2024 Tacoma Lead Engineer Explains Why The 4th Tacoma Is Better Than The 3rd Gen

hey guys John here so this is the 2024 Toyota Tacoma I force power train I have one of the engineers here from Toyota to talk us through it here we have Craig guys lead engineer on powertrain for the brand new Toyota Tacoma and we have one pretty naked here so he could point out everything to us hey guys so this this whole setup here this whole frame is uh kind of a Frankenstein of different components so not only the powertrain but the suspension and everything is a little bit different from different trims so I'm going to start with the engine and the powertrain and explain a little bit here so this is our new I4 2.4 L turbocharged engine we have a 2.4 L turbocharged engine on some other vehicles like the grand Highlander we just released but this is actually very different this is only 54% common with those engines so we've done a lot of things to change it actually the block is a little bit different design we've done a lot of things to improve the cooling uh capacity of this turbocharger is completely new so on our cooling of this engine we have a new design of our oil pump at the bottom and our our oil capacity and we do a lot of cool Tes on this to make sure that when you're off-roading the oil flow of this engine is is still doing its thing it's still keeping the engine cool so we have actually a bench test where we take the engine and we tilt it on its side and we run it at full load to make sure that even stays cool if you're off-roading if you're pitched up and down or your side to side so we do a lot of testing with this this engine's been designed 50% more uh durable than our uh other L4 turbo engines cuz it's a truck application we we hold it to a higher commercial grade standard so 1 .5 times the durability so all of these things the cooling the performance are really important uh for this engine for the Tacoma yeah cuz cooling for a turbocharged engine cuz obviously people are going to say well they got rid of the V6 like what's the reliability so you guys have helped with increased Cooling and then like off-road like you said because you're going slower you can't get air into the engine it helps with the uh oil and stuff too and then sheling was talking about your cooling system itself is bigger in like the TD models or the TD offer mod so we do have a difference in cooling here on on our off-road models we do get a 3-in plumbed uh pipe to our um radiators um to be able to help with that coin to increase the capacity of of the coin in the TRD off-road you get a a sealed belt tensioner so to be able to keep out a lot of the water Crossings and mud and stuff like that uh you get uh heavyduty um CV joints in here so when you have that big steep articulation and everything you you can take all that to off-road you get a diff that's the same as the tundra actually a 9.5 in uh rear ring uh differential and you're staying at dinner last night that this is the same diff like you just said in the tundra but all the Hybrid models too like the trail Hunter over there the pro like hybrids will have a bigger diff but that's standard in the TD Offroad standard in TD Offroad that's right so Tundra siiz rear end and a midsize truck yep it's got to perform it's got to be able to handle all the torque so with this thing being a Frankenstein obviously this is the new automatic transmission we can tell like how small even though we have more gearing than like the old sixspeed over there so we switch from a six-speed to an 8-speed automatic transmission the gear ratio is totally the spread is a little bit bigger so actually we have a lower first gear so we get more torqu that even helps us even more in off-roading so you know it's easier to Offroad uh this right here is a two wheel drive model so it's it is very short we don't have the transfer case here but that one over there right that's right and then you said with torque with it being an 8-speed so the torque comes on relatively early like 1,700 RPM that's right this engine the The L4 turbo uh I force creates creates the torque at at 1700 RPM which means that's your normal everyday driving right so we can operate in that zone where you're driving on you know low speed Country Roads highp speed um and when you get into the throttle you get that torque immediately there's no delay um and we've did a lot of calibration on the engine and the transmission to improve that gear hunting right we hear from our customers from current gen Tacoma that you know that it it never feels like the sixspeed was in the right gear it's always shifting all the time on the highway you just touch the pedal and it downshifts and and so we spent a lot of time really doing the the tuning and the calibration of the engine the transmission together so that you have that that good grade ability we say so you push the gas pedal you don't get a downshift you get all that torque initially you're in the right gear um it it comes together very well I can see that it is a Frankenstein cuz we have our diff and everything like up front for a fourwh drive you got to foret that then the transmission itself is for two whe Drive obviously people are going to have to drive this thing to really experience it but like when I was driving it I could tell like even going downhill the truck knew that it was about to go uphill so it was holding at like 2500 2700 RPM and then as I started to go uphill it like it was already in good power range like with the torque and everything