2024 Tacoma Chief Engineer Reveals Secrets of TRD Pro & All Tacomas!

hey everybody I'm Jeff Teague I have a super special guest here this is Sheldon brown he's the chief engineer of the 24 Tacoma he's going to tell us something really cool awesome thanks Jeff thanks for coming out here and let's go talk Tacoma TRD Pro shall we yes Sheldon so I thought what we do for this video you know this vehicle more than inside and out you've gone next level on this Tacoma what are some things that get you excited about this that you would want people to know some are really important bullet points that make a TRD Pro not just a TRD Pro but a 24 Tacoma TRD Pro and then some things that just get you really fired up you think people might really like or not know about like hidden surprises ah cool yeah so obviously the suspension is you know the underpinnings that's where it starts it's all about performance Motorsports and I think everybody knows that TRD stands for Toyota Racing development and the reality of the situation is we're actually utilizing some of our in-house components and some of the capacity we have from our race teams and the same groups that are putting out those vehicles on Sunday are helping us to make some of the components most notably our forged and machined upper control arm this is actually designed together with our teams in uh from TRD in both cost of Mesa California as well as North Carolina wow you may notice uh on one side and it might be a little bit difficult to see there is a uh a little bit of an Easter egg there and so up on the left here we're showing uh the the state of of North Carolina on the right will show uh California little bit something fun for all all the folks to know more importantly what do you get out of this increased strength lower Mass and an additional half an inch of of travel so it's not just jewelry it's actually functional it's a performance- based and it does increase overall suspension travel oh fantastic and so this is we all know Fox suspension system but it's a little bit more than that isn't it it is in this particular case we're using our qs3 switchable system which is really nice because it allows you to dial up or down the amount of absorbing and damping that you're looking for in our particular case um I'll go under here while you talk about it let's yeah down down in the we have a switch when it comes from the factory we have the initial setting we call it setting one and that's basic basically designed for really good Supple I'll call onroad compliance but if you know you're going to be bombing through the desert You' got two additional uh basically uh locations or settings that really can dial up that for more of that high speed that high energy performance so it gets a little bit crispier on road but certainly has got the ability to be nice and Super S soft when you're getting those High Dynamic uh sort of events Offroad really cool and what else gets you excited about the uh the front end or maybe the powertrain there's I mean there's so much to get to well while we're still staying on the front end it's important to note that there's a few other things when you increase the track width of a truck uh and when you add a different articulation you have to think about the entire system uh components right so we got to make sure there's enough compliance in all of the brake hoses we've got stainless steel braided brake hoses to make sure that we have good strength and performance in addition to that of course we've got a wider track with and we know there's going to be a lot more uh basically uh forces going into the steering gear so we have a unique or I should say a bespoke steering gear set up just for it actually is for the TRD Pro and for the trail Hunter um but the idea for that is to make sure that we don't have any uh peeling of of the steering uh the steering rack ball joint um we don't stop there though because the uh other area that's really important of course is with that articulation is making sure that our front half shafts can uh allow for that additional articulation but also that they can manage the torque cuz remember this is our I force Max right and we're putting in some monster torque 465 pound feet of torque we're putting through that drivetrain so when what we use is this High articulation and this we'll call it a high torque design it's a very uh unique design of the actual um spline it allows us to go from 26° of articulation up to 31° more importantly when it's up there in that high basically compressed or highly articulated uh position it can actually handle the torque a whole lot better because of that swine design wow that's amazing and you know some other things I like uh the multi-terrain monitor I feel like this one takes things to even an upper echelon because you can see so many different camera angles even what's coming under underneath if you can't even see the road ahead right that's exactly right as we start to lift trucks um we start to make them higher and higher obviously the ability from the driver to be able to look down to see what's in front of you becomes more and more difficult so while lifting trucks is great for ground clearance it's fundamentally not so great when you're trying to see what is actually in front of you so we have a number of cameras we've got a camera up front we've got a camera right here in the in the grill we've got them in the mirrors as well as uh in the rear