RC60F Transmission swap including 4th Gen Taco

The 3rd gen has notorious rev hang. Most tunes available. Help with this although they don't eliminate it entirely

 

This tranny upgrade seems more reasonable regear, especially for 4wd. I'm already OTT tuned, stock everything.

 

Reasonable yes, although it still cost three times more than having your diffs regeared.

That being said, as there is a lot of discussion in here about the benefits and drawbacks of both.. If you can do both that is clearly the best way to go.

And if for whatever reason you need to have your transmission replaced... Have them put one of these in.

 

I have the factory accumulator but I dremeled the channel in it to “delete” the accumulator function. Honestly, I don’t know that it made that much difference. It’s hard to tell because you deal with getting the air out for a little bit after doing the work and by the time the pedal is self bled again, it’s hard to remember what it was really like before.

I actually have another accumulator I got from @daveeasa and I bought the Firn disk for a cleaner version of deleting it. Unfortunately that was a while ago and naturally, when I did this work this weekend, I couldn’t find the accumulator. So now I’m back to trying to find it and then I’ll swap it in. Figures, because I was waiting until the transmission swap before I’d mess with it. Lol.

the rev hang is common on all modern manuals. Tunes don’t fix it. They may alter it slightly, I’m not sure, but I know it’s definitely NOT in the VFtuning software to completely get rid of it. So it’s still there to some degree for sure. Honestly, on the tunes I tried, they all seemed to still have about the same level of rev hang as stock.

Unfortunately, waiting between 1st and 2nd is just how you have to drive this thing unless you want to create a jolt, or chirp the tires. The transmission and regear both make this worse because you reach the higher rom more quickly in 1st, which gets you further and further away from the target 2nd gear rpm. Just like you have to wait longer for it to drop from 5000 to 2500 compared to 2000 to 1000, the regear gets you up to 5000 more quickly, so you’re more likely to need to wait longer on this transmission or a regear vs stock. But honestly, I am still shifting at the same rpm ranges I always have, so I just shift earlier. Essentially, my rev hang times are the same since I’m keeping the rpm I shift at pretty consistent across the various setups my truck has had.

 

I’d say the transmission is on par with a regear, cost wise. Depends on a lot of factors though for a fair comparison. Whether or not you’re touching the clutch, flywheel, doing a heavy flywheel, or anything else. Whether or not you wait for Black Friday, have to pay $300 for shipping because no dealers participating in Black Friday nearby, etc.

I spent around 2500-3000 on my regear. Hard to say how much for sure because I bought a bunch of oem bearings and such, plus the gear kit, then paid labor to the guy I chose to do the work. It was somewhere around 2500-3000.

I’m super happy with the combo of both, although I cringe knowing how much I spent. Oh well. It helps that the two were almost 2 years apart, and the brunt of the cost was 2.5 years apart, because I bought my gear stuff in July 2022. The funny thing is, I was trying to figure out a way to get this transmission since that same time, but nothing ever worked out lol.

 

Just depends on what you want. A lot of people really don’t like the stock 6th gear and think it revs too high. I personally don’t agree with that opinion, so had I just swapped only the trans, I would have disliked that aspect of it. I said if previously but I would have driven it more like a 5 speed as a result.

The regear is great, but if you regear any bit deeper than stock to help the low end, you start revving 6th higher and higher than stock, the deeper you go. For me, that was no problem. I could have lived out my truck til its end at 3000 rpm at 70. I didn’t care, and drove 41k happy miles that way. But many don’t want or like that, so regear isn’t perfect either.

So yeah, for most, the transmission alone is a reasonable choice. I didn’t like how the 6th gear would be (too tall, too much downshifting), so the combo of both was just right for me. But I paid dearly for that. Lots of pros and cons.

 

Hmm. Not sure if this is going to make me regret ditching my '22 or not...

 

Aside from tech, I feel the 2nd gen with an RC60F would probably be more enjoyable.

 

Oooooooohhhh. Now you’re f’in w me

 

Yeah...I mean I'll be half as much in to my 2G as I was my 3G (even with $12k+ of OEM parts for the mega refresh/PM party..sometimes I hate that I keep detailed records..); but since I bought it new, I ate almost half of that same amount in depreciation, sales tax, and bandaids trying to get it right. But, no one has a crystal ball, including myself...and hey, maybe I'll get one of these in my 2G once the trans dies..

 

Lol. I did mean it for a 1GR though…

 

Even after the transmission, the slow accelerations in 2nd gear are still a thing. It is what it is. It’s something in the programming that the tunes somewhat address but don’t fix and it’s probably a behavior that can’t be gotten rid of. I think it’s just how Toyota wanted this platform to be. I can live with this now though.

