4cyl over 6cyl, any regrets?

Why would you get a V6, toyota 4bangers are the best ever made the 2.7 is just a bulked up 22re and the 4.0 is no better than the 3.slow of the pickup gen.

 

Other PU truck owners look pissed, when you can just reach into your bed and get stuff out. No climbing in the bed for this old fart.

 

Came from a T100 that I adored. Loss of job during the great recession left me with a choice of either a Pre-runner V6 or AC 4cyl 4x4 auto. Went with the auto 4. I carry heavy loads only occasionally to the remote west for camping, and I have no regrets. My mpg's are lower I guess due to the auto tranny, camper shell, heavier Bilsteins, Hankook tires and beefed-up leaf springs. Metallic Pyrite is awesome!
I do miss the power, and really the extra room, of the T100. I just have to pack fewer telescopes and ribeyes!!

B

 

I have the double cab 2wd SR prerunner 4cyl auto and I am completely satisfied with it. While we drive around, my wife tries to make me feel bad for not getting the 4x4 V6 TRD, but I try not to listen to her complaining. She is driving around in a Versa so I will let her suffer and let karma do its thing.

I did get a undercover bed cover which seems to help my 4cyl when driving in the highway. It seems lighter than before, maybe it has less drag now, but I'm not sure if this is a proven thing or not.

 

No regrets.....averaging 21.3 mpg and it takes me everywhere I want to go. It's quieter than my sons v-6.

 

No complaints here

It is a fun little truck, from hunting/fishing/camping to working in the oil and gas industry.

 

Boreggo
Cargo trailer ;-). Motel room on wheels with enough room for scopes and coolers. I pull mine with my 2.7 into the West Virginia hills.[/url

 

Hi Nessmuk,
Nice trailer, great looking Dob! I'm dreaming of someday owning a 14"-16" tracking dob. Out West, I'd wonder how my truck would pull even a light trailer. Going through the Great Basin or Colorado Plateau can get pretty remote and rough/steep, especially at altitudes over 7-8K'. How does your trailer handle?

I mostly view through a TOA 130, and an SV110ED set up for Herschel Wedge solar w/binoviewers. Sometimes I'll take a 9.25 SCT and an old Coronado DS 60 H-alpha rig...just not all at the same time!

Regards,
B

 

I wish I had tracking. Can't justify it right now. I go over to Spruce Knob WV. It is about 4800'. I have to downshift into third on the steeper roads, but I have never had a problem. The trailer loaded is probably 2000 to 2100 Pounds. Wind resistance is a bigger issue than weight!

 

Power, towing ability, passing ability, keeping up with rush hour traffic, etc. Do I need to continue? But of course I will!
I had a 2011 2.7 Tacoma and it is a great engine, but after having a V6 in my current truck, I'd never go back to that unless it was in a regular cab configuration only. The 2.7 access cab 4x4 manual or auto has the worst power to weight ratio than any other Toyota in the lineup, a Prius hybrid up steps the 2.7 Tacoma in power to weight numbers. Don't believe me, look it up on their website.

Furthermore, the 3.4 and 4.0 Tacoma engines are just as reliable as the 2.7, I've seen a 3.4 with 600,xxx miles on it still running strong. Another member here has an 03 double cab with one he bought new at 427k on the odometer last time I checked. Then yet another guy on here has a 2006 double cab 4.0 that is about to roll over 400k he bought new, last I checked he had 375k on it with no major issues. It all boils down to how well you take care of your engine and keep it maintained routinely.

While the 22R and 22RE were great engines, their big achilles heel was the weak ass timing chains, and plastic guides keeping them on track. If a timing chain breaks on a 22, it will 9 times out of 10 cause cataclysmic damage to the engine. I have a 22R in my '79 pickup and that is one of the first things I am doing to it is upgrading it from a single row timing chain to a double row chain, way stronger and far less likely to break. Aside from that, they are reliable as hell, slow as a slug and can barely pull themselves around even in stock form. Luckily, they are pretty easy to wake up with a few simple mods.

