefer a more linear throttle pedal, and the type of drivers who barely accelerate when the light turns green want to do so with 1 millimeter of throttle travel.

Luckily all cars that matter can be tuned, which means this can be dialed in to whatever your little heart desires.

That explains why everytime I go to drive the wife's mazda5 I wind up squawking the tires for the first few intersections. It has a seriously sensitive gas pedal.

I don't like agrresive tip-in especially in the winter in a torquey truck. Should be linear is my preference.

You can even get cams for dirtbike throttles to increase/decrease throttle cable travel over the same rotation amount.

G2 Ergonomics | Throttle Tubes and Moto PartsG2 Ergonomics

I would just like it if my DBW just did what I told it to, now, not 15 minutes later. I much prefer drive by cable over drive by wires and solenoid.

drives car with 8.4 cr and 10' of exhaust plumbing before turbo
complains about response

2/3 of my current stable is drive by cable, and the one that isn't doesn't have a throttle body at all. :)

yup!

What do they use in F1? Optical fibers and nanorobots? Variable valve lift?

they use the same dbw these nancies are complaining about lol

its just tuned well

I've driven a couple of DBW rental cars, and while the feel of the pedal itself seems a bit odd, I've not been unable to master the throttle in all but one of them.

The 2010 VW CC defies me to drive it properly. Seems like that car has a deliberate 2 second lag and about a 20° lead-in dead spot engineered into it.

You press on the throttle, and nothing.

You press on it some more, still nothing.

You press on it a bit more, and THEN it thinks that you're John-fucking-Force doing an NHRA Funnycar launch.

This is especially annoying when it happens during your first day driving in Germany, in the dead of winter, on snow-covered roads. I literally cannot imagine what the folks at VW were trying to accomplish when they programmed that thing.

They have managed to accurately simulate the behavior of a '90-'93 Miata being driven up a hill on a cold morning immediately after engine start. (Those of you who have owned stock '90-'93 Miatas with the original ECU still in place will know the exact behavior which I am describing.)

^ I drove a GTI several years ago and had the exact same experience. It's the only DBW car I've even driven, and I absolutely hated it. Surely they can't all be that bad. I really just don't understand what benefit they offer over a plain ole cable.

My 540i's DBW is great EXCEPT for revmatch blipping. You blip, it goes "huh?!". You keep your foot in, bliiiiiiip, then RPMs rocket to 6000. Very hard to rev match.

Easier implementation of traction-control.
Easier implementation of stability-control.
Easier implementation of cruise-control.
Eliminates need for a separate idle valve.
Allows for slight improvement in accel emissions.
(etc.)

So actually a lot of things.

I'd gladly use dbw on my miata if it was available

My brothers MkV GTI has this weird lag on lift, like the throttle takes 1/2 second to close or something. There were times driving it where I was on the brake while the car was still accelerating.

Otherwise it never had the lag of the MkVI you guys are talking about.

They had one job, run a fucking cable. :facepalm:

The 1992 honda accord was, and still is, an excellent car. Yet, it has OBDI, A throttle cable, and a 4speed auto. And it's damn reliable and easy to work with. Just because there are incremental gains from a technology, doesn't mean it's better.




I remember the first time I went to rev a newer honda from under the hood..... and saw no throttle return spring.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1374541823

one time i read this: Subaru Drive By Wire and How to Improve it - NASIOC

I didn't come away any smarter.


I have played around with my DBW maps and I was able to make nominal improvements in how the car feels (similar to the post linked above), but the actual throttle response compared to a drive-by-cable is seriously lacking and I'm unsure how to improve it further. There is a measurable delay in, say, 2nd gear if you're cruising, lift, and then hit the accelerator again, you can feel the injectors kick on late and the car finally move. I have increased my acceleration enrichments, and lowered the threshold for enrichments, and it helped a little but it's still not perfect. I'd say it feels like a miata running a freshly installed untuned MS that needs to tune EAE and AE.

Vlad keeps trying to convince me it's the most amazing invention in the history of the world, but I still dont get it. I've never complained about drive-by-cable, I've only complained about DBW. So that tells me DBW is inferior.

