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Very Confused...........

2.9K views 19 replies 13 participants last post by  dsrtrcr01  
#1 ·
Why is it when someone on here considers installing a CAI or TBS, all the naysayers come out and claim that if it were that easy to create a little more power Toyota would have already done it.
But, with the Tundras history with trannies Toyota designs a better Tranny and uses "Lifetime Tranny Fluid" Most of those same naysayers now claim that it can't be "Lifetime" and change it before recommended.
So which is it people, are toyota engineers that intelligent or are they just blowin smoke up our @sses
 
#3 ·
I think that they do not work (TBS and CAI)....however if it was proven by a dyno that it does add power (at no loss of torque) to my truck by someone other than the company sellin it I would change my beliefs.
 
#4 ·
The engineers probably already hit the hp/torque numbers the design engineers spec'd out - who cares about a few more ponies. I have a hunch their criteria for building engines is not getting every last hp out of them.

I'm always at a very light throttle, and the only time I nail it is for grins...

When I drove a 4-cyl, then all bets were off. Even a 3 hp gain looked attractive since it took WOT to enter the highway and or pass a vehicle.

However with a mondo bank roll, it would be fun to have built a boosted 4.7 with about 20 lbs of pressure and a HUGE intercooler. ...just not sure I really want 750 hp in a pickup (that's doesn't turn and doesn't stop).
 
#5 ·
Why is it when someone on here considers installing a CAI or TBS, all the naysayers come out and claim that if it were that easy to create a little more power Toyota would have already done it.

[...]
Trucks are the products that pay the bills of Ford, GM, and Dodge. Selling trucks is big business, and it takes both horsepower and torque to compete against these three and gain a share of that market.

On the other hand, the gubmint's rules about fuel economy have to be satisfied. Each company has to meet the CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standard. Horsepower and torque are the enemy of economy, and it takes efficiency in engine operation to comply.

So, if Toyota could make the throttle body of the 4.7L I-Force engine with a slightly different size and/or shape, costing them perhaps a dollar more, and thereby increase horsepower, torque, and efficiency, do you s'pose they would do so?

And, if the makers of throttle body spacers had proof that their products provided the results they claim, such as repeated, witnessed dyno runs by independent test labs, do you s'pose they would release it?

For Toyota, it's about real results, because that's the business they are in. For the aftermarket doo-dad makers, its about extracting money from a gullible public, because that's the business they are in. On this subject, Toyota is credible and the doo-dad makers are not.
 
#6 ·
In my business I deal with a lot of people with chassis and engine dyno and I know they can fudge the results and they do it time to time just to hit numbers that people want to see.
I agree with DJ you cannot believe the results these "Do-dad makers" come up with on their own.
I believe about a year ago Popular Science did there own test on most of these gadget and found none made any improvements and some even made things worse. I think one even came loose and was almost ingested in the engine.
Mike
 
#7 ·
<snip> ... none made any improvements and some even made things worse. I think one even came loose and was almost ingested in the engine.
Mike
Tornado:td:

I agree with DJ to an extent. People see NASCAR every weekend and just about every commercial is designed for the male audience. These guys want to sell "performace" products to us. Reason #1, we want to drive autos that go fast. That is why ALL of the products you see marketed to the male crowd holds up the biggest sign saying, Increases HP. Which they may do. They would never say it "increases HP, but decreases low-end torque." The only way to be sure would be to hold a blind dyno test. Where the operators are blind to the products, not the the results:p

When Toyota builds their engines, I think there are a few things they have to keep in mind when deciding what the end product will be...
High HP, High low-end Torque, Meeting standards (Emissions, CAFE, etc.), Engine Life, Noise, and Fuel Economy (again).
In many cases here, to increase one, you have to sacrifice a decrease in another one. For instance, Ford's new Super Duty, huge on power and noise, and very low on fuel economy. I think our Toyota engineers are shooting for a modestly high bar of performance. But, it's a tough market these days.
 
#8 ·
My 2 cents...

Throttle body spacers and tornados are a ridiculous waste of money. If they really added any power, every car manufacturer would incorporate them into their design.

CAIs can be beneficial, but not on every vehicle. The main reason they are beneficial is that they get rid of intake restrictions (oddly bent intake tubing, noise-reducing baffling, etc). The reason manufacturers don't use the same design as aftermarket companies is to reduce intake noise. Still, the gains vary greatly from vehicle to vehicle, depending on how the intake tract is designed. Typically the vehciles that benefit the most tend to have less room in the engine bay, causing the intake tract to travel at odd angles, possibly having varying diameter tubing as it has to travel around engine components. The Tundra has a great deal of space in the engine bay though, so the stock intake is able to be configured in an efficient way. On top of that, the filter gets air from inside the passenger fenderwell rather than the engine bay. Yes, you probably can gain 1, maybe 2 HP by switching to a CAI, but you're not going to notice it. On top of that, oiled filters can mess with MAF sensors by coating the sensitive wires with tiny amounts of oil, which would hurt performance and gas mileage. So many people just choose to save the $250 or so and put it towards something that makes more of a difference.
 
