The New Is: Sequential Shift Mode

[stevet]

off topic but i am still scratching my head with regards to the throttle bleeping feature aswell is this in the IS250 Fsport? any ISF owners care to explain exactly what this feature brings??

The beep is to tell you to change up just before the car cuts the fuel off. Keeping your eyes on the track and not the rev counter.

[noby76]

The point is that when cornering at the grip limits, not necessarily drifitng, it may even be in the wet or snow, that you don't want the transmission to shift up or down unexpectedly. The change in torque to the rear wheels may cause sudden oversteer. Turbo lag is another trickster in this case.

but the true fact is my IS300 does not shift up when i have my foot planted whilst cornering in 2nd or 3rd gear in M mode. it stays in the gear i have selected during my cornering. i dont know about all but if one is bouncing off the limiter during a sweeping cornering move, then they are actually loosing performance rather than gaining because the ECU is cutting fuel supply to the engine ounce you at redline.so one has to keep thier revs around 250rpm below the redline mark as to still have fuel supply to the engine. and my IS300 will hold 2nd when i select 2nd during cornering and stay there even if am nearing 6000rpm it will hold there and when i sense the car trying to over steer during cornering and ease off the throttle to gain control, and apply the throttle again after i have gained control, my gear is still in 2nd gear. it does not and has never shifted up a gear during the process of me cornering in spirited driving. and i think this is all down to the transmissions ECU collecting data from sensors like throttle position sensor, speed sensor, oil temp sensor and other factors to tell it the driver is in spirited driving mode so it then holds off from any sudden upshift or downshift until maximum revs has been exhausted before it grabs the next gear.

[noby76]

off topic but i am still scratching my head with regards to the throttle bleeping feature aswell is this in the IS250 Fsport? any ISF owners care to explain exactly what this feature brings??

The beep is to tell you to change up just before the car cuts the fuel off. Keeping your eyes on the track and not the rev counter.

sorry stevet maybe i didnt explain well i meant the rev matching throttle blip feature. from the information i have gathered, its meant to match the engines revs once the driver shifts down a gear. is this right?.. if so then what advantage does this bring to the cars performance? for all i know is, when I am traveling at 60mph in 3rd gear with the engine revs at say 4500rpm, and i start braking for a corner or turn, once i get to about 40mph its safe to slot it into 2nd gear whilst braking even before the turn. now at 40mph in 2nd gear the engine rev shoots up to about 5500rpm this happens without rev matching feature so if another IS300 comes in with rev matching throttle blip feature fitted to it does this mean it would rev to 4500rpm in 2nd gear to match that of the same revs the car was doing when it was in 3rd gear at 60mph??

[stevet]

off topic but i am still scratching my head with regards to the throttle bleeping feature aswell is this in the IS250 Fsport? any ISF owners care to explain exactly what this feature brings??

The beep is to tell you to change up just before the car cuts the fuel off. Keeping your eyes on the track and not the rev counter.

sorry stevet maybe i didnt explain well i meant the rev matching throttle blip feature. from the information i have gathered, its meant to match the engines revs once the driver shifts down a gear. is this right?.. if so then what advantage does this bring to the cars performance? for all i know is, when I am traveling at 60mph in 3rd gear with the engine revs at say 4500rpm, and i start braking for a corner or turn, once i get to about 40mph its safe to slot it into 2nd gear whilst braking even before the turn. now at 40mph in 2nd gear the engine rev shoots up to about 5500rpm this happens without rev matching feature so if another IS300 comes in with rev matching throttle blip feature fitted to it does this mean it would rev to 4500rpm in 2nd gear to match that of the same revs the car was doing when it was in 3rd gear at 60mph??

Yes you have got it right. Its so when down changing the rear wheels don't get a sudden engine brake effect. If your braking hard in the wet for example the rears won't lock up.

