Hate to admit it, but the Ranger Raptor will destroy Taco/4R TRD Pro/Trailhunter sales

Not complaining, just observing.

I think the other one was the 6th gen speculation thread. But obviously there's only so much speculation one can make, so that one was destined to go far off topic.

There was a recent BMX hijacking too, that was a good one. I don't even remember the original topic...

 

Man, is their any car you haven't owned?? jealous.

+1 Im 100% going to agree with Trident on this one. We are not talking reliability here, we are talking performance and the sophistication of the design. Honda specialty has always been very highly refined naturally aspirated designs.... Anybody can slap on a big turbo and make huge numbers, Honda worked their magic with sophisticated valve control, sophisticated intake and exaust refinement, and very high rpms. The F20c engine in the S2000 was an absolute jewel for example . 9000rpm redline. vtec. carbon fiber embedded cylinder liners. They delivered 125 hp/liter in the stock JDM model. No turbos, no supercharger, nothing... just pure motor. There have only been a handlful of street production cars that delivered higher specific power per liter NA in stock form and most are exotics beyond the reach of us mortals.

The downside of the Honda approach is that to make use of the power you have to drive them hard like a race car. It feels unnatural to folks used to torquey American v8s and turbo mills so they got the "no torque" reputation when folks where afraid to press down hard on the loud pedal and let 'er run to redline in every gear.



Anyway... back to S2000s... I never got to buy one but I did get an Acura RSX-Type S at about the same time (basically 5th gen integra). It was the first of the K-series motors - the K20A2... only slightly less tuned than the F20c at 100hp/liter but it was the first Honda mill with the iVTEC system that combined both the dual lobe VTEC cam for variable lift and electronic cam phasing for infinitely variable timing. Tuners have built those little 2L engines to 250-300whp NA and pushing 500whp turboed and they still stay reliable enough for daily driving.

Toyota engines are built like tanks but they are not nearly as sophisticated. VVTi only does half of what iVTEC does, its basically only the cam phasing part, no variable lift. I think there was only one Toyota engine ever designed with a system fully equal to iVTEC and they called it VVTLi

 

I get you, but there are buyers like me, maybe a lot of them, who don't care whether the 4Runner has 270hp or 400. My 2019 accelerates to 60 in 7.5 seconds, which is plenty in my world. 400hp might get it to 6 seconds. That's just not a deal-maker or breaker to me. Having owned under-powered Toyotas since 1982, I much more appreciate the fact that they keep not breaking.

And knowing 4Runner forums, if they offered a 400hp 4Runner, it would be about a year before 500 is really what they need.

 

Yeah, I can agree there. Toyota has made some killer engines over the years, but usually with help from Yamaha. And, they really haven't done anything very interesting in a Toyota model since the last Celica GT-S. Although, the GR Corolla has both surprised and impressed me.

I do agree.

Toyota did some pretty cool stuff decades ago, like T-VIS on the 4A-GE, and VVT-LI on the 2ZZ. But, they've definitely stepped back from the high revving N/A stuff.

The motor in my TC was fine, but could have been so much better. That was one of the reality checks that made me realize that I'd have to look elsewhere if I ever wanted something exciting.

Side note: definitely not a mass production engine, but the 152E (based on the 18R-G) was an absolute monster of an N/A 4 banger. 237-296 hp @9000-9200 RPM's back in the 1970's!

Some car porn for anyone who, like me, actually loves the sound of a high revving 4 cylinder.


https://youtu.be/XixxcAkargk?si=VFLdRH8eHB5QDicB

 

I think Honda used to be better, especially back in the early 90s to early 00s. IMHO, that golden age of Honda has passed and Toyota has taken over the mantle. Honda is still very good but not quite to Toyota's standards over the past decade or so.

 

That video is music to my ears.


I didn’t know about all that racing history with a Toyota (being more of a Honda guy) reading up some now.


Certainly some amazing race engines, even back then. And I’m pretty sure Ferrari, Lotus, Cosworth etc where getting over 100hp/liter without turbos as far back as the late 50s/early 60s F1 cars…. The difference with modern engines like Honda K motors is using VTEC to tame the fire breathing dragon and make it idle nice and drive like a mild mannered sedan when your light on the pedal but still be able to turn into a monster when you lean into it.

and do it for 200,000 miles reliably on regular pump gas.

 

Agreed. The K series motors are pretty badass! I thought the B series were pretty good for the tuning crowd, also.

But, I know very little about Honda honestly.

 

Also before you say it I’ll admit Honda had nothing to compete with that racing Celica in the 70s. They where mostly about motorcycles and high efficiency economy cars (I.e CVCC Civic) back then…

 

Oh, I wasn't going for anything like that. It's just interesting how aggressive Toyota was decades ago. I just wonder why they went away from it so much.

I caught part of a car program that was talking about how Honda got started into making cars, and it was very interesting. I would definitely watch the whole thing if I had the opportunity.

