1st gen Supercharged Tacoma low power gains

I have an 03 double cab 3.4L Tacoma with the TRD supercharger, 2.2" pulley, Map 3 ECU and 7th injector. Exhaust mods are Doug Thorley headers from URD, eastern 2.5" hi flow cat, Magnaflow muffler with custom stainless steel 2.5" pipe from headers back. Also have K&N intake and filter. Truck is running 4.88 gears with 35" BFG KM2 tires. Just got the exhaust installed and the dyno run for all this is 229hp and 241 torque to the wheels...... this seems extremely low for the nearly 9 grand in mods with install, tuning, and performance built tranny. I wanted to see if everyone agrees this is a proper gain for my setup or if the tires/ gears are possibly what is killing my performance so bad? Was trying to just do all bolt on and get it to the 275-300 hp range. Done a lot of searching and haven't come across many people with my same setup to do a good power comparison.

I have a 2014 STI which is a 2.5L turbo 4 cylinder and to think stock with no mods still makes 50+/- hp more than my almost fully built SC V6 truck. At the wheels I know of course the STI is not the 305hp its rated at, but just using it as a power reference.

 

You taking in account that with an automatic transmission your are losing 20% from motor to the wheels? A lot of folks quote HP at the flywheel, not the wheels. So if you are expecting 300 HP on the motor you are only getting 240 HP at the wheels on a dyno! Seems like you are pretty close to what you should be getting with that set up. Maybe a little low.

Stock 3.4L quoted at making 190HP but really only puts down 160 HP so you are approx 70 HP above factory. 43% power increase for your $9K.

 

I've actually never heard that about the auto trans having that much of a power loss. Good to know. I had the trans built to shift harder and faster with stronger components to handle the extra power so was hoping that would help with putting the power to the wheels. I'm know next to nothing about trannys though. I see what your saying about power loss to the wheels. I wasn't thinking about how big of a loss it would actually be so thank you for clarifying that. The complete header back exhaust netted me a 20 hp and torque gain which isn't bad, but was expecting about 25-30 though being forced inducted and opening it up so much. I've heard these engines don't make much power, but figured I'd be higher than what I got. Would have been cheaper to drop in a V8, but maybe if this motor gives out then I will maybe consider it.

 

That is still a good increase in power. Typical wheel hp is 15-20% loss through the driveline. Your sti has the same type of power drop. Is your map locked? If not you can check the timing retard. If you are retarding over 3 degrees you can get some more power by spraying water/meth pre supercharger. It will cool temps by a huge amount and you get that timing back at wot

 

I've thought about the water/ meth injector since the engine bay gets extremely hot so I know I'm just sucking hot air which is killing my power for sure. Was looking at the kits from URD. Need like an inter cooler kit to cool down my incoming air.

 

That is the only issue I see with the early superchargers. There isn't really possible to intercool them. Luckily Eaten superchargers love water/meth injection which will make temps even cooler than an intercooler. Sometimes even cooler than ambient. If your mapecu has 3-5 degrees of timing to give you from roughly 4k to redline you can most likely tune for another 30-40hp to the ground. I love meth injection, but I'm way too lazy to want to fill up the tank every so often. If you can't pile on timing meth really isn't going to gain anything besides a nice cooling effect.

 

sucks about intercooler options. ill have to look into the injector system for sure. Im freaking broke from all this exhaust work right now. the magnaflow may add extra power, but sounds nowhere as good as the flowmaster muffler did. new setup has a lot of rasp too. Highway driving is for sure better, but low end actually seems a little worse. its now more balanced between low end and high end than before so it works out good for me.

 

I believe you. Exhaust is expensive for some reason. I can't even think how much money I've put into exhausts on previous vehicles. That is so weird to hear that magnaflow is raspy. It must be your particular setup. I know superchargers with headers and high flow cats make exhaust louder.

For meth it really only starts to hit around 3-4k to redline. It is a top end boost if you have more need for speed. If you get the bug to add more power you really only need a pump, relay, tubing, check valve, LED light in cab(you want that peace of mind to know it is spraying), temp sensor to monitor BAT if your truck does not have one in the manifold, and nozzle. About $150-200. You can wire it into the mapecu3 and have it click on at a certain rpm and boost pressure. At 50/50 it will barely effect AFR(you feel a tiny surge in your throttle) and you just add some timing and few safe guards. You even have stand alone meth systems like snow performance and devils own are widely used in tuning turbo cars.

 

Those tires are going to eat a lot of HP.

I think you are are doing very nicely with those tires. On my 97 4Runner all I ever got out of the TRD supercharger was 250 RWHP with stock size tires on it.

Put some stock tires on it and redyno. Bet you see a nice difference.

G

 

I've been trying to get my father to let me barrow his 06 sequoia for a day so I can swap his 31's on since its the same bolt pattern just to see how it drives. he seems to be hesitant for some reason....don't know how much the 4.88 gearing would effect the drive going with a smaller tire like that though. sucks because the 35's just makes the truck look so much better.