Intake

They did with the TRD air filter. And their TRD intakes. TRD exhausts, which are outsourced to Borla apparently. For the intake, from what I understand, that was outsourced to aFe and now it is only aFe - guess Toyota didn't want to pay for the TRD stamp any longer.

Their goal isn't maximum efficiency per se. They have standards to meet. Beyond that they are increasing the cost to the consumer, R&D etc. Improvements can always be made.

 

Spend away...

 

That's inaccurate. We know that from SuperStock and SuperSport. Even NASCAR has a restrictor plate requirement. If it didn't matter there would be no regulation and no restrictor plate requirement.

Doesn't the FJ have the same engine as the Tacoma? I'll research that - wouldn't hurt.

 

I meant to say "independent dyno test" namely you or someone other then the company that makes that product. Don't always believe what companies say. You seen this guy below before right?

 

They could be fudging it. That wouldn't be a good business descision but they could do it.

When I was racing all the companies that advertised gains and this and that power band were pretty right on when we put the bikes to dyno to fine tune them.

I'm not telling anyone to believe it or not. I'm just stating they did provide data. Of course on a dyno you'll tune things just like we did with our bikes. It's completely likely K&N could have. That doesn't make them full of it. It just means they made adjustments to get the most from their system. Similarly the end user would have to do the same thing.

 

I can tell you that I was on a forum where a very capable goup of people were actively designing/building/and testing aftermarket components on a particular high-performance FI engine. They tested a wide range of aftermarket air box setups and any gains were modest to say the least, with many options actually decreasing performance slightly.

Now, start making changes to things that impact air/fuel ratios (increased displacement, upgraded turbos, uprgraded fuel system, ECU tuning, etc) and changes to increase air flow may be necessary...but that isn't going to happen by just tossing on a K&N cold air intake kit from AutoZone, as others on this thread have already mentioned.

When it comes to the Tacoma and the 4.0L engine I only see one realistic way to increase engine performance on a scale that matters, install a TRD supercharger or some aftermarket FI option. Aside from that the best option is to simply maintain the engine properly and accept what you have (not a racecar).

 

It would seem that many of you are stuck on people thinking they will get some massive performance gain from altering the intake. When infact its been stated many times that the interest is efficiency. The TRD supercharger is a great option. However other than ordering it all I can do it wait. Some of us like to try things out and see for ourselves.

The more restrictive an induction system is, the less efficient it is. Additionally, no one said they think their Tacoma is a F1 car.

It is worth noting that superchargers with intakes and exhaust have significant gains. Which means even if there is no forced induction a less restrictive system is more efficient, which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

A marginal gain in efficiency is still, a gain. If you drive a lot and/or drive long distances, on or off road, that "marginal" gain adds up and becomes significant.

If you are happy with your Tacoma and don't want to make any changes, don't. If you want to play around and see about increasing efficiency, go right ahead.

Physics apply even when a supercharger isn't in the loop.

 

Update:

With my usual on board, in the same conditions, with the Volant Vortice installed my average went from mid 20's to 15.82 mpg.

The Volant product did not whistle. All it did was reduce efficiency and lower the fit and finish in the engine bay, and reduce throttle response.

This is not a product I would recommend to anyone. There are higher quality and much more expensive throttle body spacers available but I wouldn't think they'd differ from the Volant product by much; that being said I haven't tried the other products.

It should go without saying that the Vortice has been removed.