Trailer Brake Adjustment?

Here’s a question for all you towing experts out there.

I’m in the WV mountains. Just completed a 3 axle brake job on the Highlander and the 179 prior to departure. Adjusted and burnished per recommendations. So I have known good brakes on all 6 wheels, property adjusted. WD hitch adjusted per recommendations to return front axle to original unloaded height.

I have a prodigy p2 which I have set using the “mcarter” method to hold the Highlander from creeping forward on flat ground in drive. That resulted in a brake setting of about 4.0 on the p2. I too felt like the setup instructions to adjust for incipient lockup at 20mph we’re too agressive.

So thats the setup. Now the reality. After going over each of the 7 Appalachian ridges on my route there is about a 2000 ft vertical drop, 8-10% grades for 4-5 miles. Lots of 25-30 mph curves thrown in. A great test of a proper balanced brake setup I think. I drive very conservatively using mostly engine braking on these grades. At the bottom of each grade I stopped and used my ir thermometer to check brake temps.

Front axle brakes about 140-150F, rear TV brakes about 180-220 F. Rear TV disc brakes are clearly doing more work than I would like compared to the much more capable front discs. No dive loading the front axle due to tongue loading? Trailer brakes about 85-90F. Pretty obviously the trailer brakes are not doing squat. So I starting adjusting the gain up slowly on the p2. After the last downhill grade I was at about 6.0 and still no heating at all to speak of on the trailer brakes.

So my question for this group is should I continue to increase gain on the p2 until I see at least some temp rise on the trailer brakes? How much? Should I adjust the timing of engagement on the trailer brakes on the p2 so they come in sooner? Should I use the WD hitch to unload the Highlander rear axle a bit more to see if that transfers some braking load to the front axle?

I’ll be here for a week with intermittent internet access so will respond when I can. And I can continue the experiment over the same 7 ridges when I return home and will report the results.

Thanks!