Manual transmission Fan Club and BS thread (All Generations Welcome)

Good stuff.

Not needing a lift was my biggest surprise out of the whole deal.

I think a lift and a trans jack with the T case still attached would have spelled disaster for me.

 

As long as it keeps it's highway manners. ..

 

I’m sure the guys that have 5.29/33’s still go on the highway.

 

Welp….5.29s are done. Stock tires for now, and the plan is step up to LT255/75R17 C (32.1”) when the time is right. I won’t get hardly any money for these used tires so I’m just going to burn them out for now.

That was a long ass day. Wake up at 4 am, hit the road by 5, arrive at 8:30, install install install until about 6 pm, an hour for test drive and cooldown, then hit the road back home. The 3.5 hour drive turns into about 5-5.5 hours once you stop every 50 miles for 30 minutes. Home by 12:30. I drove 60-75 mph and got home at 18.4 mpg.

Overall it drives very nicely. 1st gear is quite short. 2nd and 3rd have really nice pull, and 4th does good also. 5th and 6th are good for 50+ mph. Reverse is significantly improved although it’s still tall. I can start in 2nd but it’s still too tall to want to do that much.

70 mph is 3000 rpm, 75 is 3200. There is a bit of a “whine” which is like a high pitched ringing noise that starts at 70. I know the gears were set up perfectly, it’s just a fact of a low ratio like this spinning so fast. Larger tires should push back the speed at which the noise starts. The radio drowns it out.

Still have 300 miles left of break in, so I should be good to start romping on it
in a week. Will try to post some comparison videos once I’m driving normally.

 

Thanks for posting a review. I've been following the 5.29 megathread but not many MT guys post on it. Our tranny is geared a little differently than the AT so I'm curious what MT folks think about the 5.29.

 

Probably comes down to needs. I thought the 430's in my MT were great, and felt no need to regear. The jump from 390 (AT) to 488 would be more significant than 430 to 488, so I can see why 529 is a consideration for MT guys. That said, personally I think I'd still advocate for 488s just because I wonder if 529s is overkill for most people.

 

Yeah, I was scheduled for gears back in July so I had a long time to shuffle my gear decision. I originally bought 4.88's with the plan to stay stock tires forever. One day I was thinking about it and decided to get the best bang for my buck, I wanted 5.29s and that I would likely step my tires up a tad to balance it out. Ordered the 5.29s. Shuffled the decision back and forth for months until a few weeks ago when I said screw it, 5.29s for the future and I will deal with it on stock tires and then upsize later. Honestly, I'm so glad I chose 5.29. Even on stock tires it's not that ridiculous. Yeah, revs a bit on the highways, otherwise it is fantastic. I got the most ROI on improving 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and R. Even 1st, while short, is very nice once you get used to how you need to adjust your feet at the pedals to control it. You get used to the quicker shifting time frame and then it's fine.

The megathread I agree, was not much help for MT owners. Good info on the gears and whether or not they whine, but otherwise most of the rpm and performance metrics are not relevant for us. Honestly, I would choose 5.29 again even if I was staying on stock tires just because of the improvements it made everywhere except 80 mph cruising. Take that with a grain of salt though, I don't mind revs. I shift high up in the range, I don't care too much about mpg (my stock mpg sucked anyways), and I don't mind the noise.

I've been stepping up my usage of the gas pedal as I drive more and more and the 5.29s are a lot of fun.

It's mostly a personal preference thing. "Overkill" is hard to define, mostly because it comes down what you're willing to compromise on. Overkill could be looked at as any gearing beyond what one needs to maintain speed on the highway. In that case we could probably have 3.90s and consider the 4.30s overkill. But, it wouldn't be as fun to drive. My compromise was accepting the higher highway rpm in order for better performance in all the gears. So far I have not been disappointed in that decision. I filled up yesterday and I'm at 15.2 mpg, which should improve by day as my drive to work improves the mpg more than it starts out at leaving the pump. I drove 75 mph to work today at about 3200 rpm, and the instant mpg was still around 17 most of the drive (it is accurate too).

Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate the 4.30s. They were pretty good, and they sound great on paper but once you combine them with our relatively tall transmission gears, to me it's not as good as other vehicles I've had. My Nissan 6 speed with 3.69s was better than the 4.30s. But, you are right, for a stock truck the 4.30s did a good job. I just wanted more.

