Ram-Air Intake for Turbo Toyota Tacoma

00:00 For three decades, the Tacoma came with wheezy old naturally aspirated engines. The biggest engine you could get was Toyota’s 4-point-slow V6 — famous for the power of a four-banger and the fuel economy of a V8. For its fourth gen, Toyota got smart and added a turbo. And

00:20 since turbos are kind of my thing, we bought this TRD Off-Road. We’re going to take this 2.4L 4-cylinder turbo motor and make some real power — starting with intake airflow. We’ve engineered a Banks Ram-Air intake system that adds 18.3 wheel horsepower and 17.7 pound-feet of torque. The

00:40 difference in flow between the stock system and ours is like the difference between a drinking straw and a fire hose. The increased flow coupled with the Ram-Air effect increases air density — and density is everything. Increased air density means you can burn more fuel at

00:53 the proper air-fuel ratio, creating more horsepower. The stock intake was designed with cost as its primary constraint, not performance. And that’s evident on the dyno. It’s starving your turbo for air with its small diameter tubes and restrictive air filter

01:07 housing — and your new engine deserves better. The new Ram-Air intake system eliminates both of those problems, effectively supercharging your turbo. But what does that mean? Simply put, as air density inside the Ram-Air intake increases with vehicle velocity, it

01:23 takes some of the workload away from your turbo — meaning it can create the same intake air density at a lower compressor shaft speed, allowing your turbo to work more efficiently. And adding our large-diameter, high-flow boost tubes with mandrel bends and

01:36 machined aluminum couplers reduces even more restrictions between the turbo and your engine. But more on that in another video. As vehicle velocity increases, ambient air is forced into the intake filter housing. We’ve eliminated the airflow restrictions found in the stock

01:50 duct. And while the stock system ultimately chokes down to a measly 8.3 square inches, the Banks Ram-Air duct has a 22.5-inch primary opening and an 8-inch side port, totaling 30.5 square inches — a 267% increase in cross-sectional area. Plus, it sounds pretty damn good too.

02:13 Now that we’re getting air into the intake system as efficiently as possible, we have to filter it. And in our case, a panel filter or a filter that’s too small simply isn’t going to cut it. While a panel filter does a good job of collecting dirt and dust,

02:27 its main appeal to Toyota is that it’s inexpensive to produce. Unfortunately, these filters are restrictive — they make your engine work harder for its air. Some drop-in replacement filters can increase airflow, but they often cause check engine lights on

02:41 newer vehicles like our Tacoma. Brands you’re probably familiar with cause these lights because they haven’t done proper testing to match the airflow requirements your truck’s ECM demands. Our Banks Big-Ass Filter blows both the stock and aftermarket filters out of the water in every way.

02:55 First off — look at it. It’s huge. This larger design allows us to optimize the density of the filter pleats, which allows more air through. This more open design also increases the maximum dirt load the filter can hold. Competing filters with densely packed pleats get caked up quickly since dirt can’t reach the bottom of the pleat — leaving unused media.

03:23 While some competitors use a similarly shaped conical filter, they don’t always size the outlet properly — going from a large filter outlet into a near-stock size intake tube. Ours retains the full cross-sectional area of the filter. We’ve carefully optimized the filter’s volume against the housing’s internal volume to ensure the incoming air is evenly distributed across the entire face of the filter.

03:53 You paid for the whole filter — you should get to use all of it, right? Notice how the filter slides into the housing, allowing uniform airflow distribution around the entire filter and easy installation. Or you can be like the other guys and risk damaging your filter just trying to squeeze it in. [Music]

04:20 Now we need to get that clean, dense air from the filter outlet to the turbo inlet. This is the job of the intake tube. Air flowing through a tube experiences friction drag — the stickiness between the air and the tube walls — which slows the entire flow. This is called

04:37 the boundary layer, where airflow velocity transitions to zero at the walls compared to the faster free stream in the center. Make too abrupt a transition in direction or diameter and the boundary layer separates, thickens, produces turbulence, and negatively impacts that faster-moving

04:52 free stream of air. Ultimately, this diminishes the overall effective flow of the tube — acting almost like a smaller-diameter pipe. It means your engine has to work harder to draw in its required mass flow, effectively choking the turbo and

05:07 making it less efficient. The Banks Ram-Air intake not only increases tube size from just 2.75 inches to a massive 5 inches at the filter outlet, it also uses smoother transitions in both shape and direction. Softer bends reduce the boundary layer thickness and help prevent separation from the inner surface — cutting turbulence.

05:35 The bellows joint, where the rigid intake meets the moving engine, is another issue. Toyota’s design isn’t ideal — the bellows ridges disrupt the boundary layer as air crashes into them. The Banks Ram-Air has a bellows too, but our intake tube continues past the start of the flexible joint, preventing airflow disruption while still allowing engine movement.

06:08 We could’ve pushed the truck harder for bigger horsepower claims, but that would create a lean air-fuel ratio — which could shorten engine life or even cause serious damage. Banks doesn’t take shortcuts like that. We add safe, usable horsepower that increases engine longevity.

06:22 You bought a Tacoma because you wanted reliability — and we’re not about to compromise that. If you want even more performance for your Toyota Tacoma, good news — we didn’t stop with the Banks Ram-Air intake. We’re engineering an upgraded intercooler and Monster Exhaust, both coming soon.

06:36 Make sure to like and subscribe, because we’ve got a lot more coming for these new Tacomas. And hit that notification bell so you don’t miss out. [Music]