#9 ·
I will explain this so we "the naysayers" can convince everyone why intakes are not beneficial from a functional standpoint, and I'll make it snappy too.

Intakes serve one purpose. To filter and channel air to the throttle body. Now while it's debatable that some factory intakes are more "restrictive" than others, including aftermarket intakes, this may be true, but that doesn't mean changing from one to another will give you a substantial increase in power, and I'll tell you why.

You could have the biggest and baddest mother of all intakes on your truck/car whatever, but if your throttle body hasn't changed or become larger, you aren't getting more air into the engine. It's just not possible. Intakes can't force more air into an engine. That's why they're called INTAKES. If you want to make more power solely based on air, then you need forced induction like a Turbo/Supercharger, and another debatable form called Nitrous Oxide.

If you want your engine bay to look pretty, go for an intake. But if you're looking for power, you're looking in the wrong place.

So again, we are naysayers not because we are biased, it's because we're smart.
 
#10 ·
Since everyone else covered the CAI and stuff On to the topic of Trannies and fluids which seemed to drop off. Fluids and tranny design have improved over the past few years allowing longer intervals between changes. I for one plan to change my fluid for simple peace of mind and the fact that I use my Tundra harder then most. I tow a large load often in heat. Both are bad for the fluid and changing can not hurt. IF I drove this vehicle for a mom mobile or grocery getter like many others (Not that there is anything wrong with that -Seinfeld) then I would not be changing it.

Plus I think the "lifetime" has a mileage associated with it. Don't have my manual with me to prove it but I thought I read that.
 
#13 ·
I will explain this so we "the naysayers" can convince everyone why intakes are not beneficial from a functional standpoint, and I'll make it snappy too.

Intakes serve one purpose. To filter and channel air to the throttle body. Now while it's debatable that some factory intakes are more "restrictive" than others, including aftermarket intakes, this may be true, but that doesn't mean changing from one to another will give you a substantial increase in power, and I'll tell you why.

You could have the biggest and baddest mother of all intakes on your truck/car whatever, but if your throttle body hasn't changed or become larger, you aren't getting more air into the engine. It's just not possible. Intakes can't force more air into an engine. That's why they're called INTAKES. If you want to make more power solely based on air, then you need forced induction like a Turbo/Supercharger, and another debatable form called Nitrous Oxide.

If you want your engine bay to look pretty, go for an intake. But if you're looking for power, you're looking in the wrong place.

So again, we are naysayers not because we are biased, it's because we're smart.
I'm one of the "naysayers" (refer to my post just above yours), but your logic is wrong. You're assuming that the intake tract for every automobile is designed to flow the exact same amount of air that the throttle body can handle. You also don't take into account air velocity. Baffling and restrictive bends slow air down and can cause turbulence when air is reflected off of odd angles and baffles. Speeding up and smoothing out the air flow allows more air to enter the throttle body in a given amount of time, letting the engine make more power.

But again, like I said in my post, not all vehicles have the same amount of restrictions and/or baffling in the intake tract to make a CAI beneficial 100% of the time. I have dyno graphs of my old 2002 Camaro SS, where I only swapped out the intake "lid" (the upper part of the airbox assembly), and gained 9 HP at the rear wheels. For those cars, changing only that part has been proven time and again to add between 6-10 RWHP. Just looking at the stock intake tract will clue you in on that- there are all sorts of baffling and bellows to keep the intake noise down. But the 1st gen Tundra just doesn't have restrictions to the same extent, and if you do get 1-2 HP out of it, you're not going to tell a difference. For me, it's just not worth the $.
 
#14 ·
Engineers always get the blame when it's bad, but little thanks when it's good. The pay's good so it's worth it. As for what bbfirebird said, that's true provided the intakes are designed properly to maximize entrance velocity and reduce the reynolds number so that the flow is more laminar, but I agree with everyone else: These are snake oil salesmen hinging their product on our need for speed and they get people to take the bait. As someone else mentioned engineers must also meet government standards, reliability, and economy so eeking out the last bit of hp is not the goal. Given gas prices, my lead foot quit a while back:cool:
 
#15 ·
Someone brought this up but I will again, HP has become the magic word in the after-market industry and everyone get excited when the hear more HP.
But we forget that street vehicle rely more on torque at low RPMs and those HP numbers don't matter as much. And even more important is that the torque is in the power band that is usable for your application, As HP goes up on engine it doses so in a higher rpm range and takes the torque band with it. Huge HP and even torque number will do little good if they are in a RPM range your engine never reaches because of gearing, shift points and tire size.
The point here is before you start reengineering your vehicle with more HP find out if you can benefit from it at all because most times you'll find you can't without spending more money.
Mike
 
#16 ·
Mike's right. For example, look at K&N's dyno that comes with every product they put out. Especially our Tundras. The HP gain is at around 4700 RPM. When does a $3.50/gal gas driver stomp down to 4700 RPM's???
I don't ever, that I can remember.... maybe when the truck was brand new, but that's it.:rolleyes:

I don't know much about throttle body spacers, except that they are more beneficial in older model vehicles. Not late model Toyota trucks.
 
