NewHilux.net

I am thinking of going for a chip or a remap to my 2009 3l Hilux and targeting a 20% increase in both power and torque.
Can anybody suggest what is a reasonable power and torque increase that should not result in more than a small to moderate reduction in reliability and life span of the engine? Sure this is subjective but lets say about a 25% reduction in the ‘normally’ expected lifespan of the engine.

I would be interested to hear from anyone who has experienced mechanical failure or had to rebuild an engine after installing a chip or getting a remap. Please provide as much info as possible e.g. components that failed, mileage driven between the performance mod and the failure, chip (brand name or ‘EBay no-name brand’) or remap. Sure any engine is going to need a re-build at some point however if you have a low mileage vehicle that is regularly serviced and either the engine or something in the drivetrain failed 10,000 or 20,000 kms after a performance mod chances are the mod had something to do with it.

If you have had good results and are happy with the tune done on your engine and you have done around 100,000 kms or more since the mod I would also be interested to hear what you had done and by who. Also do you do a lot of towing, off-roading, rock crawling or some other use?

Thanks frot

Do some searches in this forum. Back in the day when these things were still under warranty there were people crying because toyota wouldnt cover them but all had chips or modified engines.
Days of reading but boils down to the car isnt fit for your purpose if you need to modify it to that extent.
Selling it and buying a land cruiser will be cheaper, safer and legal.

I was going to suggest similar. Sell it and buy a V6 auto. Standard it has the increased power and torque you are after and if you buy a 2012-15 you get bigger brakes and can legally fit tyres bigger than 265/65/17 and get a proper 2500kg legal towing limit. I bought the same car as I do some towing and a diesel one wasn’t up to the task. I supercharged it at 100,000km, now has 152,000km trouble free. I did recently rebuilt the gearbox ($3300 inc rebuilt converter fitted) after finding brass shavings in the pan, but it looks like it may have been introduced during a transmission fluid flush rather than from the box as we could find no source in the box, only normal wear.

Thanks for your feedback. I have come across quite a few posts on various forums in which vehicle owners say they are very happy with the result of the 'upgrade' they have done. I have not seen many posts/details by owners who have had a bad experience - there must be plenty of them.

The 1kd engines built roughly between 2007 to about 2012-13 are well know for cracking pistons post chip/tune. Even without a tune they are known to crack pistons. Despite what the tuners tell you, there is no such thing as a safe tune...

Hey folks, just interested to hear if there is anyone who ACTUALLY had an engine failure in a 1KD? I hear lots of scuttlebutt about how bad they are/were but no actual first-hand reports.

If you have any REAL stories about a personal or friend's gen7 engine failure I'd be interested to collate some kind of list with details of
Kilometres travelled
Chip or no chip
What failure
Any other information

There's plenty of 'stories' out there but never any substantial account of a real documented failure other than taking the lux for a swim.

Have seen very few engine failures in the KD's through our dealership.
The only ones have been very early on in the piece and had been put down to injector failures or injector seat issues (that particularly being combustion gases getting into oil gumming up oil pickup and starving engine of oil).
There have been a couple that was put down to the terrible AFR's caused from some very rubbish low quality performance chips. Problem highlighted when vehicles were dynoed and AFR's recorded etc.

And to be fair we ave seen more engine failures in Rangers than we ever have in Hilux's (and we're not a Ford dealership).

Thanks CamboT, that's the kind of confirmation that the stories are mostly scuttlebutt. I always thought that there were plenty of 'stories' with very little evidence.
No examples of the later 1kd failure then, despite all the media stories of how fragile they are?

Edit: apparently the earlier injector was replaced by a new type in 2009, hopefully ending the injector caused engine failure.

I bought a -13 hilux with a bad head/headgasket/cracked. Haven’t opened it up yet but it’s connected with more fuel, bigger bang
It has 260.000km on it and have been chipped for some time

I understand if one has problem to cope with traffic because lack of hp. Why put unnecessary stress on the engine and drivetrain?

Read some of fracturedranga's later posts Gypsy, maybe not what your looking for maybe poor workmanship but he had a lot of fuel pump grief. He is one guy that really pushed the car to its limits, had some serious fun in it that most of us would never do to our cars.
He built it for a reason and used it for the reason unlike many that never get to use them.

Thanks Martyn, I followed rangas woes and yes he did test to the limit, and maybe found it

My point is to find if the 'fragile' Hilux is true or just a few unfortunate cases, often maybe caused by operating beyond the norm. You know how all these rumours are spread throughout about Hilux weakness and I just wonder how much truth there is. I wonder how many 'broken' Hilux are attributed to taking them for a swim or doing some stupid things to them. I would imagine mostly Hilux is unbreakable but there's always the exception to the rule.

Thanks landmann also, and I followed your story as well and it seems like it was water pump or some other unknown reason for the failures. These are the unknown causes which often are used to criticise the Hilux but still I don't see the large numbers of failure despite the rumours.

Edit: I am aware of the documented cases where issues such as injectors and injector seals failing and revised pistons etc were rectified by Toyota but I imagine anyone who 'broke' a Hilux isn't going to put their hand up if they know they were responsible for the failures.

Hey Gipsy, have a look at Anth Fourbys youtube. He has a couple of excellent failure examples and an explanation of what happened.

The main cause of failure in his view is incorrect combustion which is either due to worn injectors, contamination or modification.

Pradopoint has a couple of examples though of what your looking for in particular. People do tend to go quiet if the failure is caused by a chip or tune.

hiluxxury wrote:Hey Gipsy, have a look at Anth Fourbys youtube. He has a couple of excellent failure examples and an explanation of what happened.

The main cause of failure in his view is incorrect combustion which is either due to worn injectors, contamination or modification.

Pradopoint has a couple of examples though of what your looking for in particular. People do tend to go quiet if the failure is caused by a chip or tune.

Yes as indicated, not many will admit they played a hand in their demise. Anth's conclusions seem to follow Toyota in that the revised injector and piston really recognises that particular vulnerability.
It appears that inadvertent contamination (water in fuel etc) injectors (revised by Toyota) and modifications (probably excessive) are the primary cause so far. Not really a fragile engine, more one misused.

Landmann, have you checked the EGR cooler on the cracked head? The EGR cooler is a possible cause of coolant leaks.

No but thanks for the heads up
Hopefully i’ll get to it in the next coming weeks. Maybe some answers also