1st gen power

A properly sized turbo will out perform the TRD sc at all rpms. They don't need any more maintainance either. The TRD sc in a word is tiny. If you're making more than 4 psi you pretty much have to be running methanol because the air charge is so hot you're actually losing hp. I ran 2.1" pulley, URD 7th and methanol on mine and it wasn't making anywhere near 300 whp. Heck, my turbo setup on stock fuel + methanol and 7 psi was making quite a bit more than my sc on 9 psi.

With all that out of the way, it's definitely not a bad route to take. It's biggest advantage over a turbo IMO is how burly it is. If you wheel a lot it's very possible to have your turbo separate from the manifolds due to its weight and the fact it's only held on by those 6 exhaust studs and at a distance of like a foot away. You can drive a sc'd truck like a stock truck, just start it up and go, no cool down either. If I were to ever go sc again I'd definitely throw a piggy back like a fic 6 on and run e85. I could see that setup making close to 300 wheel.

Oh and yeah the intercooler hangs right where off road bumpers mount. I've left mine there because I can't afford a bumper now and honestly I like the way it looks all low and silver . I haven't done much mocking up but I have no concerns that it won't be easy to move up and out of the way. There's a member here selling his cx manifolds, cross over and down pipe

 

I'm running 8 pounds of boost with ZERO pinging, with the 2.1 pulley, no meth, no 7th injector no heat issues for more than 515,000 miles!!
How many miles do you have on that turbo??
I do have larger injectors which fixed the ping issue for me.

Anyway either upgrade is a huge plus for the Tacoma and yes the turbo would put out more power I know.

My only concern with a turbo would be heat and if there was a turbo failure you have a good chance,
Not uncommon for the engine to digest broken turbo bits which generally means total engine rebuild or replacement. Turbo failure and then engines getting destroyed by this is a common thing for Subaru turbo motors,
Just google it.
I won't mind driving up to see the setup though

 

Turbo was put on over summer so it only has 5-6000 miles. I can't foresee anything going wrong with it unless you're pushing the turbo to its upper limit which is a user flaw not mechanical. The only thing I worry about is the turbo putting too much stress on the manifolds as it's flung around during wheeling trips. It's just not as secure as the sc.

Id recommend a sc to someone who doesn't regularly check under their hood and who likes to beat the piss out of their truck without remorse. No offense intended and not to imply that's the type of person you are. From a mechanical stand point there's a lot less room for error with a turbo but there is no performance comparison.

Honestly the turbo is kind of a stepping stone though. It doesn't make huge power and for the time and a few more $$ you could do an engine swap. I've seen figures of $6,000 for ls swaps which make 300/300 and have much higher power potential. Where I'm sitting now, $3,000 deep, the only option for me to grow is to get forged internals for another $3,000 and for that I'm at ls costs, making up to 500 wheel?

 

You are going to need a pretty big rear wing to keep that power down. The 3.4 is probably just heavy enough so you can avoid the wheelie bars. You thinking of pulling something really big?

 

I'm such a moderate lol, I agree with pretty much everyone's replies, they all have merit within certain context.

Its been done, but like some people said, it doesn't really offer any type of advantage. In my research I found a really old car that had done it, in the days that turbos had horrible lag. But funny how things come full circle, VW and I believe Mercedes are now implementing S/C T/C combos on very small motors to give these small motors really flat power bands- but IMO for most people, what OEMs have accomplished already with just T/C is very sufficient, such as your Ford EcoBoosts.

I actually bought a CXracing turbo kit because I feared they would stop carrying them over time, and I really wanted to do a twin charge setup myself (key word twin charged, NOT compound boosted) as I already have the TRD blower on, and even got into a little bit of a heated convo on another forum about it as you will always have haters try and tell you why its stupid and how your not equipped to do something like that, not knowing anything about your background. Ultimately have stayed just TRD S/Ced because I really agree with 1997tacomav6, its a very reliable and stable setup.

Coming from adding turbos to N/A cars in the past, there is a lot of flirtation with Murphy's Law. YES they can be made very reliable, but a lot of people do not take the necessary steps to do so. The TRD S/C does so much (inadvertently IMO, but never the less) to retain reliability- low boost, doesn't mod the MAF sampling intake dynamics, does not touch any of the exhaust so all the OEM tuned pulse characteristics, O2 placement and signal timing etc etc stays as Toyota engineered, so on a OEM (no fuel mods yet) 5vzfe w/ TRD S/C, driving around in vacuum there is ZERO perceptible issues created, in boost its still smooth, just stoich in certain regions = bad, vs Turbo plus piggy on N/A setups I've run into the air fuels not being perfect every milisecond as the ECU is trying to work around a primary o2 that is now a different distance from exhaust port, seeing different exhaust pulses and the closed loop is getting a little tarded about it. IMO one has to be a lot more versed in modding, an honorary 'tuner' or engineer if you will, to get a turbo setup to run like it came from the factory that way. Added bonus if the car coincidentally has a sensor layout that happens to be very conducive to modding-- some just don't, they have a lot of sensors in placements that suck. Trust me I was that arm-chair tuner on the forums till I had the $$ to start putting my $$ where my mouth was, and learned A LOT. Theory is nice and all, but there is always so much more to learn, so many more variables to take into account that one knows going into it.

Ultimately, just for a "cause I can" and a "I told you so" perspective, I'm still tempted to slap that CX kit on, play with an arduino to take control of the OEM bypass valve (or my piggies aux output/s) and have at it as I like to tinker with these things. I even bought the arduino mirco, vacuum tank and some odds and ends, but from my previous experience doing custom setups, I really do appreciate how solid my daily driver taco is right now, I don't want to mess with what isn't broken- its a very slippery slope with how this modding stuff goes and IMO why you see so many guys finish their builds on other platforms then sell it shortly after- the issues are never fully ironed out and it doesn't perform as they anticipated. You see this with guys like Matt Farah as he reviews cars that have retained OEM like drivebility and reliability, you can see its actually a rare thing even at the caliber of cars he reviews, and he really geeks out and enjoys it when he gets a car that runs like it came that way from an OEM.