Project Toyota Tundra Part 2, TRD Cold Air Intake

What you guys fail to realize is that a TRD part must not only produce more power, but it also must fit well, be easy to install, pass regulatory restrictions on emissions, sound output and meet all of Toyota's stringent design validation standards which are much stricter than any aftermarket part. This requires plenty of engineering by real engineers.

An aftermarket part only has to produce more power. Sure an aftermarket intake might make a couple of hp more but it you remove the carbon trap from the TRD part, I bet it will make more power as well. It will also not be emissions compliant anymore either!

I used to be an engineer for the Nismo program and I know exactly how difficult it is to design parts that must meet such a wide range of standards. I am not sure what you guys mean by lost the edge, Factory performance parts have a huge edge over the aftermarket unless perhaps you are competitively racing in a real racing series.

This truck has a TRD suspension package and let me tell you that the aftermarket would be hard put to come out with anything better. I am a suspension engineer and I can vouch for how well it works and how aggressively its tuned, perhaps too aggressive for weenies. It is edgy.

There is a TRD supercharger kit we have our eyes on. I spoke with TRD's engineers and what they did to validate its durability is mind blowing and let me tell you I would have no problem towing an enclosed trailer full throttle over the Baker Grade in 100 degree heat with it knowing how it was tested.

It makes over 500 hp and is fully warranty friendly and emissions compliant. If that is not edgy engineering I don't know what is.

take a look at ALL the OEM skunkworks-esque divisions.
Mugen makes aero and some suspension goodies, and drress-up stuff. thats it now. they have one car, the Mugen Civic RR, and its basically a stock civic type-r with better looks.
Nismo is just about the same thing. there are only subtle differences between the performance of the Nismo Z cars and the top of the trim Z cars. most of them being suspension and aero.

with emissions standards, public-eye horsepower ratings and reliability on the top order, most OEM motors are pretty stout out of the box. releasing a bunch of go-fast goodies that really dont make much of a difference is not only pointless, but out of the interest of OEM backed skunkworks. they want parts that will not only add performance, but reliability and, if applicable, keep the emissions low, especially if its a factory offered upgrade.
TRD, Nismo, Mugen used to be able to make all that cool shit because OEM motors had room for improvement. these days, hondas pulling 100hp/liter, Nissan has a sports car that can get nearly 30mpg when driven like a granny, and toyota now makes trucks that, as shown in this article, work better as a truck than most US truck makers, whove been building trucks for 60 years.
so to be worth any sort of time, effort or funding, skunkworks have to adapt to the change in times. sucks that there arent OEM suspensions and driveline shit anymore, but you can apply most of what ive said to those categories too.

I like the hamburger emblem on the shirt sleeve. ;)

I have to say I thought the intake would give a bit more HP on that motor then it did, but any increase is good espically when it sounds alot meaner to.

any performance upgrade that has gone through the rigmarole to be CARB compliant and still keep a factory warranty valid is worth its weight in engineering gold in my opinion. The level of engineering involved in TRD parts never ceases to astound me same with genuine Dinan, Nismo and Mazdaspeed parts. 4hp gain isn't that bad considering all of the factory settings that are still in place. How much air does that TRD supercharger displace?

I agree with TRS_Mike on this one.
TRD lost its edge this past 5 years or so. Long gone are the severall applications of LSD's, fuel rails, valves, FPR, head-gasket, pistons....you name it.
Anyway, don't they make a supercharger for the Tundra?

Mike....maybe someone lost his cool here.
I didn't mean to insult TRD or their hard work on R&D. I know that the quality is top notch, and dealing with smog/ CARB forced many aftermarket companies to hop their game (Nismo, Mugen/ M-Tec...and many other Japanese companies).
What I was trying to say was that their catalog (TRD) these days looks more water-washed respect 10 years ago.

It seems to me that 10 years ago TRD was more involved with racing. Their catalog seemed a bit thicker. They raced, and they backed up their stuff. Now they offer a bunch of S/C kit (produced by Alpine) and BBK (made by Stop Tech?) for regular sedans.....with some sway bars for the Corolla and the Matrix....

As much as I love to think that Japanese engines are far superior in technology to US engines....in this particular case GM wins (where you can get pretty much anything you want from the Chevy catalog).
Hope you understand my point of view.

Good point about the lack of a race worthy chassis from toyota and its effect on TRD. i would LOVE to see TRD make the caliber of parts that they did for something like the supra, on the new car.

Thanks for confirming my assumptions about this whole hellaflush craze and all the parts made to cater to it being garbage. Is that test actually going to be printed? i hope D-sport doesnt end up going the way SCC did by telling the truth to its readers.

