Doug Thorley and towing

[shawn74]

Hello all,

I have been searching through both the "towing", "1st gen tundra", and "exhaust" forums for the past few days about towing, headers, gears, exhaust, ect. I think the first course of action I am going to take, to resolve my lack of power while towing, is to install a set of headers. This leads me to my question for all of you guru's out there. I notice that a number of you have the JBA headers and not many have the Doug Thorley. Is this because the Thorley's for the 05-06 Tundra's have only been on the market a short amount of time, or is the a difference in the lower end torque between the two brands. Thank you for any input you can give to aid in my decision.

[shawn74]

Well...it seems that nobody towing is using the DT headers, so I guess I will be the first. I ordered them from Tim @ autoanything.com and he was great to work with. I mentioned the forum and he gave me a screaming deal:

Shipment 1
Doug Thorley Headers, SKU 3360443, Part # THY-512-C
Vehicle: 2005 Toyota Tundra, Submodel: 4.7L V8
Ships between 08/10/2009 - 08/11/2009

Subtotal $606.95
Shipping $0.00
Discount $72.83
Tax $0.00
Grand Total $534.12

I will let you all know how things turn out and we are planning a trip with the TT to long beach, WA in two weeks.

[Tundradrenalin]

That is a pretty good deal. I love my DTs. But don't tow, so I can't vouch for their ability there.

[shawn74]

I'm glad to hear that you are happy with them. I was going to shoot you a post when i get ready to install. I was checking the pics of your install. That should be a big help, thank you. Did you notice much more low end torque once you put them on?

[Tundradrenalin]

No. My dyno numbers didn't either, apparently. After my conversations with a DT rep, they were kind of disappointed in the dyno numbers as well. I'll have to tweak my URD MAF Calibrator and do the dyno again. That's most likely the contributor. I posted a lot of my install comments in a Doug Thorley header thread somewhere in the Performance Exhaust section. Check it out!

Let me know if I can help with more pics if needed. I still have more that I haven't posted.

[shawn74]

I saw that too on our dyno last night. So you think the URD might have something to do with the numbers? I am thinking about doing some sort of cpu mod as well down the road, Unichip or URD. Have you been happy with your URD? The price is certainly better. I may remove my Flowmaster exhaust and do a simple muffler, Gibson or Magnaflow, to try and recoup some of my low end as well. I just found out there is a dyno shop about 5 min away, so I think I'll do some before, after, and then with different exhaust.

I may very well take you up on the photo's. I was crawling around under the truck last night and it pretty tight in there. I think I'll get a torch like someone mentioned and move the motor mounts like you. Hopefully the knowledge from you guys will cut down my install time. We leave for our camping trip in two weeks, so I'm hoping to get everything done next weekend.

[prsrcokr]

I'd like to see pics when you get to this as I've been considering the same for the same reason. Long tubes should make much better torque than shorties. I'm surprised to hear they didn't.

I can get by for now but more torque would be nice for big grades. First trip towing with the Tundra was last weekend (bought 2 weeks before) and it pulled so much easier than my old Tacoma (poor thing was towing a Supra that weighed the same as the truck)

[shawn74]

I was hoping to put the Tundra on a dyno, but the only shop around closed two weeks ago. I just ordered a scangauge II, that will be here on Wednesday, so I plan on getting before and after numbers with that. It isn't the way I wanted to do things, but when you live in a small town, what are you going to do. At least I'll have a new toy to play with.

[Tundradrenalin]

lol you're not going to get any usable HP numbers for comparison using that

But new toy indeed! I love mine.

BTW, don't let my previous post discourage you from getting headers man. They were a very nice addition to my Tundra.

[shawn74]

Yea, I figured as much. It sucks that the dyno shop went out of business. I am curious to see just what kind of change the scangauge will show before the headers and after. The only thing that really matters to me is how she pulls our trailer. That will be biggest clue to me on what, if anything, the headers will do for my torque. My father-in-law said that he used to paint a line on the road at the base of one of the many mountain roads around here and time how long it took to get to a certain point. Then he would do it again after working on the engine and see how his time changed. I think I'll try that too. (hopefully no local law officers are monitoring this discussion).

[barron64]

I have DT headers, high flow Y pipe and a cat back DT exhaust. Dynoed @ 245hp/288tq to the wheels and it tows a 25' Airstream camper just fine.

[shawn74]

That is good to hear. I will find out tomorrow how she tows now that the DT's are on. I took her for a short spin with the TT and it definitely felt like there was much more power. I only have about 15 miles since the ECU was reset. I am curious as to what towing so for 5 hours will do to the ECU being this close to reset. I know it won't hurt it at all, but wonder how shift points and responsiveness will be. I also had the cat-back flowmaster setup removed and had a Magnaflow 11226 muffler installed with a stock tailpipe made. I can't keep the tires from spinning now! (that's a good thing though )