Turbo Charging A Tundra!

Your killing us. Let's get that video please!!! I want to hear it!

 

It’s gotta be driveable. SC vs Turbo isn’t as simple as the final numbers. A 2000hp 2JZ Supra is a beast wide open, but not as a daily. A milder / smaller turbo build on a smaller engine will improve the torque delivery early and throughout the medium RPM range, and then fall off like a rock at higher rpm. A big turbo will do the opposite, lag lag lag and then whamo! Tons of power through the higher rpm’s. Supercharger blends that a bit, but will never match the power of the big high rpm turbo. Can’t chase the numbers, have to build to your application. 2,000hp at 6200 rpm is useless if you’re never at 6200 rpm.

 

https://youtu.be/X0heJ4QgTf8

 

Thank you. It sounds great! Nice work. It's fun to just see something different.

 

Thanks, yeah the Tundra with our set up has always been one of my personal favorites purely for all of the awesome turbo noises!!

 

needs more subaru blowoff valve sounds

can't wait to see stage 2!

 

I have to admit Jesse/TurboKits seems to be taking excellent care of my Tundra along with the Stage 1 Turbo System that was added. Received word it has been raining these last couple of days which has slowed the process.

Jesse had received the go ahead to add some boost so things are moving along. Said once he gets the boost dialed in and the tuner signs off on the logs he can then make a dyno run. Once that gets finished and things are all in the clear then he can get with the shop and make plans to do the Stage 2. These are my words as I simplified our conversation a tad!!!


I am beginning to miss the Tundra in the garage and the wife told me this morning she just loves having the whole garage to park in. She parks all over now as she does not have to worry about hitting anything!!. Truck is in good hands!

 

Yes, we believe so, probably a direct drop in if not 90% the same. The only thing we would not be clear on until it was done, would be the connection back to the exhaust and the intercooler piping, but the Sequoia is basically Tundra from the front doors forward, so it should drop right in…

 

Awesome! I miss the turbo sound from my BMW when I got the Sequoia. Don't know if it's a wise idea for me to get forced induction as there is much traffic around here and risk of speeding tickets! But super excited to see this platform being supported.

 

This is why I have been following this thread. My enclosed is just a big parachute and on windy days (not sure what a NOT windy day is…) I could use a little more power down low. The 5.7 does just fine, but one could always use just a little more juice…

I’ve been thinking about a SC, but I like the Lowe end power deliver of a turbo. And it puts less stress on the snout of the motor. IMO, heat is the biggest enemy to towing and forced induction (or even NA towing, really). I have a few friends with ecoToots that tow their boats over a certain pass that have had overheating events with 7k lbs or less. They just shrugged and said it’s part of towing with a turbo gas motor. I don’t agree with that. I’ve pulled the same weight travel trailer over the same pass at speed (70-75 mph) in 100+ degree heat without issue. So is suspect intercooled with a little less boost would be the way to go. Or just plumb the water meth injection to the stage 2 intercooler setup and not worry about temps..

Either way, I drag a trailer around at least once a week, o that’s a setup I would be interested it. Go fast is fun, too, but I don’t care for 100+ in my truck..

Now let’s see some dyno curves!!

 

I think you may be confusing the attributes of a positive displacement supercharger and a single turbo. PD blowers provide instant power all over the RPM range including right off idle, where as a big single turbo would need a little more time to spool but would likely come on stronger at the top end. Unless you’re saying you don’t like having tire roasting power at low RPMs, but I don’t think that’s what you’re saying as you said you want more power down low. If you’re truly towing frequently and want more power I believe a SC is the way you want to go for your application. I tow a 32’ 7500lb TT all over in the dead of summer, and on the steepest and longest hills I have travelled I’ve never seen IATs post SC more than 48 degrees over ambient, or coolant temps over 206 degrees.

 

I’d go with lower gears before I’d go with forced induction for added towing ability. Less stress on everything and no heat worries.