There is also the factor of the "4" or "5" influencing people's decisions on gears. Stock is in the "4s" and 5.29 is in the "5s"....makes it sound drastic and somewhat scary. A lot of people seem to think that such a regear will turn their truck from a nice highway driver into a 45 mph go kart that revs 5000 rpm at highway speed. Really it's only a 23% gear reduction and is not that crazy in the real world.

Honestly, if the tach was deleted, besides the short first gear I don't think ANYONE would dislike the 5.29s if they had no idea where the rpm was. It really does not feel like it's that crazy from stock, it just drives good. Jeep has a factory 4.88 option 33's and it's actually lower in the first few gears than my truck is now. It's all relative for sure. That said, for anything larger than a 31.5", I would consider 4.88 a waste of money because it just doesn't return that much for the money spent. I would hate to spend so much only to get a "back to stock" feel.

But, those are just my opinions!

 

See I was leaning on 4.88s because (back to stock) but with my armor and 33s sounded great.

Until I read your review.

Def doing 5.29s.

 

Now I want to do the Hilux transmission

 

So if sticking with stock tires, you’d still go 5.29?

And the 5 speed transmission, still a yes?

I’m torn on my ‘05. On the one hand I don’t need it to cruise at highway speeds because it’s the least useful of my trucks for long hauls. On the other hand, I want to stick with stock tire size and max 1” lift in the back, as low as I can get in the front (500 lb coils right now).

I like what you’ve done here but I also can’t see regearing my ‘16 for a few more years. And I’d really rather dump obscene money into the transmission to have better reverse. Our driveway sucks big time.

 

For me, I would go 5.29 for the 3rd gen just because it's not that crazy in my eyes (and now that I've experienced it) and I think the benefits outweigh the cons.

For the 5 speed, I'd reevaluate that decision. For the 2005 prerunner you should have stock 4.10s and 30.5" tires I believe. I'd probably kick the tires up 1" and do 4.88 if it were me. According to the gear calculator, you should be around 2650 rpm at 70 in stock form and 4.88 with the 1" larger tire would bump that to 3040 rpm at 70. I'd think that's pretty good for a 4 cyl.

I hear you on the 3rd gen. Regearing is expensive, but the Hilux trans is also and all the kinks haven't been worked out yet (which is why i haven't gone for it). 5.29 + the Hilux trans would be amazing, although 1st gear would be extremely short. I'd probably start in 2nd most of the time with that transmission.

As for reverse, reverse on 5.29s with the stock transmission and tires is actually a better ratio than stock 4.30 gears and tires with the Hilux transmission. The final drive ratios are 17.93 (stock trans and 5.29) vs 17.50 (Hilux with 4.30). With Hilux AND 5.29s, it gets a lot better, 21.53 final drive ratio.

 

I may be strange but I like stock tires for my street rigs. Still could see going 4.88 though. I’ll have to get up to speed in 4th and observe.

 

I’m with ya. I’m a stock tire guy myself but sometimes when dabbling in gear ratios it makes sense to step up or down the tire a bit to pair it with the gear choice since the available ratio options sometimes are gapped far apart.

Definitely get where you’re coming from though.

 

4.10 to 4.56 seems like a waste to me. Still considering it though. Just don’t want to do this twice.

 

Yeah, not a gigantic difference between those two. I'd go for 4.88. And yes, the driving in 4th will give you an idea. stock 4th is 3270 rpm at 70 and 4.88 on stock tires would be 3150. So you can at least determine that the 4.88's would not be higher rpm than 4th. Meaning if you can live with how it is in 4th, then you're good. At least that regear is basically half the price being 4x2.

 

2Lo is a thing, far cheaper than a transmission.

4.88 on stock tires is supposed to be God's gift to Tacoma owners.

Agreed. 4.88 would be noticable.

 

Just sharing what was just replaced!

 

My real dream is EV front axle and gas for the rear. My bro in law has done that for a project vehicle as part of his work. But that’s a big effort and the battery part I’d prefer to wait on right now.

For the time being, the ‘05 is 2wd though I could see a 4wd conversion project being fun, but I just don’t need or want more weight on it. Also don’t really want low gear for it so much since it’s the street rig. Just want bigger balls and a SC seems like a headache with the 2.7. I truly love the 5 speed, a throwback to my childhood with reverse below 5th.

Locker would help some too. I’ve torn up the grass a bit cause I can’t park on the street. Could solve for that with a concrete pad but have to start with a surveyor to determine property boundaries and I’m stalled out on that.

 

How many miles on it?