Sprint Booster etc

[Strudul]

They claim to improve throttle response, but my understanding has always been they are a massive waste of money and just make the pedal more sensitive, giving a pseudo improvement in acceleration due to unexpected jerkiness (tickle the pedal and it reacts as if you've planted your foot).


E.g. Pressing the accelerator pedal halfway in "race mode" would tell the ECU you've pressed it all the way instead, but then has a huge deadzone after 50%, so really you just lose precision.

As such, it is faster, but only because you don't have to press the pedal as far to get the same result, saving a hundredth of a second at best - the time it takes for your leg / foot to press the pedal that extra inch or so.


However, after seeing yet another person singing their praises and claiming improved acceleration I thought I'd have a look into it again and came across this video (there's a few similar ones that demonstrate the same operation) whereby the controller actually makes the throttle body open faster.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XVCYDNcwwY
I thought this was impossible, as the throttle body response is determined by the ECU, not your throttle position, and all these modules can do is amplify your throttle position signal?

Are these videos are fake, fraudulent misrepresentation or am I mistaken here?

[markiii]

When I tried one it did a very good job of removing the dead travel at the top of the throttle pedal

[Turbojuice]

That video looks scammy as hell. All these things are doing is boosting the signal voltage to "trick" the throttle body to open more than it normally would for whatever pedal position, that's it. That video implies it actually makes the throttle body physically open faster, which is bks.

[FlyingfocRS]

tried one years ago on a 530d, ran it for a week, took it off and flogged it.
car was jerky, kicked down excessively and ran a lower gear than it needed to do.
so yeah felt quicker but only because it ran a lower gear than it needed to do and then hunted up and down the box at the slightest touch of the throttle.

maybe i had a bad one but was a waste of money in my opinion.

[kambites]

They certainly won't improve "throttle response" in the sense of time from moving the pedal to the engine responding and now will it increase power; but as someone said above they can remove the huge dead zone at the top (and bottom) of the pedal travel which modern cars tend to have which in turn can make it easier to accurately control the throttle position which I suppose in theory could improve the performance that a given driver is capable of extracting from a car.

The only exception I can think of is that I believe there have been a few lower powered versions of turbocharged engines which are artificially hobbled simply by limiting the maximum throttle opening. Whether that's done by limiting how far the ECU will open the throttle or how much the pedal will demand I don't know. I suspect it's the former but if the latter you could in theory extract the extra power with such a device.

Edited by kambites on Monday 25th December 09:15

[ezi]

I had one on my Clio 200 for a short while. It didn't make any noticeable difference in acceleration and in a car with firm suspension and living where I do it made it awful to drive, it was so sensitive (On the lowest setting) even the slightest rut in the tarmac would jolt the car and you'd end up kangarooing up the road until it found balance again.

[Mr2Mike]

Bolt on tat in unrealistic claims shocker!

[timberman]

I got one for my amg back in 2006.

I only removed it when I sold the car several years later, at which point someone asked to buy it off me so I got most of my money back.

it certainly made a big difference to the pedal feel after being fitted,
however it didn't improve the cars performance and probably didn't alter the throttle reponse, it just felt like it did due to removing any travel in the pedal before actually engaging a response.

I preferred the feel of the car with it on and would remove it from time to time just to remind myself of the difference it made.

[J4CKO]

I had one on my 350Z, could set it to seven levels or so either side of standard, it woke it up a bit, or gave the impression it did, made cock all actual difference to performance as the engine made no more power, bought it for £100 or thereabouts and sold it for £70 on eBay when I sold the car, only really any use on certain cars where the throttle is perhaps a little under sensitive for your preferences.

[Rocket.]

I have fitted one to my Cayman S as the car had quite a 'dead' throttle pedal. I like that it is switchable, it is no faster but it removes the throttle lag and livens up the car a bit like Sports Chrono and also helps with heel toe. Worth it imo.

[Gandahar]

timberman said:

I got one for my amg back in 2006.

I only removed it when I sold the car several years later, at which point someone asked to buy it off me so I got most of my money back.

it certainly made a big difference to the pedal feel after being fitted,
however it didn't improve the cars performance and probably didn't alter the throttle reponse, it just felt like it did due to removing any travel in the pedal before actually engaging a response.

I preferred the feel of the car with it on and would remove it from time to time just to remind myself of the difference it made.

I had one on an AMG C43 in the day. There was a huge thread on the Mercedes forum about whether a scam or not, a lot of people liked it though. As a 10 min job to stick on and can be taken off I thought I would try it out. It came from a man in Greece I recall.

Put it on, backed out of my drive and just pushed the pedal as I normally did... chirp of wheel spin before the triangle started flashing It was taking out all the slop from the top of the pedal travel as mentioned above so I had to recalibrate my brain to foot.

When you ask for power you want it immediately and not having to wear concrete wellies, for the AMG C43 this was perfect. You could be more sensitive. Not sure why AMG did the response like that in those days, safety reason?

It is all very car dependent. The funny thing is that on the forums people who had not tried it argued for ever it was a trick.