chimel as well as in the rear um tailgate we take those all together and we can effectively a 3D uh panoramic view of what's happening and then we can use this to basically look at the image here and as we progress we digitally transform that image to show you as your as your vehicle is going over it really helps the driver identify where they want to pick their line and how to avoid uh a lot of different I'll say hazards on the obstacle one of the things that I like the most especially when we're driving if I'm not out and I don't have a spotter is we also have the ability to see both the front and the rear of the truck we always talk about when you're driving off off road drive the rear right so many rookie mistakes or the mistake we tend to want to make is we clear the obstacle at the front and then we start to cut hard cuz we're looking at what's next and you CLI the end that's right we're not thinking about the back that's a really good way to gash a sidewall or potentially you know run over a rock that you weren't intending the great part about this with the side views we can look straight down here we can see when the tire is about to adjust it or hit an obstacle and we can see along the side both the front and the rear so we know what we're what we're traversing so the other thing I think that's really cool and one of the things that we wanted to develop was to make sure that we had adequate protection now no one wants a running board on their desert racer I mean some people will put them on there but if you're really going to use it for what it was intended for you usually find that those get torn off so you either have to take the effort to take them off um or you you don't put them on in this particular case we do offer a couple of different solutions on our Trail Hunter version you saw the rock sliders those are bolted directly to the frame those are basically capable of handling half GVW those are meant to put on the Rocks Slide the vehicle down the rock if you need it these are what we call Nerf rails or in some case we call rocker protector these are actually mounted directly um to the body as opposed uh to the body rocker as opposed to the frame the purpose of these is to stay skinny stay light but as you're running down if you for example you hit a stick or you catch a rock it throws up and catches you in the door on the underside these are there to basically push that down if you catch an obstacle on the trail really helps protect the Lower Side Of Your Rocker and in the in the door um but they're lightweight and they're still very functional and they don't impact your ground clearance okay you know and then since we're right here can we just talk about these ISO dnamic seats absolutely we'll try to switch it up to show the interior too now this looks like evolve from even the world premiere I saw I guess that was uh one of the early versions of those seats this looks completely finished to Me Maybe it's not even quite finished this is pretty close there's still a few things we need to do we've got some ungreen plastic here the very last thing we ever do with the plastic part is put the Grain on it make sure all of our changes all the dimensionals are good uh but really more importantly what you're seeing here is actually maybe first time the execution in Black at the world premiere we showed you what that looked like with our camo pattern in red this is the the old the other uh color that will be available for those who may not uh may not want red or for example with our Tera we feel like the black pair is just a little bit nicer more importantly though really this is getting into its final execution we have the ability now to um effectively control the motion of the occupant stabilize the upper body stabilize the head by absorbing a lot of the inputs and so we're using in in oil uh over air system and effectively we're controlling both the lateral as well as the uh horizontal uh movements and the great part about that is depending on your weight uh we have on what type of whether you're crawling or whether you're running hard um we give you uh with our app we we'll give you some recommended pressure settings ultimately you can decide what's best for you do you like a lot of motion a little bit of motion how much dampening are you looking for and if you decide you don't want them at all we have these handy little switches right here you can see one shows Road one shows rocks basically turn them on turn turn them off and you can you can do that for both the vertical as well as the horizontal adjustability I just completely learned something new that's really interesting yeah no it's it's great and honestly um the other thing you'll notice is the actual overall styling of this seat is very different this is a little bit more of a performance uh inspired seat you'll see we've got the big bolsters and the high side cushions really helps to hold you in that seat and honestly they're just really darn comfortable yeah yeah no that's cool and I love the two-tone look and the gloss black accents that's evolved from previous generations too it really has um this was something that we were really passionate about two things that we we set out to do and I really want to give credit to our body and and our our production engineering team we wanted this truck to look like it was moving fast while it was standing still and to do that we wanted this really slick rap look that came