Factory 6MT Concerns

Reverse too high. Other than that ok… she is a bit tricky sometimes but which girl isn’t tricky at all?

 

The few times you do need a slow backup could I not just use 4lo?

 

You can but it's far less comfortable.....for $130 and the sheer functionality it's really hard to argue against the 2LO. That's a pretty small dollar amount amongst the rest of the costs for the life of the truck.

 

You certainly can. But if you're on a high traction surface the driveline is going to bind up while turning. For the money/effort the reward is well worth installing the 2 lo mod.

 

Absolutely you can.

2Lo is handy but it's far from necessary.
You can still back up as slow as you want in 2hi if you know how to drive a manual.

4Lo is mostly fine if you need it in a pinch.

 

There is no magic to it, you have to slip the clutch to do that.

 

Had a 2021 OR DCSB AUTO, hated that thing even after a tune.

Sold it for my 2020 OR AC 6MT, love it. The only serious mod this thing needed, but I knew already, was the 2LO harness. Took $120 and 45 mins of my time. It will probably save me thousands down the road in clutch wear. We bought a few acres about 50 minutes from our house. So I tow a 72" zero turn on a double axle landscape trailer once a week up and back. I only tried to reverse one time with that trailer, before I bought the harness. So nice to be able to just let the clutch out and use the gas to back up. Well worth the effort.

Otherwise, the manual transmissions are where is at for these trucks.

 

Which is the same as any other vehicle. You may have to do it a bit more in the Tacoma but it's not as big of a deal as everyone makes it out to be. I still just slip the clutch instead of stopping and switching to 2Lo just to back up a bit.

 

Sorry but you can’t back up as slow as you want in 2HI if it’s a steep hill.

 

Sure. There are always outlier cases. You can still absolutely do it but it's certainly not easy and of course is hard on the clutch. This would be a case for using 4Lo in a pinch like I mentioned. For most people backing up a hill so steep that you can't actually do it without using low range is pretty rare. Even more rare is that same situation but you couldn't use 4Lo for whatever reason.

Again... There's definitely cases for 2Lo but it's not a necessity. I bought the 2Lo mod before my truck showed up. It's been handy for sure but I'm not sure I would have bothered with it if I hadn't.

Everyone has different uses of course and I'm sure some would say it's a necessity.

 

Yes, I should’ve added “without frying your clutch”

IMHO if you tow anything, it’s a must if you don’t want to keep frying clutches.

 

Me backing my trailer into the camp spot:

https://youtu.be/7_Qo4yTzalU

 

I've driven 2 manual third gens for a longer period of time. They felt fine just driving around town, but I wasn't picky about how a truck would drive. I will add the 2LO mod whenever I decide to tow my S2000 to the track with it.

Quite weird how I'm not picky because I come from a Honda S2000.

To add, your best bet is to test drive one. See how you feel with it. I wouldn't go in expecting the gearbox to feel like a S2000/Porsche shifter though.

 

I have a 2020 DCSB from the factory all stock with about 40k on it and my MT has been great. Shifts smooth and drives real well. I don’t tow so I haven’t looked into the 2LO mod at all but no complaints so far

 

For the MT guys that have done the tune on their vehicles, how much of a difference did it make? Would you consider it worth it?

I'm a little underwhelmed with acceleration right now at stock. I'm waiting on some 5100s/33" tires to show up, and I'm concerned with what performance will look like after.

I know regearing is an option, but I don't have the $ for that right now. Would it be better to save the $500 to put towards gears or do the tune now? And gears a little later on? Thanks.

 

The biggest difference I felt was throttle response. Mostly that it goes a lot quicker with less pedal press. The actual power of the truck and low end torque and yada yada didn't feel any different to me. I think people are promised changes to the torque curve, low end power boost, etc, and dynos may show small improvements but real world I think most of the people talking about actual performance boosts are feeling the placebo effect. The throttle itself is 99% what I felt was different. Mine still has that same kick in torque at 3500 rpm like it did on the stock tune.

Don't take this to mean I dislike the tune, I don't, I like it a lot, but I think there is a lot of marketing behind them making promises when in reality they are improving the throttle response more than anything.

I don't really think a tune is going to make 33's on stock gears all that awesome. But, it also depends on your expectations. Others say they are plenty fine on 33's and stock gears. Personally I went back to stock tires from 32's and I'm gearing to 4.88 next. Opinions and expectations are all over the spectrum.

 

That was a great rundown. Thanks man.

 

I have owned MTs all my life. It's not my old MT Challenger but it's still fun to drive. I almost always prefer to drive an MT. It keeps me more engaged as I look further down the road to plan ahead.

 

I've driven 100's of thousands of miles with manual transmission cars and suv's but my Tacoma MT experience is not quite 500 miles yet having recently received a '22. With that said, the shifting action seems fine with reverse a little "notchy" but break-in hasn't even really begun to take place. Reverse gearing is too tall and I may opt for the 2 Lo Mod and second gear could be just a touch lower. If I am starting on any sort of downward slope I start in second with just me in the cab.
Related to the transmission, the clutch accumulator is wonky and I'll likely use a dremel tool to fix that. For 70% of the time it can be 'driven around" but I don't like feel of it as I often shift too quickly cause shifting while the transmission is still under some load. If I slow down on the shifting it seems fine but modulating the clutch becomes more difficult with it in place and it just feels odd.

 

From my experience it’s night and day, I’m running premium SFOB on 94 octane. Needs very little throttle input to get moving, even with all the extra weight.