[noby76]

mmmh i personally think thats a strange feature to have. because when one is in spirited driving and slowing down into a corner they would want their gear to either fall on or slightly above the revs which gives the engine peak torque as so they can have ample torque to exit the corner. so e.g if IS-F's peak torque comes in at around 5200rpm and one is traveling at 60mph in 3rd with engine sitting at 4000rpm and start to brake for a corner, why would one want their engine to fall back at 4000rpm once they have dropped down a gear before the bend?? sure you would want to drop down a gear and have the revs climb up to 5500rpm or more which will translate in the engine falling onto or slightly above the rpm where peak torque is achieved to accelerate the car out of that corner? if rev matching feature causes the engine to drop back to 4500rpm which was the same revs as that of 3rd gear at 60mph then sure at 4000rpm, in 2nd gear, the engine is not making enough torque at the wheels compared to when its spinning at 5500rpm in 2nd gear when exiting a corner? am i the only one seeing a flaw here?

[stevet]

No you have that one wrong. The revs rise when braking not fall. In a manual the driver would brake and press the throttle at the same time to match the revs. Heal and toe?

[noby76]

i see...makes sense now your previous comment confused me a bit . seen a lot of racing drivers do the heel/toe movement during racing in manual cars. sorry Argento not trying to throw this off topic but am just trying to understand this...

but Stevet, any drop down of a gear either in a manual or automatic car without rev matching feature causes the revs to rise any way. if am travelling at 50mph in 4th with engine at 2000rpm once i drop down to 3rd gear at the same speed of 50mph my revs will climb up to around 3500rpm so is this not matching my revs to the 50mph am still traveling but now in 3rd instead of 4th gear? am i missing something here? i was under the impression if a cars traveling speed is kept constant and gears are dropped down whilst maintaining that speed this causes the revs to rise anyway?

[Argento]

Typical bloke here, I cannot be ars*d to look in the manual! Lol

I did let myself down recently and looked in the damn manual, but that was only because I couldn't work out how to get my Five Finger Death Punch CD out of the wifes CD changer lol

That made me laugh.

I'm sure you have the right approach.

As you know, the Owner's Manual is 572 pages.

The Navigation System Owner's Manual is 411 pages.

Life is too short isn't it?

But I still love reading them!

But that's just me.

Argento

[Argento]

@Argento

But would you still keep using only brakes going down a steep hill, in the _snow_ ?

my guess will be, if you select say 2nd gear as your maximum range gears, the transmission will hold in this gear when going down a steep hill in snow. because it will automatically detect the vehicle is in incline position and hold the best lower gear for the driver.

Therefore, the car will hold 3 gear as you accelerate.Bouncing off the rev limiter each time you hit the rev limit.

mine didn't use to do this. normally, if say i was activated M mode with ECT PWR it would by default be in 5th to start with i then drop it down to 3rd to overtake a slower car. once in 3rd gear it used to rev to redline and then shift up to 4th by itself as speed builds up. but now it will still hold in 3rd gear in the same scenario and keep bouncing off at redline until i select 4th myself which means its now holding gears.

But I believe that _only_ happens when you are in ECT PWR mode.That's how it seems to work in my MY11 F-Sport

this should happen even without being in ECT PWR mode. only way to test is to drive down a steep hill or uphill with ECT PWR turned off maybe 30-40mph. when safe to do so, try and maintain 30-40mph once you start going down hill keep it at this speed and watch your rev counter carefully and you will notice even tho you maintaining a constant speed of 40mph, the revs will automatically climb up by about 500 or 1000rpm suddenly. this means the transmission has shifted/kicked down to the best gear needed for engine braking based on the down hill road condition. as our cars are quiet smooth you wouldn't feel this transition and its like nothing happened but watch your rev counter carefully and will notice it will climb up in rpm when climbing a hill or descending a hill whilst maintaining a constant speed limit of say 30-40mph. once you get back on a flat surface, maintain the same speed and notice the revs will drop back down again meaning it has now shifted up from say 2nd to 3rd gear. so in a nutshell the traveling speed of 40mph was not changed before, during and after the steep hill. the only thing which changed was the transmission kicking down a gear and holding it during going down the hill for more engine braking and shifting up a gear once a flat surface was detected all happening whilst maintaining the same traveling speed. so you already have gear holding functionality already built into your transmission based on driving conditions.

i still say apart from drifting scenario, the gear holding functionality in the IS-F is pretty pointless in day to day driving or trackday driving because at redline, the engines torque is dropping off so again its pointless keeping it there even when driving a manual car, you will still have to shift once you start bouncing off the rev limiter. why hold it there?

off topic but i am still scratching my head with regards to the throttle bleeping feature aswell is this in the IS250 Fsport? any ISF owners care to explain exactly what this feature brings??