My advice would be to see what owners think, you can then make up your mind whether to buy one of these. After spending money you do not want something that you have to wonder whether it was making a difference or not, in the AMG C43 case it was bleedingly obvious, other cars maybe not so.

Hope this helps

[Gandahar]

Mr2Mike said:

Bolt on tat in unrealistic claims shocker!

You must have one fitted to your keyboard

Zippy reply

[timberman]

Gandahar said:

timberman said:

I got one for my amg back in 2006.

I only removed it when I sold the car several years later, at which point someone asked to buy it off me so I got most of my money back.

it certainly made a big difference to the pedal feel after being fitted,
however it didn't improve the cars performance and probably didn't alter the throttle reponse, it just felt like it did due to removing any travel in the pedal before actually engaging a response.

I preferred the feel of the car with it on and would remove it from time to time just to remind myself of the difference it made.

I had one on an AMG C43 in the day. There was a huge thread on the Mercedes forum about whether a scam or not, a lot of people liked it though. As a 10 min job to stick on and can be taken off I thought I would try it out. It came from a man in Greece I recall.

Put it on, backed out of my drive and just pushed the pedal as I normally did... chirp of wheel spin before the triangle started flashing It was taking out all the slop from the top of the pedal travel as mentioned above so I had to recalibrate my brain to foot.

When you ask for power you want it immediately and not having to wear concrete wellies, for the AMG C43 this was perfect. You could be more sensitive. Not sure why AMG did the response like that in those days, safety reason?

It is all very car dependent. The funny thing is that on the forums people who had not tried it argued for ever it was a trick.

My advice would be to see what owners think, you can then make up your mind whether to buy one of these. After spending money you do not want something that you have to wonder whether it was making a difference or not, in the AMG C43 case it was bleedingly obvious, other cars maybe not so.

Hope this helps

mine came from the man in Greece as well,

I also remember the thread on the mercdes forum which actually promted me to buy one,
at the time I don't believe they were available anywhere in the Uk so ordering direct from Greece was the only option, it was a fairly painless transaction though

[Yipper]

They're brilliant. Makes the throttle pedal much more responsive. Defo work.

The big downside, however, is that they send a sudden "electric shock" to the ECU / drivetrain and can send the engine or gearbox into unexpected limp mode.

[xjay1337]

Yipper said:

They're brilliant. Makes the throttle pedal much more responsive. Defo work.

The big downside, however, is that they send a sudden "electric shock" to the ECU / drivetrain and can send the engine or gearbox into unexpected limp mode.

No it won't

[Strudul]

Rocket. said:

I have fitted one to my Cayman S as the car had quite a 'dead' throttle pedal. I like that it is switchable, it is no faster but it removes the throttle lag and livens up the car a bit like Sports Chrono and also helps with heel toe. Worth it imo.

That's just the thing, it doesn't remove throttle lag, it just offsets your brain / leg / foot lag.

Gandahar said:

The funny thing is that on the forums people who had not tried it argued for ever it was a trick.

Well, considering the vid in the OP gives a completely unrealistic demonstration of what it actually does (along with most of the marketing bumf these things come with), I'd say "trick" is more than appropriate.


You're paying £100+ for something you could very easily make for a couple of quid, or alternatively just press the pedal faster for free.

[Yipper]

xjay1337 said:

Yipper said:

They're brilliant. Makes the throttle pedal much more responsive. Defo work.

The big downside, however, is that they send a sudden "electric shock" to the ECU / drivetrain and can send the engine or gearbox into unexpected limp mode.

No it won't

Yes, they do.

[r11co]

Strudul said:

Rocket. said:

I have fitted one to my Cayman S as the car had quite a 'dead' throttle pedal. I like that it is switchable, it is no faster but it removes the throttle lag and livens up the car a bit like Sports Chrono and also helps with heel toe. Worth it imo.

That's just the thing, it doesn't remove throttle lag, it just offsets your brain / leg / foot lag.

Gandahar said:

The funny thing is that on the forums people who had not tried it argued for ever it was a trick.

Well, considering the vid in the OP gives a completely unrealistic demonstration of what it actually does (along with most of the marketing bumf these things come with), I'd say "trick" is more than appropriate.


You're paying £100+ for something you could very easily make for a couple of quid, or alternatively just press the pedal faster for free.

This. A variable resistor in parallel with the one already in your car ie. your accelarator pedal. That is essentially all it is.

[kambites]

It's a mapping table rather than a linear transformation so you do need some logic to do it. An arduino and a few lines of code would do though and would be more configurable.

[InitialDave]

Yipper said:

xjay1337 said:

Yipper said:

They're brilliant. Makes the throttle pedal much more responsive. Defo work.

The big downside, however, is that they send a sudden "electric shock" to the ECU / drivetrain and can send the engine or gearbox into unexpected limp mode.

No it won't

Yes, they do.

They shouldn't change the voltage etc involved, just change the map of pedal input against percentage of max output read. The effect should be no different to pressing the pedal in a different way.

There's no logical reason for them to do what you say unless defective or very poorly designed.