Toyota Diesel Tuners (1 Viewer)

[deepcrates]

I’ve been calling all the diesel shops around Oregon to see if they could tune my 1KZTE since I’ve got all the cooling sorted - I want to do start getting more power out of it and suit it for my driving. I’ve heard just upping the boost and switching to a manual pump would do it, however I really am not as comfortable doing any kind of tuning and tinkering with all that. I already have a manual boost controller upped to 13psi. That part was easy, but I’d like to get more out of it and definitely could use the help.

Curious if anyone knows of any Toyota diesel tuning shops or experts I could reach out to here on the west coast?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Indestructible 47]

Imho your not going to be able to get significant power gains from the 1kzte with the current modifications you have. The money required to make the 1kzte have the power that makes it just reasonable to drive isn't worth investing in it.

 

[deepcrates]

Imho your not going to be able to get significant power gains from the 1kzte with the current modifications you have. The money required to make the 1kzte have the power that makes it just reasonable to drive isn't worth investing in

So you don’t know any tuners? I completely understand but I want to at least work with what I have as best to its ability. I could do an engine swap but either way I don’t know of any tuners knowledgeable to work on these trucks.

From what I’ve read you can totally up the boost on the 1KZTE and it’ll take more than I’m giving it easily. from a money aspect I’m not worried about that. I’m already quite happy where it’s at I’m just curious if there’s a shop out there I can work with to work thru options including a different Toyota diesel or making my current setup work better for me.

 

[Indestructible 47]

So you don’t know any tuners? I completely understand but I want to at least work with what I have as best to its ability. I could do an engine swap but either way I don’t know of any tuners knowledgeable to work on these trucks.

From what I’ve read you can totally up the boost on the 1KZTE and it’ll take more than I’m giving it easily. from a money aspect I’m not worried about that. I’m already quite happy where it’s at I’m just curious if there’s a shop out there I can work with to work thru options including a different Toyota diesel or making my current setup work better for me.

No sorry, I live in Australia so to far away to know any good tuners in America. Just hate to see people burn their cash for nothing or not much but hey if you want to that's fine. Yes you can put more through the 1kzte but for what you get out of it, it's unfortunately a pretty poor return on investment.

 

[Tigris]

I don't have a recommendation on the tuner shop, but I believe that a reasonable amount of additional power is attainable with the 1kz-te using the correct modifications. The 1kz-te can indeed take a lot more pressure because it was was not born as a naturally aspirated engine. The block, crank, and the bottom end as a whole were designed robustly and can handle significant boost.

The 1kz-te's shortcomings and performance bottlenecks (and by extension, many other Toyota/JDMs diesels) are steming from stock-oriented heat management and tolerance at the head, indirect injection performance penalties, one intake/exhaust valve setup. Limited room for timing tuneability. And horrid intake/exhaust manifolds geometry.

With that being said I personally believe that by using the following combination (not in order) a significant performance increase can be had with good reliability:

1. Manual transmission spec radiator (without integrated AT cooler, and a coolant temp sensor.
2. A dedicated transmission cooler.
3. 10 blade fan or high quality/performance brushless shrouded electric fan.
4. Auxillary external oil cooler with filter relocation.
5. A slightly overkill liquid/air intercooler with an adequate single core double pass radiator.
6. OE electric controlled fuel injection pump with a daisy chained chip such as Unichip. Boost controller.
7. Ported head, correct geometry intake runners, velocity stacks, plenum with EGR/throttle body delete in design, equal length exhaust headers with a pyrometer, and a turbo-back 3" exhaust.

These items combined can get expensive, not so much if you can fabricate. The Unichip might be the single most expensive item as the rest are affordable/fabricatable.

I have a KZJ78 with the 1kz-te and this is my recipe for the upcoming period.

Best of luck!!

 

[Guyute]

Little outside of Portland proper... but TorFab in Everett is good.

B