Mr. Bob

Well... done my reading.... FYI....

At first I thought it was simple... I would bolt on the SC and do the related upgrades that go with.... but I got thinking....

I am getting a Runner as a vehicle for my wife and I... its going to be our only practical vehicle of the 3.... so running 94 octain seems a little much.... I am thinking of keeping it NA for a while and see when time comes to upgrade vehicles down the road, keep the runner and build it more.

So all signs point to cold air intake setup and cat back exhaust being the #1 recomended power upgrades... the basics...

Headers on an NA seem to be no real upgrade....

So what else to I have to go with??? anything??? Would love to hear some advise from the 3.4L experts out there !!!

Thanks a million!
Bob

garrett1478

get a trueflow filter, deckplate, ISR materials, and a truck to put them on.

or you could get an Airaid MIT or Trueflow full intake kit if you want to spend the cash.

MTL_4runner

Amsoil filter, deckplate mod and the ISR mod will get you a noticeable bit of pep. You could also add a freeflow cat and muffler but I am not sure how much that would add to the HP numbers. Toyota did a pretty good job of getting all the NA power out of the motor so the S/C definately gives you the most bang for the buck out there.

Weasy2k

Yea pritty much intake and exhaust is the only thing you can do as of yet. (headers and cat back will yield something)....hopfully cams will be an option in the near future.

Even getting a piggyback like the smt6 that can control fuel and timing will yield some power increase it depends on the engine but I have seen up to 20hp increase
I plan to try doing this on my dads 93 4runner with the 3vz-e 3.slow

surf4runner

what about the ebay resistor performance upgrade, its like 20HP for no $$?





j/k

midiwall

Ummm... it may not be 20hp, but it DOES work.

http://www.midiwall.com/4Runner/ect.html

garrett1478

wait what? all the 'power chips' and other 'upgrades' on ebay do the same thing as Dr. Z's ect mod?

midiwall

Ummm, for what we're talking about here, yes. BUT "chips" is a loose term that the ebayers are using for a marketing angle. i.e., There are (or could be) auctions out there for the JET PowerChips which are something different.

For what we're talking about here, i.e., dissing on the concept of a single resistor mod giving you more power, they're all selling something to fake out the ECU into thinking that either the air temp or water temp is colder than it is. In all ECU driven vehicles, it's a common function that "if the engine is cold, then toss more fuel into it to help it run and bring it up to temp faster". Thus, if you lie to the ECU and make it think that the engine is ALWAYS cold, then it will ALWAYS toss more fuel. The ECU will then adjust timing to burn the additional fuel, and More fuel = More power.

It's not a LOT of power, but it's there.

garrett1478

cool. i just may have to try this, seems easy enough.

whats that switch next to the knob? is that related or some other mod?

midiwall

I had to think about what you were looking at for a minute... I don't have a knob in there anymore.

The switch on the left is for my SMT piggyback. The SMT allows for two sets of fuel/timing maps to be loaded, and the switch will let you flip between them on the fly. I have one set loaded for the highway and another set loaded for trail. The trail set runs richer with more timing kick in the "low RPM high load" range, where the highway set runs leaner with more timing up top for HP higher in the powerband.

The knob got replace by another switch which controls aux power under the hood. I stopped running the ECT mod when the S/C went on.

garrett1478

mark...what have you not done? that is so cool, having different timing maps at the flip of a switch.

i was actually wondering about the use of ECT mod with s/c...that clears that up

midiwall

Well, it's nothing I did per se, it's a feature of the SMT boxes. It's possibly the main reason that I try to talk people out of the FTC boxes.

I'll be adding a new switch (maybe a knob) related to perfromance in there "soon". There's the matter of a couple of more things in front of it, but... It'll be fun. I'm aiming at April/May.


heh. Yeah... there's not much use to having it there when the ECU will be straining the stock injectors to match the new airflow anyway.

Weasy2k

thats why i love smt units I hope to have a similar setup like that as well but im gonna have, regular mode with timing retard and less octane needed (for when i can only get 89/91 octane. Then ill have a power setting which will activate the wate rinjection and turn up the timing.

Bob_98SR5

even w/ the deckplate, a free flow air filter, and other "small" power mods, youre really not going to get that much extra HP out of it. sure, you can feel a little, but is it significant? Not at all. but for a few bucks, its a "nice to have" b/c its a slight improvement.

over the years, i've read many posts about headers and the reason why headers are not popular is that you only gain a little over 10hp (if that), but pay close to $1000 installed. glad you figured that out on your own

bob, i'd say that the cold air intake isn't gonna help you that much. if anything, the ISR mod as well as a free flow air filter will do the trick. but if its a family car, the ISR is purported to be a little louder than alot of people expected. search ISR mod to read the various opinions.

oh one more thing: the muffler. the muffler will lose you some low end torque. not good if you are hauling alot of stuff or off roading. but of course, you make up for it on the highways. personally, i didn't think that putting on a an aftermarket muffler was such a great thing.

bob

Weasy2k

the HP you gain and loose with the above mentioned parts wont be enought o really feel....like the muffler....low end torque loss? Doubt you will feel it with the amount of tq this enigne has.

Probably the biggest bang for your buck is a SMT6 and a good tune These engines are tuned very conservativly from the factory and if you tune it to your driving standards you can squeeze out some from all around the power band....put 94 octane in there and increase timing by 4-5 points will let loose 10-15whp across the band

Of course do all this at your own risk i dont wanna get raped for telling people to do this and have them ลลลล up there engines because they went to crazy.
I believe Dr.Z on this board has done this (i mean tune with the smt6 on a n/a engine )

midiwall

One side note though is that if someone looks at "muffler" and thinks "exhaust" then it's VERY possible to screw up the power curve if you go too big in pipe size. I made that mistake by going to 3" pipe - the truck ran like crap. I run 2.5" because of the S/C, but 2.25" is stock and recommended unless you're gonna be adding a S/C soon.


{waves hand frantically}I did too... Galen did it first, and I was very close in his path with the SMT-5. I ran the -5 for about a year while I was still N/A.

Weasy2k

I couldnt remeber if you did it too, i knew you were part of the thousand post thread (which i still think was the greatest thread ever ) i always thought you were running it S/C......

did you dyno to see if there was any improvments

abouit the exhaust, yea i know that a exhaust system ccan cause power loss but he mentioned muffler, the muffler itself wouldnt do much

Bob_98SR5

johnny,

im talking from experience: yes, i could feel the difference in low end torque loss.

bob

trd_style

just to let you know, this mod will lose 1-2 mpg.

surf4runner

i didnt mean to infer anything about its effectiveness, just the stupidity and/or gullablity of ebayers (esp buyers). most sell this mod for ~$10 and charge another $15 to ship.
Radio crap sells the parts for $1.

i like to trick computers to 'think' what i want them to 'think'