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What is strikedthrough (I don't know if this word works/exists) is the speed signal (the first kanji is "kuruma" which is "car" in japanese, and the second is the kanji for "fast/speed").

Hello @Juan 

Yep, still looking at this forum, and my emails (got notifications from quotes).

So take a look at the Pivot website just to verify if the plug&play harness is the very same between the GGH20 & the ANH20 (I guess but it's always better to verify).

So I asked directly the Pivot support, stating my situation, French import, only one in France, trying to get the correct model & harnesses for a 2009 GGH20, and they answered me (I don't paste the whole answer which was more complete, just the interesting part about parts) : 
 

Quote

product:
3DA-T (similar to 3DA and 3DA-C, so don't make a mistake)
2A harness (connected to accelerator sensor)
BR-1 Brake Harness (connected to brake switch)

which are the correct parts for the GGH20.

Then I bought everything at blackhawkjapan.

Seeing there's no english manual, I asked the support for one, and they told me : 
 

Quote

 

Please refer to the 3DA manual.
https://pivotjp.com/download/pdf/manual/3DA-e.pdf
There is no English manual for 3DA-T.

A supplementary manual is attached.

 

So I'm attaching in this post the supplementary picture.

Then I asked about the speed signal which seems to be on a 5P connector, they sent me the other attached picture which should be the correct one for you (as you probably don't have the cabling mess I have on mine).

So try that and if you have others problems, come back to me, I'll send you some others pics from them, otherwise you can just write to the Pivot support which is super nice & reactive.

Hope this helps

I'm following the recommendations of "The car care nut" on Youtube, who was a Toyota mecanic and used to 2GR & the 6 speeds auto gearbox with it.
So those are the following :

Auto gearbox oil change : 100k km (62k miles) OR 6 years

And for the history I'll let others infos there :
Cooling liquid change : 80k km (50k miles) OR 5 years
Brakes fluid change :  3 or 4 years (or you can use a cheap tester too)
2GR-FE spark plugs change : 100k km (62k miles) OR 10 years

1 hour ago, Goz said:

ok interesting ... you can't get E85 in the UK at all ... but I keep seeing the price when im driving through France ... might not be worth it if I can't just refill with E85 when i land

 

Will have a chat with my mechanic though ... car is off for the annual service in a couple of weeks

If you can't buy E85 in the UK, don't bother buying a kit, it doesn't worth it at all.

What you can do to lower the bill is to mix SP95-E10 & E85, respectively doing 50/50. On any Toyota, the map is rich enough to have no problem at all to compensate (you can check you STFT and LTFT if you want to follow the evolution of corrected injection).

On 11/8/2024 at 9:00 AM, Goz said:

 

What did you need to do to convert your alphard to run on E85? ... I spend a lot of time driving through France ... would love to get the modification done!

I'm using the eflexplus kit from eflexfuel. It costs 500€ but it's a very nice kit with Ethanol sensor, good quality electronics and an android app for settings, informations etc.

It's easy to mount on the vellfire as you have a lot of room and fuel lines are very accessible.

By the way, never go from 100% unleaded (do you name regular gasoline as unleaded in UK as well as in the US ?) to 100% E85 in one shot. Unleaded make deposits in the cylinder, which will be cleaned by the E85, but if you doing it in a single shot, you have a risk to make it go down on the piston rings.

So do it like 25% first shot, 50%, 75% then 100% all the time.

The maximum speed is flashable (limit to 180km/h), but the cruise control limit is hardcoded in the ECU program.

So you have to dump the ECU memory and try to find in the bin file the memory value which hardcode this speed (with an hexadecimal editor), then modify it and find a way to flash the ECU (which is normally, with Toyota ECU not possible, or not that easy).
I know in the US, frankensteinmotorsport, who is well known for playing with 2GR-FE there (as there's a lot of them) got the memory address for USDM ECUs, but JDM ECU are different for that.
That's why after contacting a lot of companies and flashers (alientech, OVTune, Frankensteinmotorsport,Ivanperformance) I found the Pivot cruise control, which is doing the job perfectly, for a limited cost (as hours of researches with my ECU sent to Alientech for example would have cost a lot more). 

4 minutes ago, Chris.ac said:

You forget to mention, the pivot system also has various throttle mapping, so you get a smoother Eco or more aggressive throttle response.

 

Have you used these settings and can say if they make any difference?

Not used at all.
As I use my Vellfire mostly on highways, I just need to set it up to 140km/h (on gauge) or 120 and that's it most of the time.
And when I drive it on countryside roads, I don't care about how I use my gas pedal

Last but not least, I run it full E85, and my highest consumption is 14L/100km, which means ~10€/100km, which is still "cheap" for this kind of vehicule !

I bought it in April 2022 on Blackhawkjapan, including the electronic module, the brake harness and the special vellfire GGH20 harness (there's a compatibility matrix to find the right harness to buy) for 35000JPY shipping included, which is at the current low JPY rate 215€ or 180£.

BTW I just found out I wrote to Pivot support in Japan to be sure to not do any mistake and they were SO fast and gentle to answer, small part of the answer was the exact stuff to buy for my GGH20 : 

product:
3DA-T (similar to 3DA and 3DA-C, so don't make a mistake)
2A harness (connected to accelerator sensor)
BR-1 Brake Harness (connected to brake switch)

Then they sent me the Japanese manual + some pictures with english translation.
It was pretty fast to install, the "hardest" part for me was to find the speed signal cable because my radio got an aftermarket setup, but I took pictures and sent them, and they helped me to the end, until it was working.
 

The product is great, the support is great (Japanese people), so don't hesitate for the price.
 

