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

Hybrid drive systems, especially from Toyota, are actually fairly simple. Like ridiculously. Fairly simple. As far as adding turbos are superchargers, there have been quite a few aftermarket ones available for the 1GR and the 2GR engine for years. It'll cost you a pretty penny to install but they are out there. You won't make your money back with miles per gallon, but you'll definitely make it back with smiles per gallon.

 

I was ruminating on OEM turbo parts adapted for 2gr / 2tr. since they are commercial grade and all.

 

This engine/turbo combo is already proven in the Lexus, why doubt it.

 

Have you ever driven a vehicle with a modern turbocharged engine?

 

I will admit, I didn't think of turbo diesels in trucks which go hundreds of thousands of miles. I initially wondered how the engines would hold up given the stress that a turbo could induce. Maybe once up to cruising speed in top gear the engine isn't even utilizing the turbo.

 

If I had to guess I would believe that the new (as in decades ago) twin scroll designs and smaller turbos are much better than they used to be. As I understand it small turbos spool faster and build boost much quickly, but need to be high quality to run high RPM once you start pushing peak output. Alternately you can put a lower quality and bigger turbo and stress it less at high output, but suffer more turbo lag. Twin scroll is a more complicated (and thus expensive) turbo design but also works to reduce turbo lag. This is of course completely glossing over compressor maps and turbo efficiency.

I think too older engine designs used the turbo for power but may not have been building much, if any, boost at cruising and thus suffered turbo lag. With these new engines and high quality turbos I can see them running almost always on low boost and thus shortening the time for full boost.

I don't know a ton about turbos but between keeping a little boost, twin scroll, and small-ish turbos with light weight parts on the spinny bits I can see these being much better than the older or add-on stuff.

 

So was the 3.4 twin turbo, the engine Lexus was dropping in their two flagship vehicles with the LS and LX.

It was in the LS500 since 2017, yet didn't prevent the Tundra from having issues. I assume they made some changes to the engine to reduce cost and meet different design requirements for the Tundra

 

And despite the 13 people on the internet saying that the new Tundra is failing, it's not. It's doing quite well. But yes, there are going to be necessary changes to make it from a luxury GT car to a big honkin truck engine. Lol

 

If I go to a full size pickup truck, ideally it would be an older Tundra. If I won the lottery, a new one. Looks like the one engine matches the displacement of a gen 1 Tacoma V6, 3.4L with a few different much higher of course horsepower ratings.

I believe the Tacoma will be the only pickup truck available with a manual transmission, unless the Jeep Gladiator still will. Don't know if the Ram 2500 still does or will - a manual was available with the diesel engine. The Nissan Frontier has been only automatic since the recent redesign.

 

Yes. My previous vehicle was a 2018 Mustang Ecoboost. My wife's car is a 2017 Focus ST. I've had first hand experience with the whole evolution of turbocharging in passenger car engines starting from my '87 Merkur XR4ti.

The fact that they've become better and more drivable doesn't change the fact that they're fundamentally a fuel economy hack.* And I say "hack" not because of the technology but because they take advantage of the testing regime. Few makers would bother with the extra cost and complexity of turbos if fuel economy hadn't become an overriding consideration.

[* ETA: As used in most modern engines. Obviously older designs like the fire-breathing 930 Turbo were solutions for getting more power out of an existing engine.]

 

I wouldn't argue it is a "hack", it benefits the driver and isn't just exploiting the testing to make something appear to get better fuel economy than it does in the real world. We also are getting more and power out of the deal.
-FWIW, i believe brake specific fuel consumption maps come into play here.

Automakers are cheap bastards, they would charge us for a steering wheel if they could. Fuel economy has been increasing and that is a GOOD thing all around, especially for my pocket book.

 

That same guy also said that he has had a few Tacomas and went manual in his own so that shows there was an internal and external push to keep the manuals.

Total speculation but I think Toyota tried to get the manual to work with the hybrid motor but couldn't get the transmission to keep up. Similar to the Lexus IS250 having a manual but the IS300 wouldn't work. The R&D on the new tacoma started at the release or maybe even before the 3rd gen ramped up. I think it' interesting that the patent was filed during this process on how to do manuals on EV's. probably false hope but would love to see them figure out a way to get the manual into the hybrid engine by the refresh.

https://www.gearpatrol.com/cars/a39046163/toyota-patent-manual-transmission-electric-cars/

 

I want a manual turbo...a turbo that I can manually control.

You know, like NOX.

 

Looking into the new Tacomas out of curiosity...SO happy they still offer a manual. Love my '22 6MT. I'm curious, I'm guessing the more powerful powertrain will be auto-only, and the manual trans options will be with the 2.4 turbo only. Thoughts on this?

 

Yeah that’s already confirmed

Maybe the 4.5 gen will have a manual with the hybrid

 

Honda did it a number of years ago. However, the manual hybrid accords actually got less fuel economy than the regular ones, but... That's because that set up the hybrid system acted more like a power boost or an electric supercharger if you will. Not an actual supercharger calm down ladies... But essentially it was just dumping more power into the drive train. It is possible, especially with the way Toyota has the hybrid system coupled to the automatic in the Tundra and Sequoia, if they'll actually do it, or if there's a feasible way to do it, that's a whole other matter...

The biggest issue with hybrids and electric drivetrains of any sort is that electric motors run at peak efficiency at ridiculously high RPM, and they also provide a ridiculous amount of torque and power at that high RPM so it doesn't make sense to have gear reduction aka a transmission to shift around in.

That being said, the first taco with a hybrid and a manual transmission will be one that I own so... I'm all in

 

I don't think a manual transmission option is feasible with the Toyota Hybrid System. It essentially replaces the entire transmission with 2 electric motors and 1 gas engine powering different sections of a single planetary gear set. 1 element of the planetary gear set is connected to the gasoline engine, 1 element to the final drive and the smaller electric motor/generator (called MG2), and the final element is connected to the larger motor/generator (MG1). In this way it can function electrically as a constant variable transmission for the engine. The main catches of this design is a fairly low maximum speed without running the gas engine, as power is supplied only by MG2, as the coasting MG1 rpm rapidly rises as the vehicle gains speed. If you have driven a Prius you can see this behavior as the motor sits around 1800 rpm at nearly any steady speed when it is being used. If you smash the throttle the motor rpm jumps up to around 4200 rpm and stays at a fixed engine speed as the vehicle gains speed. Above about 40mph it will always run the gas engine (and from about 3mph if you floor it at launch). It takes a few drives to get used to this behavior, especially for someone like me who only owns manual transmission vehicles.

 

Totally. Fingers crossed.

 

The 4th Gen Tacoma uses a system that is different from which you describe. The electric motor is mounted just like the Tundra, sitting in between the gas engine and transmission. Toyota tends to do this with the HD platform vehicles, which started around 2014 in the USA w/ the Hino 195H. Anyway, it could run a manual trans, but again, the torque limit of the RC series manual transmission is only 310 ft/lbs, at least in Toyota’s eyes.

Tundra…