Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - 08:51 am, by: Peter (Admin)
Most likely your new Soarer has been sitting around for a while and you have no idea how it was driven. The main ECU (onboard computer) learns your driving style, and unless the car is often driven hard it optimises the settings to give better fuel consumption and a softer, smoother driving experience at the expense of performance. However it is very easy to re-train the ECU to give the best performance, in the case of TT’s it can be mind snapping, with V8’s the improvement is less noticeable.
Grab a Phillips head screwdriver or a small coin and go for a drive, find a peaceful bit of road where you can try some brisk acceleration without bothering anybody. You don’t need a lot of road, high speeds aren’t required.
When all is clear, do a pedal-to-the-metal start, to maybe 60-80 kph just to get the feel of the car. Pull over and switch the engine off. Pop the bonnet up and remove the fuse box cover under the bonnet.
Inside the lid you will find a handy fuse removal tool, or if it’s missing just use your fingers.
Remove the green 30 Amp EFI fuse 2nd from the top on the right hand side. This resets the main ECU.
Also remove the RED 10 Amp DOME fuse just to the left of the Green EFI fuse in the pic above. This resets the Gearbox and Air Conditioner ECU’s and clears any stored error codes. Wait for a few minutes, then replace the EFI fuse followed by the DOME fuse carefully. Replace the fuse puller on the lid, and refit the lid. Make sure you haven’t left the screwdriver in the engine bay and close the bonnet.
Start the car, in a V8 you won’t notice any difference straight away, but TT’s usually run rough and idle at weird speeds at this point.
With the handbrake on, and your foot on the brake pedal, move the gear lever slowly through the gears, leaving it in each gear for a few seconds, P,R,N,D,2,1 then back through to Park again. This helps reset the gearbox and has been known to improve some auto gearbox related issues.
Make sure the road is clear and it is safe, then do 5 or 6 hard starts, 0-60kph is enough, no need for high speed, we are just teaching the ECU that you mean business. The reason I suggest you have a drive before doing the reset, is that the motor will already be hot and ready to learn. The ECU won’t learn anything while the engine is cold. You also shouldn’t be doing hard starts on a cold engine and gearbox.
Feel the difference? Drive carefully now, TT’s can really bite when they are in good condition.
If this seems too complicated, just remove one of the battery terminals for a few minutes. It does the same thing, deprives the ECU of power so it resets and has to learn how you drive from scratch.
If you have a bit more time on your hands, clean the air conditioner filters if your Soarer smells a bit smokey inside. In fact clean them anyway, they probably have many years of Japanese smog blocking them and reducing the air flow.
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