to regear or supercharger?

[krs1]

hello everyone this is my first post on wtw and i am a new member as well. basically i have been exploring baja for the past ten years and the beach is always hard driving! i have a 2007 tacoma 4x4 trd with 3" lift and a fair amount of suspension on her with 70,000 miles. basically when i try to driving in soft sand i really cant get into second gear do to loss of power.i am looking to buy a fwc here in december and looking into options for power compensation. i have milled over regear and super charger. sooooo i am here to seek everyones experience and advice on this subject. also i would like to know what kind of weight you guys are carrying in your fully loaded campers i.e. gear, water, etc. any advice or knowledge would be great thanks.

 

[ntsqd]

What engine, gearing, and tire size now?

 

[krs1]

4.0l v6 stock gearing with 33" tires

 

[ntsqd]

Should have also asked, what was the stock tire size?

 

[krs1]

31" was stock tire size I believe.

 

[costman13]

If you are having trouble with the 4.0L and 33's getting into 2nd gear without a camper, there may be another issue. I have a 2002 with a 3.4L and have never had any issues in deep sand WITHOUT my FWC Eagle. That being said, with my FWC there has been a significant power loss. Although with 4WD I have never had an issue even with the camper. Do you have a manual or automatic trans? Will the camper be a permanent fixture on the truck or just for camping trips? Re-gearing is very permanent and will greatly effect the trucks performance without the camper (although if it cant pull 2nd gear with 33's it may be needed). A supercharger would help drastically under many circumstances but it also requires 91+ octane fuel. What will you be doing with the truck / camper? Is it your daily driver? How does it drive on the road now? Are you happy with its current performance?

 

[krs1]

Thanks for all the quick replys! I'm sorry if I miss spoke! My problem in the sand is fully loaded with 2 weeks work of camping gear, 15 gal water, 10 fuel etc. the truck runs great around town and kicks ass offroad unloaded. The camper will be on the truck maybe 5 weeks of the year for vacation. It is my daily driver so to keep a good cruising speed would be nice. I'm not sure what route to take that's why I'm seeking guidance and advice.

 

[Alex]

I've a 05 Taco on 32" tires with supercharger with ATC Bobcat. I can't drive the truck when the camper is on without supercharge. But everyone drives differently.

 

[mojave joe]

I have a 95 Taco, 4x4, 2.7 4 cylinder auto. I bought it new and the build sheet said it was 4:10 gearing, it came with 31's. I moved up to 33's and it became a dog. I made a appointment with Yota Masters and ordered 4:56 gears. When they got into it, they found 4:56 gears. We stepped up to 4:88's and it runs awesome. I would go with gears first.

 

[ntsqd]

Mr. T carefully considered the whole package of torque curve, trans ratios, tire size, and axle ratio to get the most from the truck in power and economy. Significantly altering any of those factors requires compensating with the others. I would look into re-gearing the truck to put the shift points and speedo back to stock with the larger tires. I can tell you that with a 22R and 33's that means 4.88's. I've no idea what it will be for a 4.0

Easiest way to find out what gearing you've got is to put the rear axle on jack stands. Put the trans in neutral and take the p-brake off. Tape a piece of string to the drive-shaft and mark a straight line along the drive-shaft where the string first/last makes contact with it. Spin a rear tire exactly one revolution while watching to make sure the other tire is rolling with it, get a partner to help if it isn't. After revolving the tire one revolution count how many times and partial times the string is wrapped around the drive-shaft. If it's just about 3 and 3/4 times then likely 3.73's. If it is a little more than 4 times, then likely 410's/4.11's. And so on.
Next figure out which trans you have. This is coded in the data plate if you don't already know.
Can then take that info to this page: http://www.grimmjeeper.com/gears.html and iteratively solve for an axle ratio that yields the same RPM vs. MPH as stock. That would be the least that needs done. If the camper were going to be more frequently installed or permanent you might consider one step deeper (higher numerically) ratio. Since that isn't the case I wouldn't go there.

 

[krs1]

How Many miles on the truck when you placed the supercharger? Any issues?

 

[costman13]

If you like its performance on road, and have it unloaded majority of the time, I would suggest not re-gearing. It is going to greatly change the way the truck performs on road in a negative way (if unloaded majority of the time and seeing that you like how it currently performs). With the supercharger, you don't always have to have your foot to the floor while loaded, and I have never heard of anyone complain about supercharger performance in an unloaded truck . I would love to add a SC to my 3.4L. I am afraid that I just have too many miles for that now. Throw a SC on there and keep all the old parts, if you don't like it, put all the stock parts back on and sell the SC. You won't have any trouble selling it.

This is of coarse just my 2 cents.

 

[dauntless225]

How does it do in low range in the sand? unless your looking for more performance anyways... the torque multiplication does wonders and nothing wrong being in 4th gear low range for extended periods of time. you might like the throttle response low range gives you also..

