HikeIt throttle controller

[JRODZ]

I installed this about a month ago. I went w/this vs. others due to price & size of the unit. It's made a huge difference in enjoying my Gladiator. Now I know that there's somethin under the hood! HikeIt had great communication & shipped/received it fast, & good directions. It's kinda tough gettin into the throttle pedal to install, but doable. I then ran the wire behind the centerstack to behind the glovebox. I'm seeing better mpg because it's using more gears now vs. b4, even though I've adjusted for my 35's. It revs up pretty quick now, keeps me in the power when needed, & drops the rpms when cruisin slow. There's plenty of settings & a throttle cut off/antitheft mode. I started in the tow/haul mode, & since keep it in auto mode. Cost per dollar, very pleased with this simple yet effective mod. I should've done it sooner!

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[dcmdon]

I have one of these also. It works very well. Though I'm still trying to figure out if I want it. It seems that despite all the tweaking it allows, I like the original settings best. ha.

 

[Jesnamy01]

I have one also. I am in a gas sport s with 37” tires and 3.73 gears. Man does it provide a lot of pep over stock. I have to watch it when I take off from a stop as I feel as though the tires are starting to spin sometimes and I don’t have a heavy foot. I will be doing a regear in the future and can’t to see how that couples with this throttle controller.

 

[Arisdocjk]

I also have one and love it. Makes a huge difference.

 

[lichwmi1]

I received mine in late November as part of a Black Friday deal and love it! I usually have it on the automated setting but have really enjoyed messing around with the other settings. Slight improvement in gas mileage since install. Nice to be able to use the ECO mode in slow traffic situations.

 

[BearDog]

I never understood the reason for these. If I need more pep, I just put my foot down further. My shop is on a 75mph freeway with no acceleration lane. Sometimes when leaving, if I'm not on the floor with my foot, I'll get run over by a few loaded semi trucks.

 

[kyoung05]

I got one of these earlier this month and agree that it is definitely a game changer. I have a Base Sport 3.6 w/ Manual transmission, and I'm running 33's on slightly lighter aftermarket wheels. No re-gear. While I've read a ton of comments about how terrible the manual transmission pairing is with this engine, I never found it to be that bad. But, I've spent many years driving lots of manual cars with little to no low end, and have needed to rev them all out in order to get any sort of acceleration (due to turbo lag, VTEC, etc.). The Gladiator was no different - very unresponsive and sluggish until you get to about 3k RPM's, where it's version of "VTEC" kicks in and the power comes on. This meant I just needed to be more cognizant about keeping the revs up so that it was always in its powerband (which is pretty easy to do with the manual transmission). Overall, less than ideal but definitely workable.

That said, more low end would be great, and I was heavily considering a Hemi swap or some other power adder in the future.

I decided to take a chance on the HikeIt and had very low expectations. I didn't believe that something so simple could make such a difference. I was wrong.

In almost any of the modes, it's like the "turbo lag" has been completely removed. Because it feels like it's gained a ton more low end torque, it's almost like driving a completely different car. The off the line throttle response is night and day. I'm still playing around with the settings since some of them feel almost too twitchy. I'm currently using Sport 3 or 4, and that seems to be a pretty good sweet spot for now.

Of course, this isn't a magic bullet that transforms the Gladiator into a Hellcat by any means, and you can tell that once you're into the upper/mid-range of the RPM band, the acceleration still isn't great. However, this makes it more noticeable because before, you felt nothing, nothing, nothing, before it started to pull. Now, it pulls immediately, but by comparison, it feels like the power curve flattens out pretty dramatically past 4k RPMs or so whereas before, that was when the engine actually woke up. I realize this is all perception since the tuning hasn't changed at all - just the throttle sensitivity. But, it is very noticeable to me. Still, it's a trade I'm fine making 100% of the time since I never really had an issue with the Jeep's top end acceleration.

Does this make me rethink wanting a Hemi swap? No. But, I would be fine putting it off for longer.

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