What quality fuel do you put in your Toyota Boats?

[phenom_1819]

Terry, break the bank. Get the TRD supercharger. 

[wakejunky]

Terry? Toyota's tend to be very hard to upgrade engine power. There are a few things , but its not a chevy or a ford so all those nice tuners (superchips) wont be available. I have not pushed really hard to find add ons. As i dont own one and I dont see alot of that kind of stuff at the dealership. But you may find some stuff. You might try looking on tundra solutions. Toyota has several firewalls keeping people away from reprogramming fuel curves.
? ? ?What I can recommend is opening up the exhaust with headers (TRD very expensive, JBA and Downey both reasonable). You can also add on cat back exhaust systems (TRD's is beautiful but expensive). Headers do tend to leak and cause problems so buy something that has good recommendations. Will you see a major gain? I really dont know. Ive test drove vehicles before and after installing TRD accessories and to be honest I was not that impressed for the money spent. The customers do swear by the additions and are usually impressed. Keep in mind I dont spend a lot of time comparing as I make my living on commission. I have been very impressed with TRD superchargers ( to be honest its really hard not to be considering your shelling out $3500 to $4500) The V8 superchargers have been discontinued, but some dealerships including mine still have them setting on the shelf.(TRD will not let them return them) Also TRD is being bought out by TMS and they will start cutting out the slow moving products.(such as the 7th injector kit for the 3.4 liters) Also the superchargers are very limited on application cutting off in the year 2003 or 2004. not sure off hand.
? ? ? There are always cold air intakes, but to be honest they are not that different then the factory and at least the factory is pulling cold air out from under the front fender. Most cold air kits have a K&N under the hood and to be honest what is so cold about that, Really? they will pull in all that hot air that is trapped under the hood. Just my 2 cents.
? ? The K&N filter replacement is a good start. I do recommend you buy and install the TRD thermostat that comes with the supercharger kits. Yes, you can get them seperate. It is a 170 degree thermostat and will make the computer think the engine is cold and it will add fuel. Getting you close to that 12.4 to 1 air fuel ratio. (that is where full power is achieved) It will probably use additional fuel.
? ? The premium fuel should definitly get you started. Remember to disconnect that battery for 5 minutes when you fill up.? I wish I had some better suggestions but Toyota makes it difficult for the aftermarket to really start messing with these engines. Not like Ford and Chevy that make it easy. they almost recommend it.
? ? Be warned there is alot of junk out there promising all kinds of gains do your homework, ask questions, and be realistic. Is that magnet they put over a fuel line really going to give you 5 mpg yeah right!!!! common sense will get you along way if it sounds to good to be true it probably is. Throttle body spacers are a waste of money on multipoint fuel injections systems. About 99.9% are these days.

? ? think logially BIG GAINS are going to cost BIG MONEY and will always lower your fuel economy. It takes fuel to make power. If something is cheap, wont damage your engine, and gets 4 mpg better fuel economy you can bet your ass Toyota would have installed it at the factory. if they would be able to raise their CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) numbers and be able to compete with Chevy trucks fuel economy they wouldnt hesitate a second.? Ebay has got to be a suckers paradise I have seen some real crap come from there. Resistors, electric turbos, dont waste your money after all we need it for our Epics.
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[Bitzco]

Here's my two cents on the Epic fuel issue. I usually use Chevron Premium in my baby, but on one occasion I forgot to fill up and the only station around was a Maverick. filled her up there (premium) and had soem weird stuff happen on the lake. The boat would lose power, then power up again repeatedly. It was sort of like the motor was stuttering. Scared the crap out of me, and my first thought was to get new plugs. Fortunately, we burned that whole tank of gas that day and the next time out, I filled up with the Chevron again. No problem since. I'm sticking with big name brand gas and premium only.

[Bitzco]

After all, the babes hat it when you stutter.

[Lakeside]

With regard to octane, you might not be getting what you pay for at the pump.? A scandal is brewing in our area because gasoline trucking firms, in collusion with gas stations, are filling the underground tanks with regular gasoline, even in the premium underground tanks at many gas stations.?

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, here's how the scam works.? Gas station owners watch oil futures.? When the price is on the way up, they put an order in for gasoline, including far more regular gasoline than a station has capacity for in its underground tanks.? A tanker truck then arrives at the station with too much regular gas.? The gas station owner "tips" the driver to pump the extra regular into the premium underground tanks and the deal is done and the consumer is ripped off.?