All parts made by all manufactures are made by someone else including most of the parts of a car, probably only the unibody stampings and maybe the block casting and head casting are made by the original manufacture nowdays. At the plants they mostly assemble the cars from parts made by outside suppliers.

Alpine used to do a couple of TRD's supercharger kits but now I think TRD works closely with Magnuson and Eaton directly and does the engine calibration in house. All the validation is done by TRD. Stoptech does do there brakes but Stoptech is one of the only aftermarket brake companies capable and willing to do OEM level validation for short production runs.

The same thing with Nismo; AEM, Koni, Rays, Fujitsubo, KYB and others made the parts but as engineers we were involved with the design process and did the validation in house. We lived with the suppliers engineers during the design process. Only a handful of aftermarket performance companies are capable of engineering on the OEM level.

Its very easy to design racing parts, there is way more engineering involved with designing OEM parts. Racing parts need to only perform well under a narrow range of conditions and be light weight.

OEM parts have to work well under all conditions with all types of end users, have excellent durability with six sigma reliability to the end of a long warranty period, be as light as possible and to top it off, be cheap to produce. OEM parts are actually quite high performance. To come out with some higher performance OEM level parts is really hard.

Usually the only difference in the engineering is that the cost is not so compromised and the noise and ride quality can go to the upper limits of what is legal or the design standard. When you really test many aftermarket parts, especially the knock off crap, you will find that it works less well than stock for this lack of engineering reason. An example- we were just involved with a test helping D-Sport testing some Stance 3-ways and with Robi adjusting them and Tyler McQuarrie driving, they were 2 seconds a lap slower at SOW than stock on a 370Z!

Also most car tuned by street monkeys don't perform that well either! If you took most of those cars featured on other sites, chances are the stock car could probably lap faster!

If you look at the GM performance catalog, most of the stuff is higher level factory stuff kitted to be retrofitted, like LS3 Ecorod kits or LS7 and LS8 long blocks and the parts to conver them over to something else. The other parts are pretty mild or a few really hardcore parts like block and head castings from NASCAR programs for privateers. There are few real racing parts though.

TRD is not selling hard core racing parts anymore for a reason, no one bought them. Toyota really hasn't made a car suitable for hardcore tuning in years. Hopefully that may change with the FT86 if the program doesn't get canceled.

You have a good point Mike.
Toyota doesn't have a single car in its lineup that is worth dumping money into it. AND the OE parts became so good that is hard to improve upon them, but.....
Long gone are the Supra, the MR2 or even the MR-S or the mediocre Celica GT-S.
I cannot say that TRD discontinued (cut down) their hardcore program, and severely diminished their hardcore products BECAUSE nobody bought them.
I am not entirely sure that is the reason. Yes the economy is horrible, and it will be worse, but 5-10 years ago, the tuning scene was wealthy and looking positive.

How about Honda? The Civic Si is the closest thing to the Type R, and while it isn't, it has a lot of potential (market wise); among teens (and older enthusiasts) the car has always been a hit.....yet, I seems that Mugen doesn't do much aside from brake pads and maybe an air-intake unit.
How about the venerable S2000? Or even the TSX? There is a market for those cars, yet Mugen seemed to have soften their philosophy quite a bit (much like TRD).

Like someone said earlier, Mugen did come out with the a $40,000 Type RR ! But c'mon, for that money, I would buy a used M3.
They also showed up at TAS last year with a new revised NSX Type R (with the horizontal C32), which isn't available to the public. Other than that they've been very inactive (for lack of words) in the racing department.

Let's not talk about Nissan.The 350Z and the 370Z have been a hit since day one, and let's not even mention the new R35 GT-R. Those cars carry such a heritage and seeing Nismo making some rear lip spoiler using 3M tape just breaks my heart.
So, your theory about Toyota not having sports car in their lineup makes perfect sense. No good platform available, nothing to work upon.
Yet it astonishes me that Mugen or Nismo wouldn't put a bit more efford into their parts.

Again, I am not knocking on the lack of interest from TRD or Mugen or Nismo. Some of these companies do have good quality cars to work upon in their hands, yet they seem to fall short. That's all I have to say.

On the other hands, I see what you're saying. A while ago you mentioned that these days kids like cool cars, and not fast cars anymore; so maybe those companies mentioned earlier are afraid to invest millions where there are kids that are all in the hellaflush movement and nothing else.
Anyway, good debate.

agreed. I hate how my car has to "study" to pass it's emissions test. Praise be to California and the almighty CARB for they are the masters of jumping through hoops. I can't even smog my car locally because they use older machines up here. Registration's up in september, so I guess I better get to studying :P