ECU & Driving Habits

[Naresh]

I am a little curious about the ECU... the ECU supposedly learns your driving habits and adapts accordingly.

What does this mean?

 

Assuming you are a conservative driver and accelerate slowly most of the time, will the performance be affected when accelerating hard (for example, when trying to overtake)?

In a automatic transmission, if your regular driving habit is hard acceleration, does the ECU essentially delay the gear change, and shift gears at higher RPM. Is that how it works? Or is there more to it?

Also, how long does it take for the ECU to relearn your new driving habits?

 

Would appreciate if some knowledgeable bros could shed some light on this.

 

Thanks in advance/ Naresh

[Ldlian987]

the part where u mention 'In a automatic transmission, if your regular driving habit is hard acceleration, does the ECU essentially delay the gear change, and shift gears at higher RPM.'

 

I thought whether or not got delay in gear change and if gear change happens at high rpm depends on throttle position? like how hard u step the throttle? about ecu learning our driving habits i'm not sure about that, only heard that in newer and modern cars the ecu learn drivers' habits.

[Ody_2004]

Some cars come with better adaptative ECU and TCM compare to others.

 

If u compare a normal car and sport car diffinitely be different.

 

What car u referring to?

[Watwheels]

U may want to search online on topics relating to "Drive-By-Wire" vs "throttle cable".

 

DBW is some kind of throttle sensor which will react according to how much or how instantly u step on your gas pedal. Step hard, it will down shift, increase rpm, this gives good response and gives feel good acceleration.

 

The traditional throttle cable is direct connection from gas pedal to throttle via a steel cable. This dated system gives u only one type of response whether u step your gas pedal half-way or pedal-to-the-metal.

 

 

 

Dan there are some auto gearbox called "Adaptive Gearbox" which will "learn" your driving behaviour. Commonly used in Peugeot& Citroen cars. This one if u usually dun drive fast and one day u decided to go fast, it will still change gear slowly like u normally drive. So there's a "sport" button to overcome this problem.

 

I have driven all the above. DBW is still IMO the best and u dun have to search for the "sport" button and press it when overtaking.

[Vtim]

The traditional throttle cable is direct connection from gas pedal to throttle via a steel cable. This dated system gives u only one type of response whether u step your gas pedal half-way or pedal-to-the-metal.

 

---

 

 

There is still a TPS (Throttle Position Sensor) located at the TB for those traditional Throttle cable type of system. The simplest way is to tighten the steel cable and don't have too much slack, it will become much more responsive, for the "DBW", you'll need to install the "Sprint Booster" device to make the Throttle more responsive.

 

The TPS will also sense half/partial or WOT, just like those "DBW".

Edited December 4, 2008 by Vtim

[Sturtles]

To add, on modern cars without DBW and uses the old throttle cable system, the ECU still knows how much the pedal is being stepped on, and how rapidly it has changed from a nearly closed throttle, to a fully opened one.

 

The difference lies in the actuation of the butterfly air intake valve. On DBW systems, the ecu will take the feedback from the throttle position, and open the valve accordingly. By doing so, it can allow small movements of the throttle to have a large opening of the valve for sporty driving, while continuously making minute adjustments to the valve to optimise intake airflow to match the engine rpm.

 

The conventional cable linked system is unable to do all that, but it is a simple, its cheap, and its a reliable system.

[Watwheels]

But DBW still have the edge of integrating gearbox to respond as well other dan the sharper engine respond.

[Picanto]

nissan sunny have E-throttle, some sort of drive by wire thing......yet FC still

 

so drive by wire may not be that good?

[Akula]

Sunny weak link is the gearbox. Relatively inefficient unit.

[Vtim]

that's very true, beside that, the "DBW" is basically relocating the TPS device from the traditional location in the TB onto the foot Accelerator pedal

[Naresh]

Some cars come with better adaptative ECU and TCM compare to others.

 

If u compare a normal car and sport car diffinitely be different.

 

What car u referring to?

 

I see. I guess that the ECU for normal car would be tuned for fuel efficiency, and ECU for sports model tuned for performance.

 

I drive a Suzuki Swift 1.5L AT by the way.

[Naresh]

the part where u mention 'In a automatic transmission, if your regular driving habit is hard acceleration, does the ECU essentially delay the gear change, and shift gears at higher RPM.'

 

I thought whether or not got delay in gear change and if gear change happens at high rpm depends on throttle position? like how hard u step the throttle? about ecu learning our driving habits i'm not sure about that, only heard that in newer and modern cars the ecu learn drivers' habits.

 

Hmmm.... I am fairly aware how the throttle affects the gear shifts.

 

What I am referring to is that, if as part of your regular driving you floor the accelerator very often requiring your AT to down shift the gear to give you higher RPM, a (adaptive) ECU may learn that and delay the gear shifts to higher RPM for your regular driving.

 

Again I am not sure, I am trying to make sense of some stuff I heard... and the example used above may not be very accurate. I presume there could be some reason why some talk about resetting (not the ECU when you mod your car with high performance parts.

 

Edited: Perhaps another example would be when switching to higher octane fuel after you have been using lower octane fuel for an extended period... the ECU response will continue to correspond to lower octane even though you have started using higher-octane fuel.

Edited December 4, 2008 by Naresh

[Route88]

Nothing got to do with ECU learn driving habit. ECU like any other computer is dumb.

What manufacturer or car maker claim is marketing purpose.

 

Most ECU has been program for in relation with auto/manual gearbox load and the driver right foot determines the overall results.

[Naresh]

Found couple of links... in case someone is interested,

 

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/technical-st...ving-style.html

http://www.hondaclub.com/forum/articles/20...erformance.html

 

Anyway, Thank you guys for replying.