When the trucker encounters an unscrupulous gas station owner, he is supposed to report it to his oil terminal to get another assignment to take the extra regular gas to another station.? The catch is that this often involves having the driver make an unscheduled stop someplace else that wastes a great deal of the driver's time.? Since drivers are paid per delivery, they want to get in and out of gas stations as quickly as possible without having to worry about managing the inventory of regular and premium gas on their trucks.? So, in order to maximize their paychecks by getting in and out of gas stations quickly, as well as to collect "tips," they are dumping regular gas into the premium underground tanks.

In our area, independent operators own 95% of gas stations, even if they sell brand name gas.? They are being squeezed by $2.00+/gallon gas, since most people pay at the pump with a credit card.? As the price of gas has gone up, the amount per gallon that they must pay in credit card fees has skyrocketed but they have not passed this on to the consumer.? They still build the same $0.10/gallon into the price that they always have, but increased credit card fees are eating much of this margin.? So, the gas station owners are being squeezed hard and many resort to unscrupulous behavior to boost their margins.

According to the paper, the problem has been evident in Wisconsin and Michigan.? When an octane scandal was uncovered in Indiana in the early 90's they found that half the gasoline sold in the state did not have the octane advertised on the pump.? I'd be willing to bet that this is going on to some degree everywhere.

If you are interested, you can read about this at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel web site:

http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/apr05/317263.asp

Since octane cheating is a big story here right now, there are links to all kinds of articles talking about running high end engines on low end gas, etc.

[highflyn]

Thanks for the info Junky. Enough power to pull the Epic and 20 mph on the highway. I geuss I'll keep her the way she is.
Terry

[dawsonr]

Wake junkie asked what the difference is between 87 and 92 octane.  Basically, the primary difference is that the additive reduces the rate at which the air/fuel mixture burns.  The higher compression motors squeeze the air/fuel mixture to higher pressures, increasing the rate at which the air/fuel mixture burns, and at some point the rate of burn approaches that of an explosion.  When that happens. instead of getting a steady increase in pressure pushing done on the piston, turning the crank shaft, you get a rapid increase in pressure.  Our engines have crossed that threshold and there for, a chemical is added to decrease the rate of burn back to a (theoritacally) straight line increase in pressure instead of a exponential increase in pressure.  Ideally, when the air/fuel mixture is ignited, the pressure in the cylinder would be uniform the entire time the piston is moving down the cylinder.  Seems odd that the higher octane actually reduces the progression of burn starting at the spark plug and continuing outward until all the fuel is consumed, but that is essentially what it does.

[toyotafreak]

If you have a TOYOTA truck, you need to spring for a lifetime membership to Tundra Solutions. I bought the 1-year last year and am going to go lifetime upon renewal. Used it for really good procedures (alignment specs, tranny flush, brake fluid flush/bleed) and of course all the product reviews, and simple but hard-to-find-elsewhere info like what twenty tire width/rim size combinations did for different owners. It's a great forum, and so far Bitzy's not there with his gorgeous mates.


BTW, our K&N intake added 7% to peak power/torque, helped throughout the rpm range and gave good seat-of-the-pants help above 3K rpm. Our TRD catback sounds and looks cool, but I doubt there's much performance gain there. JBA headers would be my next move. My personal dyno results from the K&N runs are on Tundra Solutions if you're interested. Basically, the '03 engine comes from the factory with a peak RWHP of 200, and the intake kit raised it to 214.

[lesman01]

I will continue running chevron 93 in my Epic. I recently changed to running hi octane in my 2003 4runner v8 and my Tacoma. (yes, we are a Toyota family. I once had an acura legend coupe, great car, BTW, but have always been a toyota man)

Can't say as I realized a difference. Although in the tacoma (2000) I noticed that the sticking throttle due to needing the injectors cleaned cleared up after about 2 tanks. techron?

Anyway i found this thread where the consensus seemed to be "it does not matter" interesting reading. Seems to be many a-holes - I mean "opinions" about the topic.

http://www.toyota-4runner.org/showthread.php?s=48b349df126e5e226e4abd8279598f76&threadid=683

I may go back to 87 in my autos.