Regear, OV tune, or supercharger?

I'm not following you. By definition changing the diff gears only changes gear ratios. Are you referring to something other than the differential gears? The extra torque to ground you speak of can be duplicated with the stock transmission by choosing a lower gear at the same speed (with the exception of 1st gear because there is no 0'th gear).

 

Engines are designed for torque and power output. The engine does not care where the power comes from, NA, turbo or SC. When the design process starts it is designed to be able to handle X power and block to cooling to bearings are designed to last Y hours at X power. Of course the 3.5 is designed for more power as the engine comes from Lexus with a turbo.
Where a NA, Turbo or SC is used won't change basic engine design, it will however change the fuel and air requirements.
And truthfully, unless you design for Toyota we can only hypothesize. I have worked with their engineers in the past but not engine design lol but it was R&D drivetrain stuff.

 

I should have explained. Speed and rpm go hand in hand and yes, you can get the same torque from stock but it will be at different speed and rpm. People are looking at 60-70 mph to increase torque without shifting.

 

So far I’m going to be doing all 3

 

This is a easy one ! 2Wheel drive stock with 32's at best do the gears and tune! Someone mentioned the Mild+Wild tune that is the tune you want really wakes your truck up power , shifting even good MPG's its just fun to drive now!

 

re gear forsure.

the other two only make it worse for the trucks gearing to keep up.

 

What I am saying is changing the differential gears does not change the power or torque output of the engine. It only changes the gear choices. Your comment about wanting more torque at hiway speeds is basically the same thing I said in my post about acceleration in 5th and 6th gear.

A more pronounced example is the difference between 4lo and 4hi if you expect to be traveling 0-30 mph. In 4hi you have only maybe 3 useful gears. The others are too high. In 4lo you can make use of all 6. Lowering the gear ratio didn’t make the truck more powerful, but it did give you more gears to work with which in turn makes it easier to keep the engine in the preferred rpm range.

 

Gears are a torque multiplier....no one says you gain increase stock engine output.

 

Sure you can think of it like that but torque output is measured at a certain rpm and speed. In the case of changing gear ratios, you will have more torque at a given rpm but less speed. Let's say 70 mph =2000 rpm. You change gears and you now go 70 mph at (made up numbers) 2200 rpm but you have more torque at 70 mph! Nothing in life is free and you could compensate by manually shifting original gearing but you didn't accomplish your original objective and that was to reduce gear changes at speed.
And, you will definitely have more torque at slow speeds in first gear.

 

people have a hard time separating power and torque.

 

I can move the earth with a long enough lever. My strength never changed though.

 

While you have some logic here, you have to keep in mind that the P2W clearance and the ring gap requirements for an NA engine vs. a turbo/sc engine are entirely different. When you pressurize air you're adding heat to the mix, and the engine generally needs to be "loosened" up in order to handle this. There's much more than just cooling and part strength when it comes to designing an engine.

 

I think we are just talking past each other again. There’s no point in us arguing about the phrasing of the concept. The point of my original post was to make sure the OP and other readers don’t have the misconception that changing gears increases power. I’ve seen that misconception come up several times in this forum.

 

Yup. Doesn't change power, but absolutely changes torque delivered to the tires/road.


I vote - all of the above!

 

I think that statement is misleading because a different diff gear ratio can only increase the torque for a given gear. I can simply downshift to a lower gear and accomplish the same thing at a much lower cost than changing my diff gears. Torque to the ground is selectable. Changing the gear ratios only changes the available selections. I might view this differently because a) I drive a manual and b) I used to race bicycles where you are often choosing gears for a particular course.

 

Not trying to mislead - yes, its gear for gear - I think that's a given and well understood. Fundamentally, though once you get to first, you're at the beginning. SO....if you are coming off a stop light, and you have shorter final drive gears, your vehicle will accelerate harder because it is delivering more torque to the ground. If you are you next to a stock Tacoma, and your truck is re-geared, and you both downshift from 6th to 5th, you will walk away from that other truck. This of course assumes both trucks are identical except for the final drive gearing (I feel compelled to try to be specific). It's physics. Next topic

 

Dude, the whole purpose is to keep the truck from shifting so much! Imagine if in your manual truck that 4th gear was 800 rpm and the speed was 55 mph that you wanted to go. Sure you could keep it in 4th but would constantly have to shift to 3rd every little hill or breeze. that is why you regear the diff. Like changing your front ring on your bike!

 

I voted re gear first, but I found a shop here in so cal where they ovtune your truck for 350 with a reflash if you upgrade gears and tires later on. Too good to pass up so im changing my vote to try that first.

Also want to add I will be getting a 91 tune. Guy says it will give my 15hp and 10 torque extra.

 

This is a long thread. I was happy how my tacoma drove so I didn't do any of those.
If I wanted snappier response and better shifting I would go OvTune.
If I wanted to be at a certain RPM at a certain speeds I would regear. I have a Jeep that is running 3.55 and I put bigger tires and want to be at ~2100 rpm @ 65 so I am getting 4.10/4.11 forget which one exactly at the moment.
If I had a good chunk of change I would do forced induction, and it will probably come with a tune with better shifting and a change in overall characteristics.

Really depends on what you want to accomplish. If you have the money do it all. I said screw it and I bought a raptor.