jt0716 said:
Sounds good. I appreciate your feedback! Could you reccomend any other small upgrades that would enhance performance?
Keeping up with maintenance is a key to good performance/economy. Run a high quality synthetic motor oil that meets the viscocity recommendations for your operating climate temperatures as well as using full synthetics in your tranny/x-fer case/differential, keep your zerk fittings along the driveline lubricated with a good synthetic grease(Amsoil or Mobil1), make sure your spark plugs are new and properly gapped(maybe even properly rotated if you're picky), and keep your tires inflated to recommended spec or a possibly a few PSI higher than recommended if you only street-drive the truck(do a chalk test to find proper inflation for aftermarket tires). Also make sure your vehicle is alligned and wheels balanced so that it tracks straight and doesn't vibrate significantly at highway speeds, and make sure that none of your calipers are dragging. Make sure that your air filter is clean and your O2 sensors are working(If they weren't, you'd have a Check Engine light on), and if your truck is equipped with a PCV Valve, check or replace it every few years(I believe this is only applicable to the V6-equipped Tacos and California-spec 4-Cylinder Taco's made between the '95-'2004 timeframe... or something in that general range).
I haven't tried it out on this vehicle specificly, but if you switch in a straight intake pipe(unresonated) and couple it with some form of higher flowing air-filter(Do a search for the Deckplate Mod if you want a cheap intake mod), you might gain some exhaust sound as well as a little fuel economy and 1 to 4 WHP that you will never be able to feel on the butt-dyno. I did this on my G35 and gained 1.5 to 2 MPG across the board consistently over 1 year test period just from those 2 mods together(if you saw a picture of the stock intake pipe on this car, you'd know why it was soo inefficient).
Also make sure that you are running the proper grade of gasoline as recommended for your particular engine. Running 94 Octane fuel in a low compression engine that was designed to handle 87 Octane won't yield you any performance benefits of any sort... you'll just be spending more money per gallon to purchase it. On the other hand, if you put 87 octane fuel in a vehicle that is designed to handle 91 or 92 octane(high compression engine/Forced Induction), you will suffer decreased economy and power as well as potentially damaging the engine internals if the octane deficiency was enough to cause significant enough knock such that the ECU's Knock-Sensing timing-retardation can't compensate for.
High flow headers/cats and a free flowing aftermarket piping and mufflers will give you some additional power and economy. There also might be an ECU upgrade or chip-reflash available for your truck which can change the fuel maps and A/F ratios so that are less forgiving and will yield optimal performance.