 

I have owned a 2005 Ac 4x4 5speed 2.7 for 8 years put 168k on it and loved every minute of it. Towed all I wanted >3000lbs on the highway is no problem. Towed a lot of 4500lbs boats In town as for short trips never had a problem. It always had plenty of accel/ power. I never needed more. Got excellent mileage and towing mpg was good too 18 mpg. I replaced that truck with a 4.0 double cab. Now the 4cyl does feel slow . I still own both trucks and rotate back and forth. That 4.0 is very powerful. The 2.7 never felt fast. But was peppy and pulled medium loads very well. All that being said I have driven this v6 as slow as possible and it is very thirsty motor no where close to the 4cyl . It consistently gets 3 mpg less than the 2.7 city or highway.

 

Having owned a variety of vehicles with varying engine sizes, I am disheartened by statements such as these. Relativity of perspective just seems to cloud judgement in the most worrying of ways. I myself have owned 2 4-cylinders and 2 6-cylinders. My current vehicle is a 2.7L Tacoma. The most powerful vehicle I have owned in terms of acceleration and towing ability was a boxer 4. The weakest was a Chrysler V-6. It pains me every time I read or hear blanket statements about how one engine size compares to other engines. If someone was daft enough to diss your 4banger I know in my heart of hearts that you would set about doing every ridiculous thing you could do just to show them how wrong they were! You would be out there towing sailboats and driving through stone pillars and pushing your Yota off the sides of mountains just to show that D-bag how wrong he was, am i right?! Don't let that new V6 wash away your 4banger pride!

On the face of it, I see 2 main differences between the 4 and 6 cylinder Tacomas. The 6 goes through fuel all the time, where as the 4 only goes through fuel when you need to mash the skinny pedal to accelerate. For passing vehicles in traffic, I give it to the V-6. For the other criteria... what's the difference? Power? Let's start here. If we are referring to the vehicle's power curve, that is a complicated yet acceptable direction to go with backing up one's opinion. If we are talking horse power, my question is.. why? Trucks are made for towing, hauling, doing rough and tumble things that require sturdy frames and heftier suspension... HP is not the limiting factor, torque is. Trucks always have enough HP for how much torque they have, the question is: "Do they have enough torque?"

As far as keeping up with rush hour traffic goes, both trucks are capable of doing over 100, so no, there is no advantage, one over the other, of maintaining a static speed. Even if the traffic is stop and go, there is never a good vehicle to have. In 2&1/2 years of living in LA and dealing with rush hour on the 5 and the 405 I can tell you that no matter what the vehicle, it always comes down to how good the driver is at anticipating the flow of traffic. I was driving my Ex's Mustang and sometimes I'd struggle, even get taken advantage of by lunatics in rusty old 1.2L beaters, other times I'd wonder why every dickhead in a sports car was wholly unable to time accelerating and decelerating with the flow of traffic.

Now on the subject of towing ability, it all depends upon what one means. The one advantage that i see when it comes to towing is point of attachment/how sturdy your frame/axles/suspension/transmission are. These factors are basically comparable between the 4 and 6 cylinder, so the only difference between the 2 towing is that one can be more careless in the V6. There is not much that you can tow quickly in a V6 that can't be towed slowly in a 4banger Tacoma. Take this for an example: In a 6volt golf cart you have enough torque to tow all sorts of ridiculous things. The point of failure, however, is that you have no point of attachment on the body of the cart that can withstand the pull.

Let's move on to the matter of the Prius. Here are the numbers for the Tacomas that have been cited as well as for the hybrid prius:

2004 Double Cab V6 - 3,705lbs.
220-ft/lbs @3600RPM, 190HP @4800RPM
TQ/W ratio: .059379
HP/W ratio: .051282

2011 Access Cab 2.7L Auto(20lbs heavier than manual) - 3,975lbs.
180-ft/lbs @3800RPM, 159HP @5200RPM
TQ/W ratio: .045283
HP/W ratio: .04

