Had success with MINI VCI on Macbook Pro (VirtualBox)! Read AHC pressures!

I purchased my cable from ebay last fall. the listing is no longer there but the item description was “MINI VCI for TOYOTA V12.10.019 Single Cable Support TIS OEM Diagnostic Software” sold by chinaobd2.com This cable and software is the 32 bit version only. As mentioned before I have struggled a number of times trying to get this cable/software to work on a couple of Windows machines, both Windows 10 OS and Windows 7 OS.

What did work for me was using my MacBook Pro touchbar machine. On this I used this thread to download the VirtualBox. This got me Techstream with a working Key. But the VirtualBox didn’t have the correct driver for the cable I owned. I used the mini cd supplied with the cable to save the driver file to the desktop of my Mac. I have an LG usb cd/dvd drive. I dragged and dropped the driver file from the Mac desktop to the VirtualBox/Windows XP desktop. On VirtualBox/Windows I installed the driver for the cable and that ultimately worked.

I did have trouble getting the VitrtualBox and related Windows XP to recognize the MINI VCI cable. This may be due to my use of an Apple adapter since the MacBook Pro only has USB-C ports. Various times of relaunching Virtual Box and replugging in the cable and/or adapter eventually worked. For the life of me I don’t know what combination is “right”.

I have successfully done this twice now and have been able to read the AHC pressures before making any changes and after replacing fluid and rear springs. I’m happy to say my pressures are now much closer to spec and truck rides much differently.

Thanks to Techstream, it appears that the pressures are as follow:

– From low to N: Front: 7.6MPa-g ; Rear: 6.4MPa-g

– From N to Hi: Front: 10.1MPa-g ; Rear: 7.5MPa-g

Tips for AHC pressure adjustment:

To reduce the front pressure, you just have to tighten the torsion bars (30mm bolts, try about one full turn). Also, keep left and right sides level (measure from wheel hub to fender). You only check from Low to Neutral, ignore the N to H values. I had rear pressures a little high and out of spec. I replaced the rear springs which were 6 years old. Did not make much difference to the pressures (7.1 to 6.9) and was kind of a pain.