I mean when you really think about it, what's going to control the throttle better, your brain?

Or your brain moving your foot, a pedal position sensor sending that data to an ecu, the ecu running an algorithm to interpret the data through the requested torque table, the ecu sending that data to an actuator, and the actuator finally doing what your brain first asked?

A DBW system could simulate a cable but they choose not to.

They choose to make a system they think the average person wants to feel. Which is nothing to scare you if you blip it but lots of torque without moving the pedal much so it feels powerful day to day.

Dann

no, I keep telling you why and you keep going full retard and not listening. we talked like 20 times about this now:
your car in general is very unresponsive. super low cr, miles of pre-turbo exhaust piping, and it doesn't help that its all corked up with the stock intake downpipe and exhaust since you refuse to modify it. It will always be way less responsive than your miata.

Go drive a drive-by-cable subaru (any 02-05 wrx will do) and suddenly your pipe dreams of dbc "fixing" everything will be shattered and you will realize your theory is fail and aidz.

But at least the throttle will act right. It's hard to screw up the throttle response of a steel wire.

I can understand what you're saying, but there's actually a delay between throttle input and an actual reaction from the motor.

thank about it this way, if you open the throttle the engine speed should increase.

if I put my foot down, i expect the engine speed to change, not wait a measurable amount of time before something happens, I dont believe that has anything to do witht eh CR and turbo plumbing. that might effect the amount of TQ and turbo response, but the throttle response is severely lacking, I shouldn't be able to have my throttle pegged to the floor and wait for the motor to do something...regardless of how handicapped it is on the exhaust side.

It's like this

when the car is in motion, so long as I'm already on the throttle, it reacts perfectly fine. But if I have to say downshift to 2nd or 3rd and floor it, I feel like I have to wait for a reaction before the motor starts to wind up. Like I'm driving an automatic with a torque convertor that doesn't do anything.

lol you make it sound like you go wot, wait a few days, then the car moves.

drama llama:laugh:

10 or 20 years ago people said the same thing about carbs vs efi

'92 Accord?

Captive brake rotors?

FU*K THAT

I seriously want to kick whoever at Honda R&D Japan is responsible for that bullsh*t in the balls. Seriously.

Other than that it's a fine automobile

Kinda how Y8s described it when he drove it the other day, and he dailies a DBW mini...

I dunno. I have driven a ton of subaru's over the years and know for a fact my fxt had better/crisper throttle response than all dbc wrx's I've driven.

Maybe you got a lemon :giggle:

EFI had massive upsides, and much less maintenance. DBW has the exact same amount of maintenance as a cable (ie: none), yet due to emissions standards is being used by car makers to fubar something that should be cut and dry.




Use an "on car" brake lathe, or do a retrofit from some acura model.

Very good car through. My buddy had one that snapped a timing belt, and tipped the #4 valves pretty bad. Tested at 80 pounds of compression on number 4, but we got it to run with a 25 gap spark plug. Ran for about 5 months after that, progressively getting worse, until he sold it. Still got 15mpg with a dead cylinder, and a blinking drive light (no-overdrive) transmission. :rofl:

I bet I just need to lower/eliminate my CL/OL delay.

cl/ol delay only applies to the transition from vac to boost and has nothing to do with throttle response. it will smooth out your power deliver real good at the expense of a couple mpg tho

from what i've read it's literally a timer to get into OL once you're surpassed the pre-determined conditions for such, I think mashing WOT should put me into OL.

I should pick up a shit ton low-end torque from getting the AFRs richer during spool as well. I remember my last log I didn't like how long the ECU held the AFRs at 14.7 anyways.

MPGs are not a worry, because I know how to drive. I'm currently averaging 24mpg in stop and go traffic. I'm getting 29-30 in hwy cruise and 15-19 running to the store and sitting at stoplights and parking lots and crap. I'm averaging 23mpg a tank.