so it has 52 more foot pounds than the outgoing generation 317 on this one 317 pound feet of torque and just the normal I force yep just normal I force right it's not the I force Max good stuff and that's just a monster itself so for those that may get a TD Pro we got these Fox qs3 shocks and guys I just noticed a little Easter egg on the TRD upper control arm so we have North Carolina right there on that one and then we have California over here where all the T stuff is made correct in California yep in California and then uh our our um design everything in uh in North Carolina gotcha so we have manually adjustable shocks up front and why did you guys decide manual when you know some of the competition has like electronic shocks just reliability yeah that and to give the customers more option right and again this shock right here is only from the TRD Pro the rear shocks here are on the TRD off from the TRD off-road with the front here from the pro then we have a 18g tank as we walk to the back 18.2 gon and and I'll stop right here in the middle real quick and and talk about the frame um so this is our our new um f platform frame fully boxed uh deima welds which what that means is you can see kind of different areas on the frame that have uh kind of different weld marks and you have different size um of different materials so some high strength steel areas um different thicknesses and we were able to be able to make the the frame stronger in the parts where that matters and be able to make and keep the mass down on parts of the frame where where we don't need it so so as opposed to like the third gen frame over here which is you know channel right it's the basically same thickness cross the whole void so we have to make it um as thick as we needed in the in the weakest point but in here in our new frame we're able to improve that and and control the mass of of the whole gotcha frame so then with the uh tierd shocks back here so these are the new piggyback uh reservoirs for this generation TR offro the TRD Offroad you guys actually have them over here on this table so they're from billstein got remote or piggyback reservoirs on the back so basically the the tierd off-road of this gen is like almost as good if not better as like the tierd pro of last gen it seems like with this suspension it's definitely improved yeah you have more capability to go off-road you know the previous gen was great uh nothing nothing bad with it but uh you know we really wanted to step it up for the customers here so you have the TRD off-road you have great improved performance and then even more performance when you get up to the TRD Pro and and the trail Hunter now is this our electronic stabilizer disconnect mechanism so this is a little bit different uh system but you have the the full one out of the truck but what you do is you have when you push the button that engages this motor it changes these these little teeth here and what it does is it it spins this and it allows these to lock or unlock into these teeth and so it it disconnects it and let's and let let you have it a free Spin so that's what unlocks it and gives you that that rotation here on this one that it opens up and allows you to spin so this is like it normal right because it's almost like it's all the way across here right so what you're saying is when you press that button the teeth and everything in here really allow this to kind of like this side to Pivot p a little bit more okay so it allows that side to Pivot on its own and this side to be like independent to get like a tire down on the left hand side or a tire down on the giv more articulation on the front and then that also then helps on the rear as well did you want to go over uh this one at all I mean it's it's what we all know from the uh third gen yeah I mean uh really the the key point to part to to point out is to really compare the the suspension and the frame right um so you have on the front here this is our TRD um off-road sorry our TRD Pro uh suspension old Onin and you can just see the the differences in the upper control arm the size of that even almost shock location shock location on this one one that's right and then the rear suspension here is from the TRD off-road so you can see just the differences compared to the ones we just looked at skinny little billain on that one then of course leaf spring spring Y and then the the frame right so this is our previous generation c channel frame so you can see it's not fully boxed in here even the um the cross members here are a little bit smaller compared to to the the new tundra definitely a bit de here over there um now people may say well this one's a c channel it'll allow me to twist and articulate better so what did you guys do to rectify that kind of argument on the uh yeah that's a good question that and that's part of our our deima welding here is that you know we didn't make it just a full box that's completely rigid across the whole thing we we picked and choose the areas that allowed you know a stronger stiffer area when some areas that need a little bit more uh give is is is not as stiff in that area very cool so even though it's fully boxed it's not like a rough riding hard solid frame like it will have some give in some areas very cool I appreciate it Craig everyone say thanks to Craig in the comments

Channel: TRD JON

Views: 33,573

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Id: x_PEje3WxjY

Length: 9min 56sec (596 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 02 2023