back and and just murder out the top keep it really Sinister but really make it look like it's moving fast um so we were able actually to mold this portion directly or form I should say press this portion directly into the side member outer that leaves all of our gaps um in the back or we can trim that out with the rest of a spoiler from a from an engineering and a production engineering standpoint of view and a manufacturing this is no small task but the team Rose to the challenge and really knocked it out of the park that's really cool and I'm not used to seeing three shark fin type antennas up there that's right and uh those are uh there for a purpose the set one is your traditional shark Vin that's uh what you'll see on most of our trucks the two on the outside are actually there for a wireless trailer camera so what you have as an option is a uh trans transmitter that can go on your trailer that's taking a picture of what's Happening behind you that is wirelessly transmitting it and then it's uh displaying it on your uh your e display mirror on the inside of the truck so if you happen to have one of those large box trailers behind this truck you're maybe carrying a snowmobile who knows can't see behind it no problem hook up the wireless trailer wireless communication able to see everything that's right behind you okay that's fantastic and I noticed that you have different wattage uh for the power in the back here if it's an I force it's 400 WTS it's a lot more with the I force Ma isn't it it surely is and we're able to leverage that hybrid uh powertrain to make sure that we give a lot of power so over here we get 2400 watts of uh of power that's uh 120 uh volt power so we're talking about the ability really of a 20 amp circuit uh in terms of what you're able to power I think what's important about this too is uh We've really been able to to to take this to the next level and what I mean by that is you get 2400 WTS here you get 2400 WTS of course uh on the inside at the center or at the uh the back of the center console right and it remains at 2400 WS while driving so one of the things in the in the outgoing as soon as you shift it into drive we drop from 400 to 100 not this truck she keeps the 2400 the whole way that's really strong and the uh and then even on the other side I should point out since we're talking power yeah please do um we also know people work in and around the tailgate in the back of their truck so we've got our our 120 uh volt over here um this is where we give you additional uh basically 12vt charging so you have your traditional 12volt here USBC uh here as well so um if you are using things like iPhones or uh smaller electronics that are 12volt based this is another handy solution to be able to utilize your truck that's very cool and the trail Hunter actually has an air compressor built in it sure does it goes right here and that's optional and available to you on this truck as well that is really cool I noticed you couldn't help but uh hit the button over here so we've evolved from Tundra you're like take that Tundra we we went one step above because they can go down on the driver's side and I know we're all a team I get this but you just want to say Tacoma bragging rights look what we can do with our tailgate well the great part about you know uh a brother development is there's always a little bit of inner sibling rivalry but when we think about this platform and we have from the beginning the things that we borrow from Tundra we want to take those progress them to the next level Tundra takes that then and progresses it to the next level so we really think of this as a family DNA and this is about building on each truck every time we we release something new so of course uh we when we did all of this development we had big brother in mind uh you know we can't talk all about you know future development but uh as you understand we have really been making an emphasis on whatever we do we can share it across the platform I get you completely now um I like the partnership with ARB here it is uh actually this is a really important piece of the the Next Generation uh Tacoma um we understand that customization is so critically important to people in this segment people want to make it their own they want to do a lot of different things uh with their truck and make sure that it it it suits the purposes they need we also said well let's think through that let's think about how those could be used and let's look at strategic Partnerships where we can leverage knoow from credible sources uh who have a lot of uh respect throughout the industry especially in the off-road industry um ARB was one of those companies they seem to share common values that we had and so we decided we don't want to just say hey let's have a bolt-on part we asked the ARB team to come in and co-develop these directly at our tech center uh really leveraging the best of of what ARB knows in their off-road world with with all of the the great engineering and the standards and and and the quality expectations we have inside of Toyota yeah it's really a win for our customers to be honest and the great part about it is you can buy it straight from the factory or as we talked about a little bit earlier in our walk around uh this bad boy will like uh will bolt straight up to even our our 32-in off-road package as well um you have to buy this component um and repackage the BSM but all that Hardware whether