“Mahina hatak” “Walang lakas” are two phrases I hear a lot when people come to the shop. I usually separate these in two: the ones that think their car has no power and it’s just in the their heads and the ones that actually have something wrong with the car. The ratio is something like 30/70
Hence this is why we have a Dyno so that we can quantify how much power the car is making. Phrases like “hindi ganun takbo dati” doesn’t help. Obvious we have no before and after comparison so we wouldn’t know. With the Dyno we can see if the car is making the correct power or if the transmission is not transferring the power.
In the case of the Fortuner, a simple filter is often the cause of power loss, this little thing
This the manifold absolute pressure (MAP) sensor filter. And like every filter, this gets clogged with dirt. And when it gets clogged, the pressure that gets read by the MAP sensor gets smaller and smaller. So instead of 12psi, it’s only reading 7 or 8 psi, and thus the Ecu will take this input and output the amount of fuel commensurate to that pressure reading. Higher pressure means more fuel injected and thus more power, low pressure equals less fuel and obviously less power.
And the power loss isn’t drastic like malakas today and mahina tomorrow. It’s very very gradual over the span of months and years. And you won’t notice it in city traffic driving because at these low speeds, the engine isn’t making a lot of boost because the pedal you apply isn’t great also.
The most telling is that when you go on a long trip and you can’t seem to overtake that pesky tricycle in front or can’t climb the steep road even on full throttle.
And annoyingly enough, there will never be a check engine light warning you that something is wrong, because as far as the Ecu is concerned, everything is operating as it should and within parameters, with the sensor function and reading.
We’ve encountered many a Fortuner with this problem with casa maintenance records but no mention of this filter ever being replaced, all with the same complaint on why it has no power.
So this is the first thing we check before we do any tuning whatsoever and the way we do it is pretty low tech, simple take out the filter and blow into it, then we will know if it’s barado or not.
You should also get the original Toyota part and not the fake ones as we have the fake filters crack apart after boost goes through it.
Like this 3.0L Fortuner that made a baseline power of 145whp, not bad but the graph doesn’t look right, it’s too flat. Stock power graph should look like a hill with peak power at 3000-3500rpm. And as we suspected the boost is not correct also and so we replaced the filter and went from 145whp to 160whp without doing no nothing.
No with the boost correct and car making the correct power we now proceed to remap the ECU and the final output is a very impressive 201whp and 470 Nm of torque!
Speedlab Performance 