Tune your TPS sensor....

dman446 · September 22nd, 2004, 11:22 pm

A lot of people are not aware you can check and test yout TPS sensor. From the factory they just slap the things in the TB and dont bother fine setting them. Tunning your TPS to optimum voltage can help increase throttle reponse, HP, and fuel economy.

Tools Needed:

1. A good volt ohm meter (prefereably a digital one)
2. Philips Screwdriver or Torx bit driver (depending on what screws your TPS has on it
3. A drill and different size bits.

Procedure:

1. First we test to see what voltage is present in current condition. Turn the key to the on/run position - Do not start. Take the volt ohm meter and apply proper ground to ground lead and use positive probe to check the voltage on all 3 of the TPS wires. You are looking for the output signal wire that should read around or less than one volt. With the probe in place you can use your hand to rotate the throttle and see it the voltage climbs.

2. Now that you have located the output signal wire, make note of the voltage shown with throttle in home position. The optimum voltage for the TPS in home position is 0.96V DC.

3. Turn off key. If you sensor is not in this range (IE 1.01V or 0.89V) remove wire connector, and screws to remove TPS. The sensor itself has a spring loaded disc on the inside of it. So when removed from TB it may turn a bit.

4. Take your drill and drill the bolt holes in the sensor just a bit larger than they currently are. Be VERY carful as this is soft plastic and may chip or crack easily. *NOTE* Sometimes there is enough play just losening the screws to set voltage that drilling is not necessary.

5. Now that you have rounded out the holes, replace the sensor and replace connector and screws. Do not tighten screws all the way at this point. You want them snug but where the sensor can be shifted. Turn on key again. Check voltage on Output wire. Now adjust the sensor ever so slightly in eaither dirrection untill it reads 0.96V. Hols sensor in this position and tighten the screws. Recheck voltage. You may have to do this a few times if tightening the screws shifts the sensor a bit.

6. Once it is set and tightened, your done.

*NOTE* This procedure works on most Ford make and model vehicles. It may also work on other makes. Hope this may be useful to those who may be like me and are very particular about dead on tunning.

Good Luck,
Dan

Paul · September 23rd, 2004, 12:15 am

Nice dman446, what do you think about putting this in to How-to Forum so it's a more permant fixture?

Robert 89 PGT · September 23rd, 2004, 1:15 am

im guessing that by ohm-volt meter u mean multi-meter??

.. nice write up.. ill check mine (ill have 2 borrow a meter from school bein as i dont have one @ home

)

dman446 · September 23rd, 2004, 1:30 am

Ok, I posted it over in How-To's. Yes a multi meter. Referred by different names by different people.

Thus far I have performed this on 3 vehicles with success.

1. 01 Explorer Sport
2. 95 Escort LX
3. 91 Probe GL

Wish I could be more exact about which of the 3 wires it the sig-output, but cant seem to find my manual. Plus it may differ on different models.

For those who perfome this, please feel free to list your BEFORE voltage. Just to show others how much it can vary from the factory.

on the Explorer it was at 1.014V, I forget what the other two were exactly but they were under 0.96V.

Steve · September 23rd, 2004, 5:58 am

Nice job.

Rather then having two posts with the same info, I deleted one and moved this over to the How-Tos forum.

exit · September 26th, 2004, 3:03 am

Not exaclty sure why you drilled a hole into the TPS...

The FORD manual says the spec should be between 0.5 and 1.0 volts.
Usually the wire that you are looking for is the 2nd wire and is the color Yellow....

What you can do to "tune it" is unscrew the TPS and move it within .50 volts and 1.0 volts... all cars are tuned better at differnt voltage...

i think mines runs best at .68 or so... i forgot

But if your really into performance... check to see what the voltage before you start it... write it down... then lower or increase the voltage by moving the TPS.... adjust it by .03 or .04 ... take it for a spin... Is it running better? lower or increase it more untill you finally find the best setting

dman446 · September 26th, 2004, 12:34 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by exit

Not exaclty sure why you drilled a hole into the TPS...

Not drilled into the sensor. Just rounding out the bolt holes if they are not large enough to give enough movement for adjustment.

Thats correct, between .5 and 1.0 volts. And every car may tune different, but .96 has proven to be the best all around setting. I got this information from a another ford forum.

exit · September 27th, 2004, 5:49 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by dman446

Not drilled into the sensor. Just rounding out the bolt holes if they are not large enough to give enough movement for adjustment.

Thats correct, between .5 and 1.0 volts. And every car may tune different, but .96 has proven to be the best all around setting. I got this information from a another ford forum.

i doubt .96 is the best all-around setting.....