it be the soner whether it be the BSM all can be reused so uh again we're thinking about yeah this is on Halo but maybe somebody wants this on their off-road package their gas model no problem uh you got to remove the the the plastic bumper cover but this thing bolts straight up right and I couldn't help but noticed the uh TRD exhaust too how's it sound yeah so the TRD was really fun um you know we've been focusing a lot on on how do you make a a an L4 motor sound good uh we we pulled out uh everything we can uh in terms of all of our tricks uh and I think we've gotten to a place where we really uh we really like the way this muffler sounds uh we're using uh active noise cancellation across almost all of our grades except for for the manuals uh to make sure that we get rid of some of those non-desirable um uh noises and sounds that we get throughout the truck the vibrations sure um but we're also um using sound uh uh electronic uh sound enhancement to help especially inside of the cabin make this thing sound uh every bit as well as we could now the great part about that is we really tried to think about how that's integrated so this is uh featuring our not only our performance tierd intake but also our low pressure catback performance exhaust we work together um with the the TRD team to make sure that we are uh basically integrating thatc and that ESC so that when you bring that tune um they are uh complimentary to one another now the great part is we've made those Tunes available so down the road if you like the way this sounds and you want to take this to your your ey Force vehicle and you want to uh adapt the performance um the performance uh muffler or the performance exhaust no problem we've got an ANC and ESC tune that's ready to go packaged together and make sure that you can have that complimentary uh the the the pairing of the two Sheldon you look excited to talk about what's hidden under door number one here that's right well we got a little surprise in store we talked a little bit about it but we don't always get as much uh as much press but this right here is a hydraulic J stop this is integrated directly into the spring seat uh and this is really great once you go through the the the compression phase uh before you get into the the traditional urethane stops this really provides a lot more um I'll say uh relief from those really heavy impacts um the great nose and maybe a little bit of a approach tip for all your viewers these things can screw right into just about any of the spring seats that we have so if you had another application or wanted to modify no problem you can buy these directly from us at our dealer or through Fox and put those right in your new spring seats well like you said uh truck buyers are passionate about making it their own customizing and if they can improve it this might be a way to do it absolutely now Sheldon one thing I was hoping I love the Tacoma you can't kill one we all know that but the interior it sure needed to be upgraded and I think we did this in a big way um are there any features gadgets Easter eggs that you might be proud of here that somebody might think this is amazing yeah well you know first and foremost there there are some areas if I got to be honest with you we we had to improve we wanted to improve the overall seating performance we've talked about this before but we raised that hit point raised the roof up a little bit making this truck just a little bit more comfortable to to live in every single day and it's comfortable in the back seat too it it really is uh we've actually been able to increase about an inch of additional leg room in the back um and in the front here we've for all intent and purposes kept the same package the real important thing here is we have that vertical adjustability uh we have the higher uh General starting point and then of course we've really done a lot to make sure we have good telescoping in out up and down that's so you can find that really comfortable spot because everybody's just a little bit different some people you know a little longer torso a little longer legs right but we want to make sure that uh that that we meet uh and that it helps for everybody our fits for everybody I should say sure um and then of course over here um you know we tried to lay this back so we have good charging here this is is uh updated from uh from our Tundra uh so I think you'll find the the Next Generation the fifth generation I believe Tundra is going to be adopting here very soon as well and I just found a a hidden USBC over here on the right side of the multimedia so everybody's going to be connected in this truck that's and that's really important right because let's say we're we're off-roading and we want to we want to focus on that camera that we talked about in that earlier conversation well we might have ourselves our our trail map here we want to try to keep your cords organized and focused and so it's easy to put over there if you happen to have a passenger they want to charge their cell phone great spot to Hing their cell phone they got a great spot to charge but I don't want to sleep on this because this is important we we're were showing here um this is actually our our high output charging so two USB ports but we offer 45 watt charging uh on both of these and you can see a total of 52.5 Watts combined but that's really important for some of these bigger electronics that we want to make sure