Squeezing out more horsepower

RMR:
"designs are so crappy and cheap".........
You are a moderator of an RV site. This is not a truck forum. Out of respect for all truck owners you could choose your words more eloquently.
Instead of behaving as a "moderator" providing information and engendering dialogue, you are behaving like a troll.

[RockyMtnRay]

Originally Posted by TexasThunder

RMR:
"designs are so crappy and cheap".........
You are a moderator of an RV site. This is not a truck forum. Out of respect for all truck owners you could choose your words more eloquently.
Instead of behaving as a "moderator" providing information and engendering dialogue, you are behaving like a troll.

Point taken, remark removed.

Ray,

Thank you for explaining your rather strong bias re. K&N's.
I did call a factory tech today and I felt that he probably was not as well informed about his own product line as you seem to be. He, of course, denied most of your assertions which I read to him over the phone.

So, I tried on my own to compare the dyno study done by K&N for the V8 Tundra and the V6 Tacoma. It appeared to my uneducated eyes that the HP increase for the Tacoma (about 9.45) is more or less consistant throughout its mid to upper range (3k -5k rpm). This increase (I would think) would tend to be more noticeable in a lighter weight vehicle like the Tacoma. Unlike the Tacoma, the HP increase for the Tundra is not consistant throughout it's range & it doesn't come on strong until the engine is almost screaming. So, I guess I can understand why Tundra owners are so disappointed with minimal performance gains.

I very much appreciate your warning about over-oiling. I intend to be Spartan with the oil. But I'm just so atuned to my little truck that I can't help but appreciate it's increased mid-range performance. It only gets noisy when I "get on it" -- which is almost never. I just need to get up an occasional hill or two when I am towing and the consistant increase across the power band suggests to me that I haven't lost torque. I'll be running the Tacoma and the TM up to about 5k ft in a few weeks as a test run.

I'm doing my best to learn about coxing more power out of my Tacoma. I guess that sometimes you have to decide to whether to trust your personal experience -- or whether to trust the experience of better informed sources. Ray, I can hear my dear, departed Dad's voice saying, "Son, ya better listen or you're gonna get yourself in a mess".

But I'm glad that folks like you are still willing to share their knowledge with folks like me. One way or another -- it all works for our growth.

Thanks for yout time, eric

[fcatwo]

Oiled wire-mesh air filters came standard on almost all vehicles back when some of us were just getting into cars so it isn't something that the car manufacturers don't know about. There must be a reason why they no longer use them and the over-oiling problem could be part of it. My personal experience with K&N was when I put one on a 92 Chevy pickup along with a cat-back exhaust and a couple of other minor changes. I felt that the truck ran stronger but it could be that it was just louder. I certainly didn't have it tested.

One thing that caught my eye while reading the fine print in a K&N printed advertisement shortly after (no internet back then) was that some of the tests that showed K&N filters to be far superior to paper were done on filters with 50,000mi on them. All that really told me was that paper stops up quicker. Paper may be just as good if changed at specified intervals but, like the egg in the cake mix, I felt good about having the K&N.

[Denny_A]

Originally Posted by RockyMtnRay

Welcome Denny. If all the OEM parts are there, it shouldn't be a big job to replace the K&N. I'd recommend a MAF sensor cleaning while the dealer is replacing the parts. After the ECU adjusts to the change, you'll find you have noticeably more mid range (~3000 RPM) torque though perhaps a tiny bit less at the top end (~5000 RPM) and the truck will be a heckuva lot quieter and more civil.

Thanks a bunch for your help Ray. My 'yota dealer did the reverse operation and the patient has recovered! The MAF unit was cleaned and tested. Good to go. All the OEM parts were there. Labor and new filter just busted the $100 threshold.

Re., the roar. Since the Tundra was new to me, I assumed that roaring sound was normal. Now I know what normal sounds like; a great improvement for sure. Also, when the K&N was in use, and I did a hard acceleration, the truck would lurch forward (large increase of accel) at around 45-50 mph, w/o a change of pedal input. More like an afterburner. Now the time-rate-of-change of velocity is predictable, and a welcome change!

And if you want to get some really serious towing torque out of your truck's drivetrain, just do the same mods I did to mine. The JBA headers (7% mid range torque gain), Gibson muffler (3% mid range torque gain), and regeared axles (10% across the board rear wheel torque gain) have collectively given me a solid 20% increase in rear wheel torque over stock. ........snip......

Since I will be more a flat land camper, I think I'll wait to see how the truck works out with my next (still waiting to purchase) trailer. I do not plan to tow a trailer in excess of 5500 lbs.

Again, thanks for the heads up.

Denny

I wanted to do a follow-up on the thread that I started. A lot of really good information was shared about K & N's and most of it emphasized that the risks outweigh the benefits. I, personally, had few options. I needed to squeeze some more power out of my Tacoma or, quite frankly, go further in debt and buy another truck. Since I first wrote this thread -- our little truck has very successfully taken us up 6 degree grades at close to 5k feet with only brief shifts (in my 5 spd manual) to 3rd gear. We were still moving along at 59 mph and 3900 rpm for brief periods, and we were loaded to about 1,000 lbs below the GVTW. I know that the K & N and the chip that I found on E-Bay added significantly to my HP and I can feel the increase from about 2,300 to 5,000 rpm. Someday I'd love to get a Titan or Tundra and idle up these mountains but for now I'll have to depend on my little Tacoma. It pulls surprisingly strong and if I can follow Ray's advice and use oil sparingly -- perhaps I can avoid the costly repairs that some have experienced. Oh, the Equalizer is an absolute necessity on a Tacoma. Also, I did compare the K & N's performance graphs for both the Tundra and the Tacoma, and (for whatever reason) the Tacoma gets a much better boost across more of the RPM range than the Tundra. Based on the comparison that I made and the comments from actual Tundra owners -- I, too, would never put one on a Tundra, but so far I still have only positives about its use on our Tacoma. I wonder -- if one could use a leaf blower to momentarily send a rush of clean air (mine blows at about 165 mph) to force any droplets of oil from the filter before installing it after oiling ?? It might not be a bad idea even if one uses oil sparingly -- kind of "insurance" against droplets breaking free and sticking to the sensor.