LOL this is a subaru tuning thread now:giggle:

Yeah I know all that. 0 delay feelzguudman

I think mine's still at 75 or 100, down from the default of like 15 minutes.

My girl has a DBW Mini. She loves it.

I could crash that car into a bridge, I'd watch, I'd let it burn....I'd laugh maniacally.

That damn car has three debilitating problems...

First, the speedometer is off by 20%....20%? FUCKING SERIOUSLY? To do 75 (GPS Confirmed) I have to put the speedometer on 90mph. What the fucking fuck?

The second debilitating problem is the transmission - and I'm quite sure that the second problem is aggrivated by the first. She bought (before I knew her) a CVT car. If you're indicating 60mph, the transmission doesn't know what "gear" to be in, it speeds up, then slows down, then speeds up.... at 55mph, if you slowly let off the gas, the engine RPM SPEEDS UP, and at most speeds it seems that if you floor it the RPMS go DOWN... Why the hell would the RPMs go down if I floored the car? That makes absolutely zero sense whatsoever..."I need to pass a car, so lets move to a far less torquey portion of the RPM range!!!"

Finally, on topic with this thread, the third, final, and most frustrating debilitating handicap on this car is the DBW throttle. If I'm at a stop sign and need to turn left onto a busy street, this is how the throttle works:
1. Floor it.
2. Car immediately moves forward so as to ensure that you make it into the "rightbound lane" of the intersection.
3. Throttle pauses, still rolling slowly forward
4. Throttle still pauses.
5. Throttle still pauses.
6. I look 200 feet to my left at the car approaching me at 55mph, wondering if I'm going to die or if he is going to take mercy on the poor soul in the mini cooper sitting in the middle of the intersection
7. Car lurches forward, propelling me rapidly towards the ditch on the far side of this "T" intersection, I jerk the wheel to the left to make sure I don't crash into the ditch on the far side. Finally I'm in the "leftbound" lane.
8. The SUV Behind me, which I should have been well and safely ahead of at this point in time, has white smoke pouring out from his sliding front tires, with his bright lights flashing in my rearview mirror, and his horn blasting out decibels for all to hear.

I think at this point, I've almost died in that mini cooper 3 times because of the throttle response. I'm not exaggerating how much of a problem it is.

In other circumstances, while stopped at a traffic light ready to drive forward.

1. Light turns green
2. Push lightly on the throttle pedal
3. Car barely moves
4. Push slightly harder on throttle pedal
5. Car moves barely faster
6. Push slightly harder on throttle pedal
7. Car is moving slightly faster than turtle at this point
8. Push slightly harder on throttle pedal
9. Front tires squeal, my girlfriend in the passenger's seat suffers a bad case of whiplash, and now I have to listen to her whine about how I shouldn't floor her car from a stop light.

Take a vid. I cannot imagine modern cars being this shitty (and possibly dangerous)

Sounds exactly like my experience with the Euro-spec VW CC.

This must be a German thing.

sounds like my issue too. i like to weave in traffic and sometimes i can mash it even in 2nd, switch lanes, and the car does not go forward; then suddenly 18psi -- luckily not 18-wheeler on my bumper.

So the moral of the story is that some Mazdas, some VWs and some Minis have a DBW configuration which, to some drivers, seems less optimal than the configuration found in some Subarus.

Glad we settled that conclusively.

here, i illustrated my issue:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1374670582

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1374670582

:laugh: propped

RE: mini cooper DBW. Our experience with an '03 Cooper S.

They do a great job making the car feel like it has a 50lb flywheel, which it obviously does not.

I have also experienced the 'holy shit I'm going to die WTF" while trying to accelerate briskly infront of oncoming traffic. And heaven forbid a tire slip slightly, then it seems to shut off completely for a couple seconds.

I click off the traction control as one of the first things when I get in the car. Then it's a completely different car, very fun. Except for that damn heavy flywheel effect.

EDIT: I've been completely happy with the factory DBW maps on my '05 subaru OBXT. 5MT car with a 'heavy' WRX flywheel, it does what my brain wants it to :dunno:

The only reason the throttle opened was cause Leonardo scared him into submission after a threat of copyright infringement.