that we can charge quickly so we talked about the 2400 WT inverter that we have in the back we also have USBC back here as well so I always tell people like let's say we're taking that ARB refrigerator we're taking it out to camp we throw it in the back all day long we're running keeping everything cool we get to camp at night we try turn the truck off well ARB makes a really convenient large battery that we can basically it's magnetic it sticks right to the fridge and can run the fridge overnight that can be sitting in here charging while we're out on the trail and we're running running the refrigerator all day so really it's about thinking about how customers are going to use these trucks how they're going to live in these trucks and making sure that we provide as many conveniences as we can it makes total sense um one thing I want to talk about real quick is the JB Flex yeah this is you just pop it you got it and if I want to take it to my campsite or just in the back of the truck or the beach yep you just it's completely it out yep completely Bluetooth uh connectable uh usually we can reconnect inside of uh less than one second the thing that makes this special uh honestly is there are other uh Bluetooth speaker applications within trucks but this one is active it's an active Center Channel when it's in the instrument panel it's playing it's charging um if you are happen to ejected or for example let's say you leave it uh uh you leave it at home uh and you're riding in no problem the JBL amp fire recognizes that it's missing and then it redistributes um the signal uh to to the tweeters and rebalances your sound so you get incredible sound with it um slightly diminished but still excellent performance even without it so we're able to be flexible um and of course you know we wanted to make sure that that was uh developed to withstand super high heat loads uh we are utilizing some new Battery Technology here in order to do that uh we have waterproof capability you can Bluetooth daisy chain a hundred of these things together uh so you your buddies they can all go to Camp you can have a regular concert it's really a really fun device Sheldon the off-roading tools have evolved as well I really like just the display I ergonomically I like where they are but we've got a lot of buttons here what if people don't know what they do and how they can use them okay well let's walk you through them and make sure uh everyone knows what's going on first and foremost we wanted to have H A Center of control I think on the outgoing truck we had some controls that were here we had some that were up here uh we really wanted to focus this so we have of course things that are done in the meter we we have our our I'll say our infotainment here this is all of our HVAC control stays in this area and this is all of our our drive mode uh related type uh control so it starts of course with our our drive mode indicator where we can go from high to sorry from two high to four high to four low uh we've got our our uh basically our parking brake and hold or brake assist so if you're in traffic you can press that button it'll hold uh and then of course our standard parking brake um on side here this is switchable so that this uh dial can be used for multiple um functionality the first and foremost you see is drive mode so in the TD Pro we have three sport normal and Eco uhhuh that's going to change your pedal map um as well as your uh EPS power steering input uh and so that helps with um you know for the different modes uh throttle control as well as the steering performance that you'll feel uh we have a tow haul mode which you know is pretty straightforward uh you can put it into uh a couple of different trailer configurations uh you go to toal mode you can see right there uh and what this is great for is to basically it'll change your uh your shift points uh in such a way um that helps you uh for example for engine braking going downhill but also uh your transmission ship points up as you're as you're moving up for example like a hill or something so multi-terrain select is another one that we could pick right that's right and multi-terrain select uh is available in both for high as well as for low so we're going to press the button we're going to use the dial here and here we have deep snow mud sand dirt and auto auto is new for this uh and basically what it's doing is allowing the computer to sense the wheel strip and decide between these different functions what are you actually seeing at that moment cuz sometimes we go through a mix of for example mud sand uh and potentially Rock and so this is allowing the vehicle then to switch between um the best of all of those worlds and so we call that auto mode and that's new for for Tacoma yeah I don't remember seeing that so yep and then we go uh we have a DAC which is available in for high that's down uh Hill assist control uh and you can see it comes on right here and what this is going to help you do as you're moving uh down uh for example a steep grade basically going to continue to break and allow you to focus on on steering and it's going to help you control your speed and you can do yeah you can do varying levels of downhill assist control well exctly cool yep and yeah and then of course we have our our crawl control updated with our new actuation system nearly silent that's available to you in 4 Low uh obviously multiple different speeds the speeds are controlled