Will a Supercharger increase my towing performance? Also, towing an Airstream Bambi.

I understand that there are limits to towing whether I have a Supercharger or not and the 1st gens are not the best vehicles for towing a travel trailer. However, my truck tows my 2004 Airstream Bambi okay but obviously it's not perfect. 65 mph on the highway and a lot of down shifting to 4th gear.

My Bambi weighs 3700 lbs dry. I weighed my truck and trailer empty and then loaded before I drove from North Carolina to Wyoming and the total loaded weight being towed and hauled was 4400 lbs. With a side trip to Utah I did around 2,700 miles without a problem. I understand this is pushing the limits of what a 1st gen Tacoma can tow so I did the following upgrades before hitting the road:

1) Electric brake.
2) Weight distributing hitch.
3) BF Goodrich Load Range E tires.

So my questions are:

Will a SC help make up for the lack of power while still staying within the towing limits and would it be worth the $$$$$$? My truck also has 145,000 trouble free miles on it so monkeying with the engine makes me nervous.

Or, should I think about getting a 2nd gen with more towing capability or a diesel?

Thanks.

 

Supercharge it for the braaap

 

5000 for a supercharger is a lot of coin. Your truck's already 12 years old.

I'd probably continue to run my truck as is for my intended use (go ahead and do the tranny cooler thing) and plop the 5 bills into an account marked "new truck fund" that I contribute to regularly so that when I'm ready for a new truck in a few years, I can pay cash outright rather than have to finance the damn thing.

Sorry, I'm feeling crotchety and fiscally conservative this morning. "Hey you kids! Get off my lawn!!"

 

Tranny cooler is a must. Did you monitor the transmission temps on your trip? Bet they were up there. Recommend a drain & fill soon. Do you have airbags?

We probably just passed each other on the highway. Just got back from pulling an enclosed trailer around the Midwest.

oh yeah... if you tow that trailer frequently, I'd buy a full sized truck.

 

Well, you are supposed to tow in 4th, not anything higher because that is a great way to kill a transmission prematurely.
Keep it in 4th and you're good to go.
Just got done with a 5000 mile round trip in my dads 2014 tundra. Kept it in 4th and let it do its own thing.

 

A supercharger will definitely help a lot but they are hard to find now. I am able to hold a gear easier up hills and it is a noticeable power increase. Not race car fast but definitely noticeable.

 

That's a clean truck and a 1st gen so you have to keep it. I would keep it your daily driver and get a older '05-'06 full size Duramax or Cummings. Nothing tows like a full size diesel truck. I have a '10 Dodge Cummings and when I tow my Tacoma on a car hauler with it I get the same mileage as if I was driving the Tacoma by its self and can go up all the grades towing it at any speed in overdrive with the cruise set. My Tacoma is my daily driver and I will never part with it but if anything needs towed the Cummings gets fired up.

 

+1.I personally would not spend that kind of money on a SC for a 12 yr old truck.Stay in 4th also.

 

No need for a tranny cooler for a manual.. 4th is a good gear for towing something that big in a tacoma since you really shouldn't be going over 70 anyways...

I have a supercharger on my truck, and the one area that i appreciate the extra power the most, is when I'm Towing.. i pull a trailer about the same weigh a few times a year and boosting up a steep grade is much nicer than downshifting into 3rd and screaming it up that same grade..

 

Stick shift?? Yeah transmission cooler is not-applicable; never mind.

 

↑YES YES YES!!!

Those dodge Cummings are so sweet!! Any gen too, from the early 90's to current.

 

Cummins sells diesel engines. e.e. cummings is a famous early 20th-century poet. Cumming is something else...

Fun fact! Cummins is headquartered in Columbus Indiana, where I lived as a child from about 1964 to about 1970.

 

Ahh! And what's real funny is we all spelled it wrong, lol.

 

1st gen sc isn't that expensive
More like $1k-3k (used to new)

 

My votes goes to second gen Taco. Pretty sure they're rated at the same kind of gains you'd be seeing by adding a s/c to a first gen. I also think it would be well within your s/c budget if you also sold your current truck.

 

The biggest downside to the cummins engine is they're housed in dodge trucks

If you tow rarely, leave well enough alone.

If you to often, upgrade the truck.

If you tow all the time, get a new truck.

I have an old f250 to haul with. $2k 5 or 6 years ago and it spends most of the year parked. MPG etc doesn't matter just that it does what I need it to do. But it does get a massive 11-13mpg out of the old 460 whether it's loaded or not. I won't tow enough for the rest of my life for the $$$ to break even on a 'good' truck. Diesels are a no-no where I go sometimes. I don't feel like being that dead guy on the mountain that has to be 'found' in the spring.

 

Man I've been around and driven those trucks my whole life, three different gen's. Besides replacing u-joints the absolute only major repair was a blown steering pump and that was operator error! Seriously no other problems. My granpa still has his ole early 90's first gen, we have a ranch, that truck has been beat to shit and not once seriously not once left the ranch for repairs!! And that ole 12 valve motor gets 20 mpg still, as an old beat up truck.

Now with that said, would I buy a gas dodge? No way! And certainly not a 1500

 

badass Airstream

 

Thanks for all the responses and advice. Yeah, I don't tow all the time so $5k for a SC wouldn't be the best thing to do. I love my 1st gen
Tacoma and one of the best things about it is that it is paid for. Rolling the money for a SC into a newer truck down the road with a higher towing capability would probably be my best bet. If Toyota made a diesel for the US market I would be all over it. But I have to agree that if I did have to upgrade to a truck to tow it would be a newer Cummins diesel. All my friends that have had a Dodge Cummings seem to have a lot of good things to say about them.

 

I've owned 3 dodge trucks (all gas) not counting my old warlock, can't count the number that have been owned by friends (gas and diesel). They all worked well to point and then turned into nightmares. The cummins, everyone loved. They just lived up to the 300k mile engine in a 50k mile truck saying I tend to run the list on makes, I own or have owned pretty much all of them.

I actually know 0 people that own dodge now. When I worked the street we had a mix of ford/chevy/dodge, the people that had dodge's seemed to be in the loaner squad's more often than everyone else put together. All together, I'm definitely off the brand for anything other than a cheap beater. And that role is being filled by the f250 atm.