 

Man you guys are making me wish I never sold my Acura. I miss that 6 speed.


I need to build a third garage bay end get a project car. My dad and I always talked about it when I was in HS ( I had a short lived fascination with 70s Alfa Romeo Spider Veloces for a while and you could pick up a project car cheap in the 90s) but stuff always got in the way. Maybe I can do something with my son someday

 

I'll agree with you on that. I really like the Bronco, but yeah, the Braptor is pretty hideous. The specs are awesome, but the fender flares are ridiculous. It's like Ford designed the thing, and then at the last minute realized that they needed to widen the flares to be street legal and got that design in on midnight the day it was due LOL.

Hopefully the aftermarket steps in to come up with a better looking solution.

 

I just want my 4Runner to be able to hold top gear in cruise control on a mild grade or headwind. 270 HP is perfectly fine, it's the torque that needs addressing. Torque peak comes in about 2500 RPM too late.

It looks like the 2.4turbo addresses this issue, so as far as I'm concerned it's an improvement.

 

One good example is the Frontier. I had a rental one and absolutely loved it. Drives very similar to the 4R and ofc that V6 is old school too with a little more power and torque... the turning radius is abysmal. But that 9-speed attached to it is the star of that truck. That thing shifted smoothly and didn't hunt. Even though it's as heavy as the 4R, there were absolutely no struggles or anything going uphill. Honestly, I liked the Frontier so much I thought about getting a Pro-4X. If Toyota had put a similar transmission in some sort of update to the 5th gen 4R, it would have been way more efficient and peppy than the current 5-speed.

But as you said, they did fix all that with the I4... but as pointed before we don't know what the reliability will be like, but can definitely say confidently the new 8-speed will be excellent for a long time.

 

There were two cars sitting on turntables at the Honda dealership when I bought my car in March 2000 - an Electron Blue Pearl Civic SI was on one and a circuit de spa-francorchamps Yellow S2000 on the other. I badly wanted the S2000 but walked out signing papers for the SI. The extra $10,000 was too much for my budget.

Driving them hard to realize what power they come with is exactly true. By memory, I think I need to get over 5800 RPM in order for the 2nd cam to kick in. The engine is designed to do it but it is screaming (not to mention the speed) at 5800 and I haven't come close to the 8000 redline in a very long time.

 

Back in 2017 or 2018. We were on a mountain biking trip in Moab, and had a new frontier for a rental. That would have been the 4.0, and I think that was a five or six-speed trans at the time. I'll have to say, that was before I had my 4Runner, and I thought that 4.0 in the Nissan felt really tourqey. I thought the interior looked like it was styled by Rubbermaid, however I actually enjoyed driving the truck.

I've never gotten that torquey feeling from the Toyota 4.0, and I honestly thought about getting an Xterra. However, I've known enough people that have had stupid issues with Nissans that I didn't really trust the brand.

 

I saw that one. It was interesting. It’s crazy that Honda is building Jet aircraft now. Here’s a funny video that was floating around the aviation world when the Honda Jet first came out.

https://youtu.be/hPzHeQuUahM?si=-554WtJYPb3I71Br

 

That's great! I'll bet @jharkin will get a good laugh from that as well!

 

Oh my god I just burst out laughing at work... thanks guys


Edit to add: if you guys ever find yourself driving though New England you are welcome and invited to come have a beer in my garage any time...

 

+1 to that. If I put my foot in it and let it run up to redline its got more than enough power to move the truck... what I really want more of is grunt between 2000-3000 to help it get out of its own way when somebody tries to cut me off on the freeway and I need to react quickly and not wait for it to downshift and rev..... Thats why I think something like the OTT tune pack is probably more useful for daily driving than the Maggie. (pretty please OTT get that CARB 50 state sticker)

 

I have the OTT tune on mine and it’s worth every penny. Definitely helps with the gear hold. I’m on 35’s and 4.88’s and it’ll hold 5th all the time at 75mph.

 

I know... problem here is MA follows CARB and they read the ECU checksum as part of the annual inspection. It wont pass until they get that CARB EO sticker so no bueno for my daily... Guys on Tacomaworld are saying that even flashing back to stock for the test doesn't work. The owner did say on TW they have applications in to get the sticker for 50 state approval on the 3rd gen Taco tune and would next be pursing the others so hopefully soon....

 

Ahh my old integra gsr was a blast back in the day. My son had a civic si that was fun also.

 

I got lined up against a civic SI at the track one night that looked bone stock but didn’t sound like it. I was in my non-boosted FBO 5.0 That makes 515 to the wheels. The only thing that kept me out in front was the kid Missed a shift at about the 300 foot mark. Those little SI’s are sneaky fast with just a little Bit of bolt on stuff. I stay away from those things now when I take the non-boosted car to the track, especially when they show up with drag radials on.