#17 ·
and another debatable form called Nitrous Oxide.
Actually, nitrous alone won’t do you much good unless you upgrade the fuel delivery system as well.

Think back to your high school science class, and you will recall that three things are needed to initiate combustion: fuel, oxygen, and an ignition source. In an internal combustion engine, gasoline is the fuel, oxygen comes from the air, and the spark plug provides the ignition.

Theoretically, the more fuel you can burn per ignition, the more output your engine can provide. But there are practical limits to this. The engine not only needs fuel, but it also requires a proportionate amount of oxygen. If you add more fuel, without adding more oxygen, all the fuel will not be consumed, your engine will run rich and very inefficiently. So you need the right mix of X amount for fuel and Y amount of oxygen to make an efficient burn. So if you were to double the amount of fuel per burn, you would also need to double the amount of oxygen.

That’s where nitrous oxide comes in. Plain old air from the atmosphere is about 20% oxygen, and nitrous oxide is about 40% oxygen. So by injecting and equivalent volume of nitrous oxide into the cylinder instead of air, you can theoretically burn twice as much fuel which would give you twice as much bang per firing. Sure, you can double the oxygen intake by forcing more air into the cylinder, but this presents a problem of its own because twice as much air takes up twice as much volume in the cylinder, and there is only so much volume available in the cylinder. But by replacing the air with nitrous oxide, you’ve doubled the quantity of oxygen while keeping the volume amount constant.

So hooking up nitrous alone won’t do it. You have to increase fuel delivery too.
 
#18 ·
I'm one of the "naysayers" (refer to my post just above yours), but your logic is wrong. You're assuming that the intake tract for every automobile is designed to flow the exact same amount of air that the throttle body can handle. You also don't take into account air velocity. Baffling and restrictive bends slow air down and can cause turbulence when air is reflected off of odd angles and baffles. Speeding up and smoothing out the air flow allows more air to enter the throttle body in a given amount of time, letting the engine make more power.

But again, like I said in my post, not all vehicles have the same amount of restrictions and/or baffling in the intake tract to make a CAI beneficial 100% of the time. I have dyno graphs of my old 2002 Camaro SS, where I only swapped out the intake "lid" (the upper part of the airbox assembly), and gained 9 HP at the rear wheels. For those cars, changing only that part has been proven time and again to add between 6-10 RWHP. Just looking at the stock intake tract will clue you in on that- there are all sorts of baffling and bellows to keep the intake noise down. But the 1st gen Tundra just doesn't have restrictions to the same extent, and if you do get 1-2 HP out of it, you're not going to tell a difference. For me, it's just not worth the $.
I can agree with you to an extent, but air "flowing better" isn't going to get you much more power. Alot of the crazy piping design is only to keep the noise down, and there are also resonators along the lines. On my Tacoma when I had it, I removed all the resonators and plugged them up, and chopped a huge square out of the front of the airbox. That helped more be readily available to the intake, but I wouldn't say it threw me back in the seat. That's what the supercharger was for. :)
 
#19 ·
When Toyota builds their engines, I think there are a few things they have to keep in mind when deciding what the end product will be...
High HP, High low-end Torque, Meeting standards (Emissions, CAFE, etc.), Engine Life, Noise, and Fuel Economy (again).
In many cases here, to increase one, you have to sacrifice a decrease in another one. For instance, Ford's new Super Duty, huge on power and noise, and very low on fuel economy. I think our Toyota engineers are shooting for a modestly high bar of performance. But, it's a tough market these days.


All good points, but I think you left one thing out - ease of assembly, which is my theory for the pitiful exhaust manifolds on our trucks, and the reason headers are one of the few things you can do to truly increase horsepower. As a manufacturer, would you give up a few horsepower to bolt the manifolds on before dropping the engine in rather than after? Those of us who have installed headers know what a PITA that is.
 
#20 ·
I think some people are thinking that we (Those who say don't buy the CAI) are against them on ALL vehicles. I for one am not. On my Old Carb Toyota a downey air cleaner with a K&N in it made it ALOT faster and torqier (is that a word) When I tell others of the bad things about K&N I am speaking about the Tundra aplication PLUS the POOR filtering on all vehicles. It may make 15 more horses with no torque loss on a firebird/ford/ saab but we are talking Tundra and it pretty much does nothing on it. BUT when we talk about the amount of dirt it lets into your motor it is the same on all vehicles. TO MUCH.