That's because you're a regular human, like the rest of us.

riiiiiight

and it has nothing to do with a certain fgt admin lugging his car in 2nd gear at like 300 rpm expecting it to drive itself

I'm sure that's just hypothetical

why does that matter? why should being ~1000RPM in 2nd gear matter in regards to the car actually responding to my throttle inputs. So what do you suggest I do in stop and go traffic, keep it in first, and when i need to go forward rev it up to 5k and dump the clutch?! You do understand it's not so much to ask for a throttle that actually reacts to throttle inputs.

and it's not like I'm expecting 100TQ at 1000RPM, but I'm expecting greater than 0.

and I'm not confusing the lack of any low-end from the turbo either, it has nothing to do with it.

I'm sorely disappointed in the ECU cannot read my throttle inputs and make the throttle respond within a reasonable amount of time in regards to on/off throttle changes only. I don't have issues when the car it at speeds of say 2000RPM or above. (and please dont tell me to cruise in 4th gear).

I took a video, in second gear while driving down a 35mph road I floored it a few times and made verbal note of when the car actually reacted. There was a delay, you can hear when I hit the pedal down and then me and the engine doing something. I'll have to upload later.

Every other car I've ever driven in my lifetime will open the throttle when I ask it to.

1) umad
2) if you drove a n/a subaru in traffic like that it would do exactly as you say you want it to do. yours wont because its low comp. another one just like yours but with dbc will do exactly the same thing. again, it has dbc.
your dbw might be lazy I'm not saying its flawless I'm just saying its nowhere near as bad as you make it out to be. and its not worse than the same car would have felt like with dbc.
3) ????
4) stick ITB's on your miata and to WOT at 2mph for that crazy split second lurch

lol

Drive a 600cc sportbike?

Not enough throttle response.

We need the car to go half throttle before he even turns it on

ohhhh, so subaru has a DBC system that uses a bungee cord so the throttle doesn't actually open when you hit the throttle, only until the cord is loaded enough for it to actually pull the throttle open? cool!


now im mad i didn't load your MS with a map that had no throttle enrichments and you could suffer like me. My rex feels like my miata when my AE and EAE is untuned.

its made of silly puddy

I drove scott's car the other day to get delicious burgers. you can tap your foot to the music using the gas pedal and the car barely reacts.

the MINI Countryman S has much better mapping. Sure it's a LITTLE sluggish, but even scott agrees that it's WAYYYYYYYY better than his.

Tim: my MINI will get some front tire scratch with the DSC on and continue under normal power levels.

just imagine what mine was like with the factory map and the one I tweaked is 10000 times better.

and you can keep tweaking it and make it even better

also, and this I know you won't do but I'll say anyway:
a downpipe and exhaust would drastically improve response

I guess I'm at the point where I dunno what else to touch to improve it.

I need to start datalogging it, but I keep forgetting to bring my laptop. I really hate tuning it compared to the miata...it's so non-intuitive.

That's good, seems like the new generation model is a much nicer piece from what I've read of yours. Turbos FTW.

Hey scott, does your subaru feel like a megasquirt that still needs the AE and EAE tuned?

it does, brah, it does.


:dealwithit:

Is there no factory reflash to fix complaints about it?

LOL @ factory reflash.

If he describes his much sharper than oem map as lazy now, his description of the OEM throttle map would include the words "millenium" "century" and "lifetime"

I wouldn't laugh too much. A fellow I work with has taken his Audi A-something in a couple of time for new firmware on the CVT, to better optimize the "shift points."

(Yes, this CVT attempts to emulate a planetary gearbox.)

If enough customers complain about the lazy throttle response, the factory will fix it in a reflash.

that was an issue in the 2008 WRX. they made a handful of improvements for 2009, including a new suspension and turbo even...

if they make the oem throttle response more sharp and keep cl/ol timer the same I forsee them having a baaad time with lean tip in, knock, bucking, etc.

and if they shorten the timer the gas mileage will drop. and they would NEVER do that lol