again right through here um and what that really allows is uh for the the driver to completely focus on steering the vehicle does the acceleration uh breaks any wheels that are slipping uh and applies torque um to crawl over obstacles so overall really cool uh system in in in in helping give off-roaders tools that they need to make sure they get through those tough obstacles and we're not done there so we got a couple of different buttons here this is of course is a trailer reverse and this is the logic that helps you back a trailer straight um so that's really functional especially for a short wheel-based trailer sometimes we know how you're trying to put a jet ski down into a boat launch and it wants to jack knife on you this really helps out and continues to basically input the steering angles to make sure that that trailer goes straight back this view button is great because it'll uh show us uh right now we're in park so this is a panoramic view of the truck if we were in gear it would give us a uh not only a panoramic view but a frontal uh view of what's happening and then if we happen to be driving down the road um and we wanted to see what was going on it will access the camera and we can see what's happening in the bed behind us so if you've got a load that's back there uh maybe say something that uh isn't is tied down and you start to see it flap quick eye quick way to get eyes on that without having to take your eyes off the road this button right here is important this of course is your rear Locker uh it's electronically controlled uh Ecker um that's available on orp TRD Pro um and the uh Trail Hunter is standard uh uh and then uh stabby bar disconnect and that's or sway bar disconnect as we're calling here in the button um that's really uh a great new feature that we've added standard on Pro and Trail Hunter available on off-road packages um that's the ability uh whether in motion or static to disconnect that front stabby bar it allows about another 4 in of suspension travel because typically our suspension travel is limited by you know what we have in the front The Best of Both Worlds you get a sway bar when you're on road for that Dynamic performance and to limit body roll but all kinds of great articulation off-road so we're really excited about this it's important to note that that can be um it can be engaged or disengaged under uh full bound condition uh while you're driving and moving um so really it's another tool it keeps you from get having to get out of the truck but give it making sure that you can use all that great suspension travel that we've provided fantastic thank you so much and I don't want to sleep on this feature here the digital rearview mirror I just I just love the fact that you can switch regular or you can see that clean crisp view behind you it's just a feature I wish was in all top levels of every vehicle Toyota makes I just love that feature and that's this is where we talked about that uh trailer that uh digital trailer camera will will display right here so uh the wireless trailer camera um and you'll be able to see exactly here so it's like looking at the back of your truck except for it's wherever that camera's been pointed it all comes together now it does right that's how we all do it the other thing we've got to talk about this light bar we saw it first with Tundra Sequoia has it now this one seems very very bright though Sheldon yeah well this is like the Next Generation and the evolution of that so we're actually pumping out about 10,000 Lumen uh in this new light bar almost two times the throw of some of the other light bars that we have the great part about this is it really just paints a big bright uh you know SW in front of you so when you're moving fast down the trail you got maximum visibility when that's not running uh and you're running with your your normal headlights uh we also have these uh rigid and those are we call these wide angle fogs so these are really set to spread to the side and to make sure that when you're coming around and your cornering you have great visibility here throws almost an additional 8 m of light to your side or sorry 6 MERS of light to your side so that you can see everything around and you can anticipate that turn make sure you don't put the tire in the ditch Sheldon thanks for taking the time you actually went way above and Way Beyond so I appreciate you telling the listeners all over the world what's so special about this one because it's beautiful on its looks but there's as we've seen so much more so thank you again so much uh absolutely thanks for coming out thanks for uh you know sharing this with the world and uh we look forward to getting you uh in just a few months into one of these in behind the wheel that's going to be great so thanks everybody so much for watching Sheldon you're the best I learned so much I thought I knew I know bullet points and I'm pretty thorough nowhere near you you built this truck so thank you everybody please give Sheldon a hand you did fantastic and please follow my suggested Tacoma content I have lots of 24 Tacoma videos and the library is going to keep getting bigger and bigger I'm at Instagram Tic Tac YouTube and Facebook Toyota Jeff reviews see you next time

Channel: ToyotaJeff Reviews

Views: 246,194

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Id: VIGHFMahM6w

Length: 26min 56sec (1616 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 02 2023