adding weight to tacoma

im planning on adding on some body armor but was thinking about how would this effect the truck itself and its performance. i see that people add gears when they put on bigger tires because of the weight. would this be kind of like the same thing with the body armor weight?

 

weight is not the main reason people change gears when they get larger tires. Adding larger tires has the same effect as lowering the gearing (higher top speed/less torque and acceleration). Putting in higher gears reverses the effect of larger diameter tires.

As to your question on the effects of weight on handling, i don't know, but it's a good question. It would be a good idea to put in stiffer suspension if you are going to put on a lot of weight.

 

ohh ok. but the suspension was going to be the start of mine. i was just looking into the future for this reason of the whole weight thing

 

Likely effects will be slower acceleration, lower MPG and if you don't put stiff enough suspension, excess body roll (lean in turns) and dive under braking. But I dont have anything that adds weight to my truck yet so I can't tell you for sure how noticeable it would be.

 

Yea that's what I was thinking. So the only thing I came up with that I THOUGHT would of helped was gearing but like said above that's not the reason people put in gears

 

I think this may have been a stumping question hmmmm

 

regearing has more to do with physics and torque and the moment of inertia. its pretty difficult to explain over the interwebs.

you may notice a little bit of difference with more weight, but nothing like adding larger tires

 

if you are not familiar with physics..moment of inertia can be roughly described as a value that has to be taken into consideration when dealing with torque and slowing down or speeding up a rotating object.

with bigger tires..more mass is further outside the center of the tire than it would be for smaller tires..this increases the moment of inertia which means more energy is needed to start rotating the tires..

by regearing you increase the torque you have, which allows for the tires to be turned with less energy. making your engine work less and somewhat more efficient.


hope that makes SOME sense.

so just the extra weight of a bit of trail armor shouldnt be horribly noticeable in order to regear..atleast..i wouldnt think so.

but you will probably see a small decrease in MPGs

 

Figure with armor you may add what, 300lbs to the truck?
Drive around with 2 passengers, do you notice the added weight?

 

Your right. I guess I didn't think about it that way. Kind of the same fundamentals basically. Hey relentless I'm gonna send you a PM. Want a set of those sliders....

 

Yea I see where your getting at. This helps to break down the differences.