Q: i whent to test drive an 05 tc and it sounded so lame, like a regular 4 cylinder car. all the vids i see online have a much deeper, richer sound, why such a difference? the engine cover had a VVT-i on it. is it still a TRD engine?
A: as the other people have said, yes all the engine's are the same. they all put out 160 (give or take a few) pounds of torque and have about 161 hp. the reason why you heard that is because they have added aftermarket parts to their car. some of them have added on axle/catbacks, headers, intakes, turbo's/superchargers. most likely though, people have just put on an axleback sometimes combined with a header or intake. if you want a deep grumbly sound, i would recommend the hks exhaust. and also, the tc engine has absolutely NOTHING to do with the celica engine. it's a different engine entirely than a celica, and the engine that is used in the camry's are the EXACT same thing that is in the tc. the only difference is that, as somebody mentioned before, the engine has been tuned differently to make it a low-end torque engine.