I think a 1GR with this trans and proper gearing would be fantastic. If only I wasn’t hesitant to do the VF4B…that would be killer in my truck.

 

See I was just looking at the parts cost but if you did some extra things and then paid a guy, stay as the reason your cost would be on par with the transmission which of course you just did yourself.

Interesting. I find myself using stock sixth gear on the highway around 60 to 65 mph, even with armor and 33s

VF4B .... Do tell

 

Well, unfortunately most of us aren't doing the gears ourselves and are usually paying the labor. I guess I could do those myself if I bought some tools for doing third members, although I don't want to lol. Definitely parts cost is more on the transmission than the gears for sure.

In stock form (31s and 4.30s) I used it around 70+. Sometimes more like 75-80+ if I'm in heavy fast moving traffic and want to maintain sudden slowdowns and speedups more easily. With the regear (on both 31's and 32's) I started using 6th a bit earlier, more like 65. But I often took 5th all the way up to cruise speed (75-80) and then went into 6th. I wind things out unnecessarily just because, though.

With the new transmission, I'm back to not using 6th until 75 or so. I mean I might cruise in it at 65-70 but I don't really drive those speeds and if I'm accelerating pretty much any amount at all, I will be in 4th or 5th.

full time 4WD manual shift transfer case from the FJ cruiser. I would love to do it, but it would require taking an inch out of the front half of the rear driveshaft, which I am not confident would be successful with my high driveline speeds. that and making the shifter clear the transmission shifter are the only real snags keeping me from doing it. Man it sure would be awesome.

 

Yes to literally all of this. Lol

 

I wouldn't worry about that if you're not already having any signs of trouble - spinning shafts get more stable as they get shorter so long as the balance is correct; when things start getting longer and/or larger diameter, that's when whipping and critical speed come in to play. As long as a decent shop is doing the surgery and don't screw up balance and phasing, you shouldn't have any issues having an inch lobbed off (actually - like 2G, is the automatic 3G also an inch shorter? I thought I was looking at that until someone pointed out there's a minor difference in the flanges that prevent it from being an option as I was hoping I'd just snag a take-off on eBay).

Also - there's probably a very generous margin of safety built in to an OEM application - and are actually formulas for all this stuff out there if you want to go full enginerd on it.

C'mon man, come to the Tacomaru side.......you're already in there.......

 

No signs of trouble, I just worry about their balance job with the new shaft not being as good of balance as the original Spicer balance, since Spicer spins them really fast at the factory to guarantee no vibes in the real world. Local shops only spin them to about 1200-1500 rpm, which is 25 mph in my case.

The bigger problem is that IF I do have vibes, I don't know about them until it's too late. I can't install the driveshaft until the transfer case is in, and I can't install the transfer case until the hole in the floor is cut and the back of the transmission is clearanced. So the decision rides on a lot of factors and if I did all the work and then had driveshaft problems, I'd be super flustered.

The 3G auto is shorter by an inch, so that platform doesn't work at all for me. It's pretty similar in length to a 2G 6MT.

The only snags with flanges I know of related to anything are the 3rd gens with 1350 u-joints. Their flanges have deeper/taller centering hubs and the pinion yoke bore needs to be deep enough to accommodate it. To put a 2G driveshaft into my 3G, I would need to use a 1350 flange and a bastard u-joint. I don't know exactly what 3rd gens have 1350. It seems like all the manuals or at least all 6 speeds are 1350. Not sure if auto OR/Pro are as well or not. Can't find much good info on it.

 

When I put in my crawl box I had my stock 2 peice drive shaft modified at a local driveline shop. The short section of the shaft was shortened by 6.5". Even after being balanced it vibrated when over 50mph. I ended up going with a one peice shaft that had a double cardan joint.

 

Yeah, I recall that because I followed your crawl box details pretty heavily. That was the first experience that scared me. I'd love to swap to full time but I am over mods that potentially create headaches....so I am hesitant. I followed through with the transmission because I was 99% sure it would work out. Thankfully it did. I have spent several thousand on other projects that have ultimately turned out to be flops, and am over experiencing those disappointments again.

TW doesn't offer one piece anymore and I don't really want a double cardan anyways, so I'm probably best off sticking to a stock driveshaft and part time case.

Thinking about it though, 6.5" is a pretty drastic change to the front half. The drivetrain is already angled down a few degrees, so you essentially moved the flange connection closer to the ground by pushing the t-case further down the line with the crawl box. Meanwhile the carrier bearing stays at the same height, so you're essentially put some weird angles in there. Especially since the front half of the driveshaft creates the first angle for the second half of the shaft. It might be one of those scenarios where 1" is fine,but 6.5" is drastically bad. Hard to say until I spend a lot of money and time to find out, and I'm just not sure I'm sold on doing so lol.