 

Perhaps I am. I’ve avoided forced induction on my personal vehicles but have driven quite a few for more than just a test drive. A friend of mine used to hotshot regionally before it was the cool thing to do; he added a SC to his Chevy 3500 with the venerable 350 vortec to help with pulling over mountain passes at altitude, so the concept isn’t new to me.

My impression of most streetable blower setups is that they add very linear power; more rpm = more power just like our 5.7’s from the factory. But you still have to wrap them up a little to get in to the torque band. It adds power everywhere - including off idle as you said - but requires the engine to work harder to get the same output (the power required to turn the blower creates a not- insignificant parasitic loss that is overcome by the positive displacement, but still creates more strain on the engine). You want x amount of power - there’s a very linear relationship between rpm and the power you want.

Turbo’s, on the other hand, have a less linear relationship with rpm. They are partially load dependent and partially rpm dependent. You can trade a little bit of one for the other because it is dependent on both the volume and speed of the gasses exiting the cylinder heads to spin the turbo. With a variable vein turbo, you can trade even more speed for volume making more boost at low rpm. And, like you mentioned, it takes a lot of exhaust gas to spin a giant turbo to feed a giant engine to make giant power, creating lots of lag before a giant swell of boost and power. But appropriately sizing the turbo can alleviate that to a large degree. And turbo lag isn’t a reduction of power; it’s just what the engine makes naturally aspirated until the turbos can’t start marking positive displacement. Since the 5.7 makes good power NA, I wouldn’t think it to be a dog in the lag phase of turbo spool up.

When the turbo’s do light, they are able to produce a nice lump of power. And since that boost isn’t tied to rpm like a blower, it can be shifted lower in the power band, making for a less linear curve overall, but a fatter power band. This also means that at lower rpm (say 1800 to 2600rpm) you can make more power with a simple increase in load - such as towing a trailer or climbing a hill.

I also understand that the same curve can be achieved with a blower; Kenne Bell tries to make peak boost at 2200 or thereabouts on some of its platforms. I believe this requires a larger rotor (larger displacement) blower and specific pulley setups (think smaller pulley mod on a stock trd blower). This makes for a less efficient system that creates heaps more heat and bleeds off excess psi anytime after 2200 rpm. Turbos do the same thing - bleeding excess psi at rpm - but because it took more parasitic loss to create that psi with a blower, you lose efficiency in the form of heat and fuel consumption. On a track car or street car, this is fine. On a tow vehicle, this sounds like a bad idea where heat is the enemy.

This is my understanding of it. I’m happy to be educated on the finer points of I am in error. I don’t think one is necessarily superior to the other, but one way might appear better at achieving goals of efficiency, power, thermal management, and maintenance. Though, the blower is a simple, well tested system on our platform.

 

This has also been a preponderance of mine. I almost jumped on the recent group buy here until I saw the install shop was in so cal. I have a very competent installer where I am (he installed my Auburn 100k ago), so I almost just asked for a discounted set of gears but that’s not what the group buy was for. I do spend a fair amount of time at highway speed without one of trailers attached. But whatever I lose unloaded mpg-wise, I would probably make up for when towing.

 

Not looking to clog up the OPs thread too much here, this may be better suited for the Supercharger thread. That said, there is a lot to cover from the post above, and I can only speak to my blower experience. I know with mine, at WOT it is already making 4psi by 2000RPM and 5psi at 2100RPM. By 4200 RPM it’s at its max of 7-8PSI through the end of the range. A smaller pulley would make the boost come on even faster and stronger. Most SC dyno charts I’ve seen show the torque near its max and a darn near flat line across the rev range from the start of the dyno around 2300RPM to redline. I just know I’ve never broken 33x12.50s loose before on dry ground (by accident mind you) with 1,000lbs on the tongue from the trailer behind me until I got a supercharger. As to heat, I’ve monitored the temps towing before I ever had a supercharger on 2 different 5.7 tundras and the transmission and coolant temp are exactly the same despite the vastly improved pulling power. An argument can be made on stress on the drivetrain from the increased power vs gears, but towing performance isn’t comparable between forced induction and regearing IMO. Let’s not forget, the strength of the engagement of the ring and pinion is also significantly reduced on lower gears, especially 5.29s.

