Tacoma OR brake booster convert to vaccum

Hello guys, i recently got a new Tacoma Trd OR and i love it but i absolutely hate how the brakes feel. I know that the OF has an electronic brake booster but I just wanna swap it out to a trd sport vaccum booster. I just can’t get used to the electric brakes. Is there any way i can do this, if so what can i do?

 

No, not easily and without an insane amount of work. It’s going to be a long and expensive process to swap systems and keep any dash lights off.

 

The electric brake booster has the abs built in and is the reason you have the crawl(or something) mode to get unstuck.
Off the top of my head you would need to install a trd sport - brake booster, master cylinder, abs module, wiring harness for sport abs module, brake lines from master cylinder to abs module, brake lines from abs module to wheels/disconnects, correct trd sport abs module computer programming. Frankly I will be surprised if there isn't something I am not thinking of.
Considering you just bought the vehicle I would recommend driving it for a month at least and see if you get use to it, I know when I drive a new to me vehicle it takes a little bit for me to get use to how well the gas and brakes respond.
What is it you hate about how the brake pedal feels? Is the vehicle stock or what modifications have been made? Maybe something is wrong.

 

Different engine with electric brake booster. Engines with the electric brake booster are not set up for vacuum.

 

Welcome to the forum

It would be much more practical to just buy a different truck if you can't get used to it.

 

What is it about them do you don't like? Mine feels like every other car / truck I've owned, except at start-up obviously.

 

Or try giving it a bleed? Make sure the system is in working order before ripping it out cause you dont like it. Bleeding with the electric booster is really easy. Shove a 2x4 in between the seat and the brake petal and it will pump itself(gotta crack the bleeder and have a catch ready).

 

I don’t like the hydraulic booster either, and I’m more willing to do projects like this than most. However, in my opinion, it would be too much work and would be worth trading for a sport and changing the Sport stuff to match the OR features to your liking. I’d keep driving the OR and see if you can get used to it.

 

So no pre purchase test drive huh?

 

The engine does not have vacuum for it. Have to take off the block off plate for the vacuum pump location and install the vacuum pump in its place. Can’t do that unless you replace the bank 1 intake cam because the OR/Pro models have a sealing ball in the back of the cam where the vacuum pump nozzle would go. And that’s just to get vacuum. Then you’d need to actually swap the boosters and masters, rework the lines, get an ABS module and run the lines to it, and rewire the harness to go to the abs module instead of the hydraulic booster.

It’s simply not worth it for brakes.

 

You need to learn more about the third gen. There is no vacuum source on the 2GR-FKS. TRD OR/Pro don’t need vacuum because they have the electronically powered hydraulic booster. Sport and all other V6 trims need a vacuum pump because the engine offers no vacuum.

Look up what a vacuum pump does. They exist because not all engine designs provide usable vacuum sources, so they need a pump to do that…which applies to all the non OR/Pro 3G Tacomas.

 

Theres different cams and stuff.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/fs-complete-2gr-v6-engine-pnw.810636/

 

Well that’s oddly complicated
Maybe Atkinson cycle related problem not having enough vacuum?

ahh well, clearly I’m wrong, I’ll delete my post to avoid confusion

 

I believe it is related to the Atkinson. Vacuum pumps are common on turbo engines as well. So, the 2024 no longer uses the hydraulic brake booster at all, they use vacuum boosters with the ABS module on all trim levels, and due to it being a turbo engine they had to use a vacuum pump on it as well. So now all 2024 Tacomas will have vacuum pumps.

I like the vacuum boosters but not the vacuum pumps. Wish we could just go back to the days of normal engines with ample vacuum and an appropriately sized booster for the brakes.

 

Swapping the brake booster would disable one of the primary features of the OR, namely ATRAC/MTS/CC (aka off-road traction control). You might as well buy a different truck.

BTW, I’ve owned a 2016 SR5 for 4 years and now a 2020 OR for 4 years and I didn’t notice anything significantly different about the brakes. Are you sure it isn’t in your head?

 

There should be a pretty noticeable difference between the two. The hydraulic brake booster produces in my opinion, quite an unnatural braking feel where it's initially responsive but as you start to lay into the pedal, it's not so responsive anymore.

The SR5 should have had a normal feeling pedal like any other vehicle. I don't know how the two would have felt the same, a lot of people test driving the different models have spoken about how different they felt.

 

I noticed nothing out of the ordinary when I switched from the SR5 to the OR. The brakes work just fine on the OR.

 

Not saying they don't work fine...but they have an odd feel (in my opinion and the opinions of many others) that isn't similar to any other vehicle I've ever driven. I don't like it, but it's not a big enough deal to trade trucks over.

 

What I did notice is the difference in the sound of the ABS brakes. The OR tends to be much louder. ATRAC is also a big upgrade over TRAC.

 

And replace the vacuum pump every 100k according to the maintenance booklet. The instructions say to tilt the engine forward for access.