<my guess will be, if you select say 2nd gear as your maximum range gears, the transmission will hold in this gear when going down a steep hill>

Well, I think not.

The transmission will not hold _only_ 2nd gear.

In Normal D mode, it will select 1st when it, decides to do so.

For example, when speed drops - maybe you braked slightly.

On the other hand, if you want it to hold on to 2nd.

I believe you must have selected ECT PWR mode for it to do that.

I better not respond to the other points just now.

My brain is overheating .... ..............

I want to get some sleep tonight ! :-)

Argento

[Argento]

@Argento

But would you still keep using only brakes going down a steep hill, in the _snow_ ?

my guess will be, if you select say 2nd gear as your maximum range gears, the transmission will hold in this gear when going down a steep hill in snow. because it will automatically detect the vehicle is in incline position and hold the best lower gear for the driver.

Therefore, the car will hold 3 gear as you accelerate.Bouncing off the rev limiter each time you hit the rev limit.

mine didn't use to do this. normally, if say i was activated M mode with ECT PWR it would by default be in 5th to start with i then drop it down to 3rd to overtake a slower car. once in 3rd gear it used to rev to redline and then shift up to 4th by itself as speed builds up. but now it will still hold in 3rd gear in the same scenario and keep bouncing off at redline until i select 4th myself which means its now holding gears.

But I believe that _only_ happens when you are in ECT PWR mode.That's how it seems to work in my MY11 F-Sport

this should happen even without being in ECT PWR mode. only way to test is to drive down a steep hill or uphill with ECT PWR turned off maybe 30-40mph. when safe to do so, try and maintain 30-40mph once you start going down hill keep it at this speed and watch your rev counter carefully and you will notice even tho you maintaining a constant speed of 40mph, the revs will automatically climb up by about 500 or 1000rpm suddenly. this means the transmission has shifted/kicked down to the best gear needed for engine braking based on the down hill road condition. as our cars are quiet smooth you wouldn't feel this transition and its like nothing happened but watch your rev counter carefully and will notice it will climb up in rpm when climbing a hill or descending a hill whilst maintaining a constant speed limit of say 30-40mph. once you get back on a flat surface, maintain the same speed and notice the revs will drop back down again meaning it has now shifted up from say 2nd to 3rd gear. so in a nutshell the traveling speed of 40mph was not changed before, during and after the steep hill. the only thing which changed was the transmission kicking down a gear and holding it during going down the hill for more engine braking and shifting up a gear once a flat surface was detected all happening whilst maintaining the same traveling speed. so you already have gear holding functionality already built into your transmission based on driving conditions.

i still say apart from drifting scenario, the gear holding functionality in the IS-F is pretty pointless in day to day driving or trackday driving because at redline, the engines torque is dropping off so again its pointless keeping it there even when driving a manual car, you will still have to shift once you start bouncing off the rev limiter. why hold it there?

off topic but i am still scratching my head with regards to the throttle bleeping feature aswell is this in the IS250 Fsport? any ISF owners care to explain exactly what this feature brings??

<my guess will be, if you select say 2nd gear as your maximum range gears, the transmission will hold in this gear when going down a steep hill>

Well, I think not.

The transmission will not hold _only_ 2nd gear.

In Normal D mode, it will select 1st when it, decides to do so.

For example, when speed drops - maybe you braked slightly.

On the other hand, if you want it to hold on to 2nd.

I believe you must have selected ECT PWR mode for it to do that.

I better not respond to the other points just now.

My brain is overheating .... ..............

I want to get some sleep tonight ! :-)

Argento

noby76, can you just clarify for us what model and year your car is?

Mine is a IS250 F-Sport MY11, as I think you know.

It has just occurred to me that we may be comparing "apples and oranges" here?

Maybe that would account in part for the apparent differences in behaviour we (think :-) ) we are experiencing.

Also, was it you that directed me to the comments that "Kurtz" and others gave on this subject on the U.S. site?

