Looking for more torque

rear seat delete? The cheapest way to accelerate is shedding weight. Go for rotational weight if you really want to make a difference. Smaller, skinnier tires will feel like a new truck.

 

What percentage of the time do you feel you want/need more torque?
The tacomab is a great truck for what it is. A power house it is not.
I like the size of the truck for daily life. For the towing I do(once a week pulling my 5x8 enclosed with a mower, less then 20 miles total) it is fine. If I was towing more often, or a bigger trailer, first thing I'd do is sell it and get a full size.

 

Oddly enough I own a CTS-V wagon with a Airaid intake, that I haven't cleaned the filter in a long time.......I guess I'll put that on my to do list.
Crazy the amount of power it lost, damn.

 

I actually down sized from a 2015 Toyota Tundra crew cab limited edition 2wd 5.7 liter and man did that thing suck gas and my payment was $250 more than the taco, not including the extra gas monthly so for me it made sense to down size to another great Toyota truck just mid size. I have a 21ft crestliner boat that’s not heavy seeing that it’s Aluminum made that I tow. I use it as a daily as well and take it up to eastern sierras for camping and off-road 4x4 trails.

 

Not sure if serious, but Premium fuel burns slower. It’s a waste of money unless you’re high compression, blown, or turbo’d. Won’t net you any power on an N/A truck.

Reason it’s used for high compression, SC/TC is due to its resistance to detonation- otherwise known as pinging, which is what happens when your fuel ignites too soon before top dead center on compression stroke.

 

The short answer is you will not get any meaningful power gains or throttle response from low dollar mods. Computer tune ups, intakes and exhaust will yield you maybe 10hp each, and every manufacturer will tell you theirs is best and show you data supporting this - which is confusing if for example K&N shows they are better than some other brand and vice versa. In reality, unbiased testing has shown these mods do very little if anything at all. Some testers show reductions in power, some show only a couple hp gained in total. You will rack up 1K chasing these miracle cures and likely not get the results you are looking for. I had an older chevy truck and did all this junk and saw no gains what so ever until I changed the spark plugs and ignition coils - none of which were worth the money I paid per HP gained ($1500 in and 11hp out). Ha!

What you should do is consider a re-gear (check the forums here, there is a lot of discussion about how this effects fuel economy), a supercharger, an engine swap, or an engine rebuild where you bore-out the cylinders add bigger pistons and increase the fuel injector output. These options will get you the 50+ (or 100+) hp gains to actually be convinced you have more juice behind your gas peddle. Obviously, the re-gear doesn't effect this, but it will effect how your truck uses it's current HP.

 

yes, spot on.

 

If you have added heavy tires (e rated) and gone up in site the only real fix is gears. Aside from that the OV N/A tune was actually pretty decent on my truck before I regeared on 285 E rated KO2's. More quick throttle and felt a bit more. Nothing crazy but for $500 its not too bad.

In the end you may still not be happy. regeared to 4.56 with OV tune on those same tires was the best its felt. Now I am on 315's and wish I was back to that setup for better gears.

The bigger tires, more weight, heavier etc will get you. If you have E rated try a C rated tires for better MPG and less sluggishness.

 

One more thing - if you do add HP, like real HP, the cost of the parts/engine are just the tip of the iceberg. Because of the added torque and HP you will likely have to redo your drive train to parts that can handle the increase, and then you will start complaining about handling and likely need to redo your suspension too. Its a slippery slope. Cheapest option is to get a different truck. The new v6 supercharged trds are nice - is this what you have?

 

Cheapest mod is smaller tires when it needs new shoes but that won't help with wheeling.

 

Checkout this video series. The guy swaps his tacoma with an lsx. He did a 500hp miata in his last vid series, and is still working on the tacoma (more vids coming). This should give you a good idea of what you are signing up for if you choose to go this route.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRewZb8naGg&t=6s

There is a member on here who swapped a tundra engine into his taco, and that was rather straight forward as far as swaps go - apparently there are lot of similarities between the layouts making is a nearly seamless swap. I think he had it done in a couple weeks.

Keep in mind re gearing is very involved too. You have to pull the axle, open the diff, change the gears, etc etc. Its not for the faint of heart, but very possible to do for most on this forum with proper pneumatic tools and careful planning.

Id say you are looking at 2k minimum to start to feel an increase in acceleration, the path of least resistance being smaller tiers and a re-gear.

 

While yes you are correct that premium fuel is harder to ignite and that on engines that can't take advantage of the fact it won't detonate as easily it's a waste.

But on our 1grs the way that Toyota has tuned them is to constantly try and advance timing across the map. They even have a low octane and high octane map built in. Needless to say you will see gains even on a NAd truck by running premium as timing will be greater which greatly offsets the slight loss due to being harder to ignite.

"Output is 236 hp (176 kW; 239 PS) at 5200 rpm with 266 lb⋅ft (361 N⋅m) of torque at 4000 rpm on 87 octane, and 240 hp (179 kW; 243 PS) at 5200 rpm with 278 lb⋅ft (377 N⋅m) at 3700 rpm on 91 octane. "

 

You are gonna notice 4hp? I feel like you could just as easily eat some spicy food and fart 4hp... I guess its what you consider meaningful gains.
You will pay around 50 cents more a gallon for fuel, which is about $8 every time you fill up. Gas once a week adds up to $416 a year for 4hp.

 

There it is:
https://www.topspeed.com/cars/toyota/2011-toyota-tacoma-x-runner-rtr-ar97724.html

 

I feel like as soon as you start chasing HP and Torque, you will eventually get used to the power and always want more. It's a never ending cycle. You've got a couple really good suggestions here (albeit they're pricey but worth it). It's either that or go back to a bigger truck. A Tacoma is a Tacoma

 

Which is still about the cheapest power adder out there.

Just giving OP options.

 

I was just going to say that premium fuel does nothing on a stock truck. Unless youre running turbos/superchargers etc. Waste of money. Kind of like running synthetic oil in your 4.0 and thinking its better for the motor or makes your engine last longer. The ONLY benefit of running synthetic oil is longer intervals.

 

... isn't this the point? I feel like most members on this forum experience serious dissonance over chasing arbitrary taco mods vs making financially sound decisions.

I take this very seriously. As a TW member, I almost feel its my duty to encourage such things.

 

Synthetic lubricates better at lower temps also doesn't break down nearly as fast as conventional at higher operating temps. saying the ONLY reason people run syn oil is to stretch out their oil change intervals is ridiculous.