Opinons on diesel tuning chips

[scurless]

Hello everyone, I recently purchased a 2012 Hilux 3.0 D4D 4X4 4-door pickup here in Costa Rica. Love the truck, had a 2010 Tacoma in the states so I'm very familiar with the model and brand. The driving here in CR is different from most everywhere else, with a LOT of uphills and very little flat, level driving. Given the uphill/downhill driving here, I am curious whether any of the aftermarket chips would be of any benefit with this type of driving. The truck runs great and pulls fine but all the uphills really affect fuel mileage, and I admit I would like some more power from the diesel. I've read in your forum about the tuning chips and several members have said you need to have them dyno'd afterwards. Dyno's aren't available in CR, at least not that I have found so that may negate the majority of any benefits I get from installing a chip. I've been looking at the ads for several digital tuning chips and I know there are several brands available, but can anybody that has a chip installed give me any real-world experience on these devices, and especially on the 3Ltr engine? Any info is greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!
Sid

[dalkill]

Welcome Sid.

It's a 50 / 50 ... or maybe 60 /40 argument to chip or not. You can decided which side you want to be on.

Some , including Toyota , believe that having a chip may result in holes burnt in pistons.
But i don't think it affects your model. It was the first gen 3.0 D4D . Apparently toyota beefed up the pistons with second gen legend 45 shapes.

To me... it's not worth taking a chance. The D4D has more than enough power for me. Any faster I would buy a 4.0 V6 .

Somewhere on the forum, one of the member simply put on freeflow , and it messed up his turbo veins due to higher rpm... or something like that...

So a chip dumping in more fuel... not for me thanks.
But then there is others that had no problem... it's all up to you if you want to take the risk or not.

[Mars]

I am not a fan of the plug and play chips. The only way to do it in my opinion is a Dastek Chip Unichip Q4 that is properly installed and then calibrated to your specific vehicle on a dynamometer. I particularly like the chip with the 5 programs. The one map is set for optimal performance (economic) of your vehicle. Then you have other options such as a restricted performance, standard performance, towing and a high performance mode. If driven in the economy mode it gives you the optimal performance your engine is capable of without stressing it. If driven in this mode mostly you should not have any issue. In my D4D the performance was definitely better in the economy mode than standard and there was also a slight improvement in fuel economy especially when driving on the open road.

Any modification that causes additional stresses to the engine has a detrimental effect on the long term reliability. So this means that if you choose to drive it in high performance mode all the time and hammer it you are likely to experience a reduction in long term reliability. I know of D4D's that have done 100s of thousands of kilometers with a chip installed. My brothers D4D has done just over 300 000 ks now with a Dastek chip installed (the old chip with one map) without any issues. We replaced all the injectors as a precaution on about 290 000 ks as one was starting to go out of spec. It is still ticking like a Swiss watch. IU only installed a Dastek Q4 chip on my D4D on 300 000ks. It has now done 350 000ks without any issues.

So ultimately you will determine the impact that a chip will have on your vehicle.

[Thabogrobler]

Welcome Sid,

Unfortunately what you want to achieve is not possible - to gain some power and use less fuel? It is not possible - you must choose one.

If you can not find a dyno to tune your car better then leave it well alone as a badly/incorrect tuned chip WILL break the engine.

[scurless]

Thanks, everyone for the opinions on the diesel tuning chips for my Hilux. I'll put this idea off to the side until the time when/if I stumble across a Dyno here in Costa Rica and can get the tuning done right.

Thanks again!