 

We’ll have some towing results of an 7-8k lb trailer on a whipple blower in the coming months

 

RE: Towing with a turbo: How much meth do you reckon you need to keep temps down for a towing trip?

 

RE: Variable Geo Turbos. I've not seen many aftermarket offerings for these. They primarily seem to be OEM installs requiring ECM control to manage the vanes.

 

I’ll wager the dyno will be close to s/c’d

it will underperform down low, outperform up high

I’m on a road trip dropping off daughter at school. Passing in the tundra has zero lag

I wonder if this turbo will perform similarly?

we have plenty of s/c dynos to compare the upcoming turbo dyno

let the games begin

I bet this turbo will do just fine

I’ll begin the betting
Hp/tq
stage 1. 450/480
Stage 2. 500/520

 

And once the talking ends

the dragy begins

 

The answer is in post 161. just being facetious of course.

As we established every dyno is different of course. But I bet it hits closer to 470 on stage 1 and maybe approach 550 on stage 2. My only turbo on a tundra to reference was a guy running a remotely mounted 78mm precision on 4psi and made 444whp and 478wtq that wasn’t even really tuned. I think both setups will perform quite well. I’m betting the numbers will be better than that but we will see! Especially if the dyno is run in the middle of a northeast winter, it’s hard to compare to your dyno on a scorching hot day of a Texas summer. Either way, can’t wait to see the results, I think it will be a ripper if done well.

 

My guesses will be

Stage 1= 424
Stage 2= 484 to 496

to be honest I hope the Stage 2 will be less than 500 as to give the engine a wide birth of a safety factor, because these will be at the wheel numbers and the crank numbers will be up there a tad??

I forget though I will be able to dial in the boost.

 

Officer: "What's in the drum?"
Driver: "Meth"
Officer: "I need you to step out of the car..."
Driver: "It's for my turbo..."

Exactly I think you'll have to watch temps closely with a turbo especially where the torque comes on later.

Speaking of rear mounted turbos, here is the warning they give with their offering. To my knowledge rear mounts run cooler and they are still giving this warning with the remote mount:


Not trying to derail this thread. I am interested in the product just want to make sure I (and others understand) what they are getting into if they intend to use their truck for common truck duty tasks like towing and hauling.

 

We use our Tundra for the space and trips to the Home Depot. Beside the water meth system there will also be an intercooler on the Stage 2. Jesse has been doing this for many a year now and has not had any troubles with his high/er mileage Tundra. Taking and applying all cautions necessary for my truck!!

I Hope because it’s not like I can just drive over there and say “hey!!?? why is this acting up and this dang thing looks broke! Or my engine blew up, stick another in there and call me when it’s ready!

 

When I go over to their site the majority of their kit offerings are for cars where towing isn't a concern. They have an offering for a handful of SUV and Truck (diesels and gassers) kits.

Options don't equate to kit volume so sure I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, more so when they offer a warranty for the kit.

 

That's the real question, what's the 0-60 time? Gotta get this man into the draggy thread

 

Harrop offers 1 year / 12K miles. Magnuson offers 3 years / 36K miles but you can preserve your Toyota warranty if done at certain dealer locations.

 

Like posted a good long while back. This system they are going to sell has been tested now for a good long time, none of this is new or new technology that hasn’t been out there for some time. They have waited now because they wanted to make sure there would be no problems. The company is liquid and I am sure if something funky happens it will be made right! As all of this was discussed before any of this took place

 

That is its purpose as a forum.

 

If the questions are asked I have not seen you ask a specific question as to warranty?? Just speculations and wonderings??