Don't forget you'll lose the adaptive cruise control (if you have it), but you can always add a small switch to use one or the other.

About the limit, I searched a lot, I contacted some big specialized companies that modify ECU progs in Italy, UK, USA, nothing.
So I bought a PIVOT (Japanese company) cruise control with the plug&play harness for GGH20, and now I'm able to use the cruise control with any speed.

Autodoc

Hi Lilash,

maybe I'll cross you on the road to South of France for Christmas ^^

Anyway, I've got a 2009 3.5 FWD, my Japanese documentation talks about 55 & 58L versions (and I should have a 58 if I understand correctly the doc), but in fact it seems I have more like 55L.

You could check on EPC data, but I'm sure there's not difference between an Alphard and a Vellfire for the fuel tank.

Could you do a video ?

Usually, the long bip when you try to lock is telling you 2 things (in my experience) :

- You have a door open

- You have a key inside the car

I don't know a way to check the level.
Unless you got a leak, the level will be OK.
Just change it every 6 years or 100k km (60k miles).

Use Techstream, it will be easy to add keys !

Donc you have a PC with Toyota Techstream ? First thing for me would be to test the AFS ECU with Techstream.

Small update :

E85 price is slowly going down, we are able to find it now for less than 1€/liter.

28 minutes ago, Chris.ac said:

2 wires on rear of head unit, I've got speed sense and one for parking brake, I have mine grounded (I think, rather than 12v) this allows me to modify BT whilst in motion, so wife/kids can connect when they want to dj. 

You should do a small howto for this !

12 hours ago, arthurj said:

Ah, maybe there’s no mod then. I read that it was the case but the front screen certainly doesn’t switch away from DVD output unless I press the navigation button. What it won’t let me do when I’m driving (above 5mph or so I think) is adjust the audio EQ settings.

You can simply turn off the screen, instead of keeping the navigation.

Tap 2 times on the navigation "hard" button, then on the top right button, it will turn off your screen.

1 hour ago, Chris.ac said:

Yep, standard headunit on 18 speaker system allows you to create two sound zones, for front and rear with independent volume control. 

I can stream radio to front 8 speakers, and dvd to rear 10. 

If a phonecall comes in it will further split the front, and continue to Complain on japanese when I upset it

 

Well I asked about because of this sentence : 

Quote

I think dvds are supposed to stop playing while the car is in motion but you can modify the input wires so it won’t do that. I didn’t do it, I assume the previous owner in Japan had it done.

because in Japan every car (at least a LOT of them) got a TV inside and it's totally allowed to let the TV run when you drive.
So it's normal you can play the DVD on front & rear screens when you drive, it's not a modification. But you CAN'T change the bluetooth  source (from one phone to the other one registered) when you drive, you have to do a complete stop for this, that's funny.

3 hours ago, arthurj said:

DVD playback through my rooftop monitor. I tend to send the sound to the back speakers and press the navigation button so I don’t see it on the front screen (which is the essential feature I can’t seem to find in any replacement system).

 

The other day I drove 5 kids to a party, 45 minutes each way. DVD on and didn’t hear a peep! 

 

I think dvds are supposed to stop playing while the car is in motion but you can modify the input wires so it won’t do that. I didn’t do it, I assume the previous owner in Japan had it done.

Are you talking about the stock Toyota Unit ? Or am I missing something ?

As the gearbox is the same on the Camry, I followed this video (and mixed it with a bunch of others) : 

I followed the Toyota technician software too, and ask a friend of mine who's Toyota mechanic how they do the flush on this type of transmission.

In resume, for me the most important is : 
- Take a graduated container to have an idea of how much you got

- Don't forget to remove the overflow tube when flushing
- Replace the filter

- Don't forget to put in back the overflow tube

- Overfill a bit
- Use a laptop with Techstream to get the fluid temperature, then you'll be able to make the level accurately.

https://en.estima.su/estima_hybrid_service_and_repair_manual.htm

in the changelog at the bottom : " - [translated] troubleshooting Hybrid control system: DTC P3125 (483, 508, 509)"
So it's a direction to search, finding an estima hybrid repair manual or repair informations on the net.

Through google I can find this on a russian forum : 
DTC P3125-509 Starter-generator invertor temperature sensor malfunction 
but not the other ones.

On 5/1/2023 at 11:56 AM, AlfAlphard said:

Hi. Just reading this post above, on fuel types. Interested as I hope to be going to France later this year. I have a 3 lit 2006 Alphard. All of the above was over my head. My question is, would I be able to buy the same fuel in France as I can hear in the UK. I mostly use the 95 octane fuel. Many thanks in advance.

Hi,

sorry for the late answer, I didn't got notifications about your post !

So to answer to you, you'll find everywhere SP95-E10 (so this is usual 95 octane fuel with 10% Ethanol in).

You COULD be able to find some rare stations with SP95-E5, which is usually called "SP95" (without the E5 specified), but it's very hard now, there's only few of them.

But your 3L should run smoothly with some SP95-E10. If you are afraid, you can go SP98, it's a bit more expensive but it's better than SP95-E10 for the engine.

40 minutes ago, JoKing said:

Yes, I know how to get it - but the form asks for the "Euro Standard" of the vehicle which I don't know.

 

So simply consider the year of production, your Alphard is from 2003, so it fits "Euro 3 - entre le 1er janvier 2001 et le 1er janvier 2006 inclus".

And it's a petrol engine, so you enter in the Crit'air 3 case : 
"Essence : tous les véhicules Euro 2 et 3 ou immatriculés entre le 1er janvier 1997 et le 31 décembre 2005 inclus"