All cars respond differntly.... alot of it having to do with the mods performed on a car as well.... (or at least i suspect)

marshall · September 27th, 2004, 2:22 pm

Do you mean dvom digital volt ohm meter??

exit · September 28th, 2004, 1:54 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by marshall

Do you mean dvom digital volt ohm meter??

multi-meter... w/e you wana call it... they are cheap at radio shack...

the point is for it to measure volts

T3F2T · December 6th, 2005, 8:59 am

I really hope none of you have followed this poor advice. The correct way to "tune" your TPS is with a special service tool and a multimeter. First you need to understand that a throttle position sensor SST is used to check voltage at the various terminals of the sensor itself. The OE Mazda SST looks like this:

And to my knowledge isn't available for sale to the public, or costs an arm and a leg if it is. The SST plugs from harness plug to harness plug and leaves three pigtails like so:

So how to make one you ask? Easy, go to the junkyard and pull an extra harness from any 2.2 MX6 or Probe. It looks like this:

Make sure to leave yourself as much wiring as possible ^^^^

The harness has three wires on each side. Red, black, and white comes from the TPS sensor itself. The engine harness side has three green wires, green/red, green/yellow, green/white. Green/red stays with red, green/yellow goes with black, green/white goes to white but ends up being the blue wire.

Things you'll need:
Wire cutters
18 guage red, black, blue wire
3 female ends
A soldering irons and solder
Electrical tape.

Start by trimming all of the ends:

Unplug the harness from each other and turn wires towards each other. Red stays with green/red, black stays with green/yellow, white to green/white becomes a blue wire:

Solder each keeping in mind that the red, black and white wires from the TPS are thin wire and subject to breaking rather easily.

Make sure you secure the wires before finalizing. I bent the green wire from the harness rather than from the TPS sensor. The TPS senor wires are very brittle and fracture easily like I said previously.

Do the same with all three wires and finalize with electrical tape. Red to red/green, black to yellow/green, white to green/white and connect to blue.

Now how do you use this damn thing? Glad you asked!

Connect the sensor harness and turn the key to on, measure voltage at red, black and blue with the throttle plates closed. Write these numbers down and cross reference with the set values for each number you're givin for red vs blue. Do the same with the throttle plates open and adjust accordingly by the two 8mm nuts on the TPS sensor. This procedure is hardly difficult but does leave plenty of room for error if done incorrectly.

Here are the shop manual scans:

And that is the correct way to do it!!!!

chino9656 · December 6th, 2005, 12:03 pm

wow....i'm so tired right now, but you did something pretty cool, and in the morning I'll figure it out!
I didn't quite follow ur instructions...too many green wires and stuff, but thanks for clarifying everything here...I was just reading about the longer screw mod and people saying you would need to adjust the tps, then you do this! thanks

pin · December 7th, 2005, 2:48 am

There are sometimes multiple ways to do the same thing, especially in this case of doing the same task on different vehicles. The procedure described in the original post would work on my '92 Probe LX. I have a TPS for a different application and I had to set it like that.

T3F2T · December 7th, 2005, 9:10 am

If you want to "tune" your TPS, do it the way that I just posted rather than going by his method where he says 0.96V is "optimum". Notice that 0.96V is not contained anywhere in the shop manual for OUR cars, and that .60V is the highest stated. Going by his method would throw all of the other values off and be "tuning by guesswork" which isn't "optimum" at all.

If you don't understand it, read it again. I understand that some of the numbers and writing may be hard to see, but I posted it as good as I could taking pictures from the manual.

FYI- The pictures are directly from the Mazda workshop manual.

shard phoenix · December 7th, 2005, 2:04 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by T3F2T

If you want to "tune" your TPS, do it the way that I just posted rather than going by his method where he says 0.96V is "optimum". Notice that 0.96V is not contained anywhere in the shop manual for OUR cars, and that .60V is the highest stated. Going by his method would throw all of the other values off and be "tuning by guesswork" which isn't "optimum" at all.

If you don't understand it, read it again. I understand that some of the numbers and writing may be hard to see, but I posted it as good as I could taking pictures from the manual.

FYI- The pictures are directly from the Mazda workshop manual.

Their is absolutely NOTHING wrong with doing this with a DVOM, the results are adequate, and this procedure is acceptable via industry standard.

Everyone sets their TPS to a different voltage based on their needs and driveing habits, I set mine at .72 and find this to be ideal, there is not a specific value that will always work best, and every car will be different. This is a good write up, do some research before you attack someones hard work.