Manual transmission Fan Club and BS thread (All Generations Welcome)

I thought it was cool to have adaptive on the MT when I got the truck. I didn’t even know I had it at first. Then once I got the truck and started using it, I realized how much I hate it. I skip straight to regular cruise every time. The slowing down and trying to speed back up in 6th drives me batty.

 

Pretty much every 4 cyl truck manual I’ve ever seen maxes out around 0.80-0.85 OD. A 6 speed on a 4 cyl would be nice IF they put the extra gear between 2 and 3 or 3 and 4. An extra OD on a 4 cyl would only be frustrating, our 6MT would only really be reasonable on a 4 cyl if they geared the axles to 4.88. Otherwise it’s just revving too low for 4 cyl power and people would complain about having to downshift all the time. Definitely the reverse and such is a consideration too, the 5MT gets a nice reverse ratio of 4.22 compared to our 3.39. Jealous.

honestly I’d rather have the 5MT on our 4.30 gears. That would be a pretty good performer behind V6 power and it’s 5th ratio in my eyes would be perfect on 4.30 at 0.81 OD. Although, I’m gearing to 4.88 and I think that will make the 6MT pretty nice for my use on stock tires.

 

I do find it interesting that the 16-17 4 cyl SR manuals come with 3.91 gears. That must make for a rather unexciting experience. Their first is already a tiny bit taller than the 6MT, 2nd is slightly lower but not that much lower, their 3rd is alright, 4th is 1:1, and 5th is 0.81.

This means that our trucks in 4th rev higher than the 5MT in 4th meaning we have more power and more gearing. I already feel the need to go down to 3rd for decent acceleration anywhere from about 30-55 mph...can't even imagine in the 4 cyl.....going to 2nd I guess? I think that trans would be great on 4.30s with the V6 and 4.88 on a 4 cyl.

 

The stock manual 6 has front and rear differential ratio of 4.30
The stock auto has 3.909 gears.

The auto might perform better with 4.30 gears, maybe it would not downshift so much.

 

I like your take. Personally I use 5th in my 6MT a lot because Cali freeways are always busy as F and 6th is useless with stock gears in fast/slow 50-70mph traffic

The 5MT would suit me better on all trucks I think but it seems the 6 is Toyota’s pick.

I just don’t understand why Toyota doesn’t consider having their MT, whatever one they pick, available for the wimpier engine. To me, an MT is just as useful if not more useful for engines with lower HP than the bigger / beefier ones. I’m thinking it’s all about cost and sales but that’s a bit of a self fulfilling cycle. Build it and price it right and people will see the value. Lead the market. Most of the I4 SX Tacomas seem to be owned by people who might like an MT option.

 

Another good point. Standardizing everything at 4.30 would save cost. I’m betting the EPA rules are driving this decision.

 

All stock, I am also in 5th quite a bit. I call it mostly useless because I don't like it in the upshift sequence, but it does have it's place for maintaining cruise with more power. I do use it quite a bit for traffic scenarios where we're moving but the speed varies from 55-75 so I need to be able to accelerate, which yes like you said 6th is no good for. so it isn't completely useless. I'm curious how my usage will change with 4.88. It will rev about 350 more at highway speed than it does now.

As for what they use in each engine, not sure how they come to those conclusions. Probably strictly related to dollar amount on their end. if anything, making the 4 cyl worse makes people even more swayed to spend more on the better 6 cyl. I'm sure they run the numbers a million different ways and figure out what will make them the most buck and they end up going that route most of the time. I do get what you're saying.

Personally I think they could have chosen better trans gearing ratios, and then put it behind both engines and differentiated the setups by putting lower axle gears in the 4 cyl. That would be ideal to me. A 5 speed with less ratios and a taller axle ratio with less engine power really makes no sense at all, I agree.

 

I rarely use 5th, most of the time just go from 4th to 6th.

 

I do that if I’m on an empty highway where I know I won’t be slowed down much. Wind 3rd out to 60-65, 4th to cruise speed, 6th.

 

So I did gears recently on the 2002 Tundra, 3.91 to 4.56. It was fun and a good learning experience (I didn’t do the work, just learned and looked at pictures.)

I was impressed with how good the Toyota factory gears looked at 170k and 20 years of use with some light towing.

I think it’s a tough sell to do gears in the Tacoma. 4.30 is pretty good already. AT would be a different story.

I can maybe see doing gears and a rear locker in the 2005 prerunner. If I had money to burn. But it’s pretty good right now on stock gears for daily driving which is the primary purpose.

Maybe just a front locker in the 2016 if I actually started using it for real. But that seems a long way off. A shower to hose off filthy kids would have more value.

 

The WaterPorts and such are very neat, but you can build one out of PVC pipe. Black is best for solar heating. Can easily take 10psi or more. Just a scrader valve and a hose QD fitting.

 

I've got a WaterPORT Day Tank and two WaterPORT Weekender tanks, but I got them all at a discounted rate as part of preorder pricings they were doing. They're definitely pricey otherwise. I really like them though.

I did discover however that my joolca drains the Weekenders too quickly though. Sort of. Turns out the required flow rate to keep the water hot/keep the joolca heating element going is pretty high, so the Weekender loses pressure too quickly and the hot water option gets cut short long before the water is actually drained. My work-around for this ended up being to not pressurize the tank and just put the joolca's pump in the tank and draw out the water that way. lol

 

Yes.
Here's my 2017 SR MT

 

I’ll definitely be reporting back on if I think it was worth it or not when I’m done. I’m not booked until February so I have a ways to wait unless I get bumped up. I think it’ll provide a nice increase to the acceleration and such. It won’t be super drastic, I already know that. But since we are already set pretty good from the factory, I don’t want drastic anyways (although it sucks to pay full regear prices for non-drastic results). But anyways. Nothing will ever fix reverse, that’s what we have 2lo for though. Mainly it will make the tall 2nd better and allow me to not need to drop to lower gears quite as often. Since I seemingly always mess with gears in all vehicles, I just couldn’t leave well enough alone.

Shower system would be cool.

 

Nice, l would hang onto that one!

 

Do you happen to have any way to pull the ECU ID off of your Taco? Carista, OBD Fusion, or a handheld OBD scanner?

 

I don’t think that’s sacrilege at all. An automatic transmission can make a vehicle really great or really terrible to drive. If it’s terrible, there is not much you can do other than babysit the shifter and force it to do what you want by limiting gears. That is not enjoyable at all. A manual transmission lets you be in control all the time, so if there is any frustration, it’s on you pretty much.

I see no reason for other items to be manual. Climate control simply just works, as well as wipers would, and anything else automatic. They have far different effects on the vehicle than an automatic transmission does. They won’t make it terrible to drive Pretty much anything else manual is just a pet peeve to me. So I’m with you. Although I will say the Tacoma auto high beam is horrible. I’d love it if it worked as well as other cars, but it doesn’t, so I don’t use it. Manual high beam mode it is for me.

 

24.7 MPG last fillup. I’ll take it. That’s the 2005 I4 2wd of course.

 

Yep… love ‘em both, quirks & all. Just wish I could afford to keep both.

 

Explains the Automatic issues pretty well
https://youtu.be/qbCAEscrJ8E