 

[ntsqd]

IMHO the point of re-gearing it is to compensate for the larger tires size. The goal is to bring it back to similar performance that it had with stock sized tires, not gear it lower than that. This isn't a rock-crawler where the stupid-low ratio is all that is important. This is a multi-purpose rig that needs to have the gearing re-set so that the engine is back in it's power band in normal usage.

A very good friend of mine owned the 3.4L T-100 that Magnusson used to develop the TRD supercharger kit. His mileage plummeted after the the install was sorted out and running correctly. Light foot helped, but the truck never got back to it's NA mileage. I'd really call that a last resort in this application.

 

[krs1]

4lo isn't fast enough for the sand, it's good for getting unstuck but that's it in the sand dept. the truck does great in first gear as long as the rpm's are above 3,000. The moment I shift into second gear there just isn't enough low end power to keep my momentum so I have to down shift into first again. Now this is happening with a full load of camping gear, it runs fine unloaded. The reason I posted is I'm looking for a performance upgrade to handle the weight of gear and camper I'm going to purchase. I was quoted between 2-3 grand for regear and thought why not 2 more grand for sc. I've gotten lots of mixed reviews on options I have with a different opinions every where I go.

 

[MotoDave]

Re-think using low range in sand - looks like your transfer case is 2.57:1, meaning 3rd gear in low range is roughly equivalent to 1st gear high range (assuming 6 speed manual). In low range you'll effectively have a much tighter ratio gear range, and there won't be the big drop in RPMs between adjacent gears that's catching you out now.

As a reference point I have a friend with an '06 Tacoma 4x4 Double Cab with the TRD supercharger, and it made a big difference on that truck. He runs 32" tires and is stepping up to a 33" next, and I don't expect he'll really need to regear. He tows a boat up to Washington with the truck every summer, and said the supercharger was worth every penny for the application.

It also makes a really good noise

 

[krs1]

If I remember correctly third gear in 4lo I'm about 15 mph at 3000 ish rpm's. First gear in 4hi 25 mph at 3500 rpm's. Rough estimate. In sand it's about momentum and to get that requires speed. My tires are usually around 24lbs. Maybe I should get a arb compressor so I can air lower and be able to air back up lol. Easy fix!!! How big is his boat?

 

[sourdough]

You have a compounded problem. The added weight and sand driving will be greatly helped with HP and Torque. Add the supercharger and loose the 33" tires too. Add tire width not tire height.

 

[Foy]

If I remember correctly third gear in 4lo I'm about 15 mph at 3000 ish rpm's. First gear in 4hi 25 mph at 3500 rpm's. Rough estimate. In sand it's about momentum and to get that requires speed. My tires are usually around 24lbs. Maybe I should get a arb compressor so I can air lower and be able to air back up lol. Easy fix!!! How big is his boat?

Three points of observation here:

When I run on sand on the East Coast (Outer Banks), speed is never an issue. With a heavily-laden vehicle w/ camping, surfing, or fishing gear (or all 3!), the beach surface is just too rough to run greater than, say, 20-25 mph. With a 2.57:1 low range, the Toyota 6-speed manual should carry at least that speed if not more in 5th @ 3,000 rpm. How fast do you need/want to run on beach sand? Long ago in another life I had a '89 Isuzu Trooper, 2.6L FI 4 cylinder, 5-speed manual, and I always kept it in low range on the beach. The tighter ratio made it much easier to match traveling speed with a comfortable engine RPM, and I could run it up to 25 or close to 30 mph at will. If I was running hardpack between the low tide and high tide lines, she'd be in 2WD high range and on occasion we'd run 40-45 mph or so. I'm having a hard time imagining a scenario where I'd want to run that fast on sand so soft I need low range or supercharging/regearing to generate speed.

The second observation is tire pressure: IMHO, 24 psi is way, way too high for beach sand. SOP on the Outer Banks is no more than 20 psi. I normally start at 18 and hope I can get around with that pressure, but I'll drop to 16 psi or lower if needs be. I once dropped the Trooper to 11 psi to escape a sticking way below the high tide line, on a rising tide, with nobody around to help.

The third observation is related to a portable compressor or onboard air. Yeah, I air down as much as need be for the soft stuff, and air back up as soon as need be for hard surface. It's a PITA but you can't run a heavy vehicle on hard surface on low pressure tires.

Looks as though you can save thousands of $$ by purchasing a high-quality 100% duty cycle compressor, running in 4-Lo, and slowing down a bit.

Just my $00.02.

Foy

 

[MotoDave]

If I remember correctly third gear in 4lo I'm about 15 mph at 3000 ish rpm's. First gear in 4hi 25 mph at 3500 rpm's. Rough estimate. In sand it's about momentum and to get that requires speed. My tires are usually around 24lbs. Maybe I should get a arb compressor so I can air lower and be able to air back up lol. Easy fix!!! How big is his boat?

Same as other people have said, drop tire pressure. You need to be careful below 15 psi but should be able to run that low pretty safely.

No clue what the boat weighs, but its a Triumph 19' center console with a big Yamaha 4 stroke on the back. He tows it from SoCal up to Washington every summer, and said the supercharger made the trip a lot nicer by not having to crawl up some of the passes at 45mph.