I have been looking at getting one of those throttle response controllers. One, called Pedal Commander, is $300. Felt that was way too expensive for what it offered, and have no need to want to control it on my phone over Bluetooth.
Another, Roar Pedal, is more basic, but again seemed pricey at $160. Looking at Amazon and eBay, there were some very similar looking controllers, the only difference being the Roar Pedal has its own case design and swaps the + and – adjustments. Display looked to be the same digits in operation so, it is possible that it is a custom design based on the same generic module.
So I bit on one of the controllers. It took a while to find one that was compatible with Honda, since the descriptions are so poorly worded at both Amazon and eBay. (Buyer beware! The titles might say “Honda” but reading the description, you find they are for other manufacturers. And, don’t go by the eBay or Amazon vehicle fitment charts either.) After hours of digging, I could not find any sort of model number that correlated to the one I bought.
This is the one I found, although I see the seller jacked the price way up on the last remaining one available:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/143869408887
There have to be more of these out there. Cost should be $50-ish.
The display itself is really small. I will be mounting mine inside the center console so it is out of sight but still easily adjusted. (I may need an extension cable to do that.)
Short explanation–the throttle response controller changes the feel of the accelerator in drive-by-wire throttles, making it act more like the old cable-operated throttles to where the response feels more instantaneous. The controllers offer five basic levels (Economy, Normal, Sport, Sport+, Track), four of which can be adjusted across nine increments. The Normal level is the stock throttle setting. Economy makes it respond slower, where Sport, Sport+ and Track make it respond to less input, the higher you go in the settings. These four offer fine adjustments between 1 and 9.
The controller will make your car feel faster, but it will not add horsepower or torque. It only remaps the output of the accelerator pedal to respond faster.
As such, it installs between the accelerator pedal and the harness that connects to it. So aside from routing the wire and sticking the controller somewhere, it’s as simple as plugging it in between the connector on the accelerator and the harness.
So, how does it work?
It’s…interesting. What it seems to do is shift your pedal response to the “front” of the travel. So, it takes a lot less travel for the same input. When in Track mode, for instance, you can trigger a downshift at maybe 1/2 to 1/3 throttle, whereas you had to push it to the floor in stock mode. Essentially, it changes the response curve, so you require less pedal action to get to the upper range of your throttle. To downshift on the open road, for instance, it only requires a small input of throttle to kick down and pass someone. The various levels (Sport, Sport+, Track) provide varying levels.
In my case, I found I can live with Sport at a setting of 9. This appears as P1.9 on the display. Sport+ (P2.x) and Track (P3.x) were interesting to try, but they made the throttle too sensitive. In any of the Track modes, I could barely maintain 30 MPH–any slower was almost impossible. At the very most, I could probably work with P2.2 at the most. This would probably work best while traveling in the mountains, as it would allow me to kick down to a lower gear much easier.
The Economy mode is a really good way to tame your throttle if you are driving in low-speed situations–it makes it easier to control the speed. It is also good if you have a young driver in the family, or if you are turning your car over to a valet. Yet the curve is such that if you need to kick down to a lower gear, you can still do that the same way you do with the stock Normal setting.
Do I recommend it? Installed on the CR-V, it’s a maybe. I can see it being of value on road trips, since this makes it easier to pass someone due to having more instantaneous throttle response. But at higher settings, especially in Track mode, the throttle is too twitchy, and it is not easily driven at slower speeds, as the speed is hard to modulate. The Economy mode does have its uses, so that makes more sense on a CR-V.
I could see enjoying it more on the TSX, as it is more friendly to being tossed into corners and driven in more of a spirited manner.
But if you miss the old days of cable-operated throttles, setting this somewhere in the Sport range and fine tuning it will bring back some of that familiar feel.
Value? At $50-$60, it’s a good deal. The more expensive options might hvae a longer warranty and the Pedal Commander adds the Bluetooth option, but at five times the cost, I don’t see that it’s worth it. Perhaps the pedal remapping curves are different. But I’m not about to spend that much to compare them.