Argento

[noby76]

its an 02 IS300TTE bodykit. and yes you right in normal D mode if the transmissions ECU deems 1st gear is the best for going up a hill it will use that gear. but once you change over to M or S mode select 2nd gear for a hill, i beleive it stays in this gear.. yes i posted the link from Kurtz on the US forumns about how the ECT-PWR button works with regards to transmission behavior. thing is i drive in ECT-PWR 95% of the time now with 5% accounting for M mode. I hardly drive without the button on now as its much better the way the car responds and drives compared to normal mode.

[Argento]

its an 02 IS300TTE bodykit. and yes you right in normal D mode if the transmissions ECU deems 1st gear is the best for going up a hill it will use that gear. but once you change over to M or S mode select 2nd gear for a hill, i beleive it stays in this gear.. yes i posted the link from Kurtz on the US forumns about how the ECT-PWR button works with regards to transmission behavior. thing is i drive in ECT-PWR 95% of the time now with 5% accounting for M mode. I hardly drive without the button on now as its much better the way the car responds and drives compared to normal mode.

Ok

Thanks for the details about your car.

So we have to bear in mind that there is a difference of some 9 years between our two cars.

Lexus may, have changed one or two things on the Electronically Controlled Transmission fitted to our cars.

<gear.. yes i posted the link from Kurtz on the US forumns about how ..>

Thanks.

That was so useful to me.

I can't stop thinking about what was said there.

<but once you change over to M or S mode select 2nd gear for a hill it i believe it stays in this gear>

Hmm ....

This is what I'm struggling to understand.

On the IS-F it would stay in 2nd gear, always.

So long as you had selected the 'manual' function, of course.

But on our cars, surely it would stay in the _range_ of gears selected.

Namely, 1 - 2 ?

I'm pretty sure Kurtz says this.

Argento

[noby76]

but then that's even better because lets say you selected 3rd gear as your range_ of_ gears when going up or down a hill at some stage during the process of going up or down that hill you take your foot off the accelerator peddle, speed and revs drop slightly and you apply the accelerator again which causes the gear to kick down to 2nd gear. this will still result in more torque and engine braking being generated by the engine to power the car up the hill or engine braking generated to hold the car down a hill for better driver control. so can you now see why I say the gear holding feature in the ISF is still useless for a steep hill scenario?? because the intelligent sensors we have in our non gear holding transmission will still detect road conditions 95% of the time and make the right decision to best suit the driver.

[stevet]

It's all to do with having total control on your right foot linked to the rear wheels. That's why any track car has a gearbox that links the engine with the driven wheels. The ISF only has a Torque Converter for 1st gear all the rest have a direct link to the engine. Your IS300 uses the torque converter in every gear so you never have a direct link. Again all about total control for a track car.

[noby76]

I agree Stevet a lock up clutch like a manual box will always give that Direct control feel to the driver than a torque convertor would. but I believe electronic throttle control system does a good job to eliminate most lags in M from the moment one puts their foot down to when the engine transfers power to the rear wheels. its almost an instantaneous reaction in M mode. wasn't seeing things when I confirmed IS300's can lock up and hold gears. just found this review on the IS300 confirming they do hold gears just like IS-F's strange thing is mine didn't used to do it when I first got the car but lately its doing it now so if I select 2nd gear it stays there all day like an ISF which truly does confirm these boxes learns how one drives over time and adjusts accordingly.

[Argento]

I agree Stevet a lock up clutch like a manual box will always give that Direct control feel to the driver than a torque convertor would. but I believe electronic throttle control system does a good job to eliminate most lags in M from the moment one puts their foot down to when the engine transfers power to the rear wheels. its almost an instantaneous reaction in M mode. wasn't seeing things when I confirmed IS300's can lock up and hold gears. just found this review on the IS300 confirming they do hold gears just like IS-F's strange thing is mine didn't used to do it when I first got the car but lately its doing it now so if I select 2nd gear it stays there all day like an ISF which truly does confirm these boxes learns how one drives over time and adjusts accordingly.

I'll have a look at that video soon.

Looks like it might help our discussion.

In the meantime.

I'm planning to do some "hill testing" today.

To remind myself how the transmission works up and down hill, with ECT PWR on and off! :-)

Argento