2011 Hybrid Prius - 3,042lbs.
105ft/lbs @4000RPM, 134HP @5200RPM
TQ/W ratio: .034517
HP/W ratio: .04405

What do these numbers mean? Well, The Prius is FWD. It's strong suit, like the Tacoma, should be torque. Before we start looking too far into the numbers, though, let's consider where they come from. These numbers are auto industry SAE net numbers. Basically, it's what you get at the crank, which means jack all. Why are they nearly meaningless numbers? They are steady-state. They don't account for any loss due to acceleration; Dynamic losses are all but ignored. Why is this important? Well, the Prius employs some very interesting components as a series-parallel hybrid. It splits power between a gasoline engine and an electric motor by putting its energy through a planetary gear set. When the vehicle is not being taxed heavily by the driver, the electric motor sends its power through a ring gear which transfers it to a reduction gear unit, which then gives it to the final drive. Is that a recipe for a lot of dynamic loss? Yes, yes it is. So how does one achieve 134HP @5200RPM in a Prius? Well, when your sun gear hits its limit in the planetary gear box, that's when your electric motor is incapable of giving you any more oomph and the gasoline engine has to kick in. So, now you have 2 motors putting energy through a power split device at an RPM that no one with a Prius ever hits. Also, the dynamic loss on a Prius will be so much ridiculously worse than with a standard vehicle with solely an internal combustion engine, (such as a Tacoma,) that it's laughable to even compare the two. Also, even without accounting for dynamic loss, the 2.7 that was stated to be less powerful than the Prius has a whopping 1/3 more torque to weight than said Prius. Ouch.

The only questions that remain: Are 4Banger Tacomas slow as a slug when stock? and: Can they be woken up easily with a few simple mods?

Well, to the first question I would have to say WTMFW?! (a 2001-2004 6-cylinder 1st gen double cab Tacoma 0-60 is 9.1, while a 2011 Prius Hybrid 0-60 is 9.7) I'll let all of you that care to extrapolate approximately where a 2nd gen 2.7L would fall in to do so now, as well as to decide whether or not these nonsensical numbers actually prove anything...

To the second question I would ask what being woken up entails. If you are looking for torque gains there's not much one can do other than a new header. I suppose one could go turbo but it would be like shoving money up a mermaid's ass and expecting it to taste like salmon..
If you are looking for HP then you could go as balls to the wall with SC intake exhaust etc as you wanted to/could afford, and then revel in the fact that you stupidly bought a truck (a vehicle which excels when it comes to low-end torque) when in reality you should have bought a race/sport/rally car for the high-end HP/torque/both that a truck doesn't have.

When all is said and done?.. I love my truck. I know you all love your truck(s). Can't we all just stop being ridiculous and coming up with ways to trump one another when in reality we are all just a bunch of overly-proud, vehicle-loving, truck owners? When I was looking for my truck the main criteria was it had to be manual, 4x4, and extended cab. I would have been happy with the 4I or the V6. They're all sexy little machines...

 

Wish it had more torque lower on the rpm band but the light on the end of the tunnel is had a Toyota dealership in Australia sending me a complete short block and partial engine assembly for a brand new 1KD-FTV so swap will be happening soon.

 

Damn. Now there's a build thread I'll be adding to the wank bank!

 

Sarge,
How much is that costing you, if you don't mind me asking! I just gotta know if that is likely to be in my future!

 

When I reealllly baby my 2.7 auto, I can squeeze out 18.5/19 mpg. I do have a camper shell and 265/75/16 Hancook Dynapro ATM but they're a P rated light weight tire. Does that sound accurate on the mpg or should I look for potential issues costing me a few mpg? I also have a K&N that should be helping a bit.

I go back and fourth on whether I'm happy with the 2.7 or regret not geting the V6. If I had it to over again, I would buy the V6 because I cant stand driving 65-70 on the interstate to get my 18-19 mpg. If I'm in a hurry and have to drive 75-80 my mpg drops almost to what I would get in a V6 cruising at 80. For the number of miles I drive a year, the 4 cyl is saving me about $800 a year which is not really worth sacrificing the towing/hauling ability and having limitations on how I can drive.

 

18.5/19 seems a little low to me. My '13 AC PreRunner pretty consistently gets 20.5/22 at the 65/70 speeds you indicate. Of course I don't have a shell on the bed and I'm running stock 245s. Maybe the extra weight of the topper and added reciprocating weight if the larger tires are the difference. Plus, nothing I've read would indicate the K&N helps at all.

 

He has a 4x4, you have a prerunner, there is your mpg difference.

 

True...there's another 300 lbs.

 

No regrets for my needs. I just wish my PreRunner DC I4 came with a manual transmission. I wanted the simplicity of a 4 banger with a 4x2. Less crap that breaks is better for my middle age butt!