Not A Copy/Paste Tacoma Build

Here's a couple pics from the Canada day long weekend. We had this whole lake to ourselves. There was a rockslide across the main fsr that turned a lot of people around, including a jeep club.

Spent 2 nights fishing, exploring, reading in the hammock, swimming, chilling by the fire, and eating awesome food! Perfect weekend!

 

Can't ask for a better time than that!

 

I did this a few weeks ago but never put up the picture! No more gravel in my airbox!!!! Now I just have to figure out what to do with all that empty space..... I'm thinking tool kit?

idea stolen from this thread: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/different-approach-to-a-snorkel.266449/

 

Awesome long weekend pics.

I only got this.

 

That looks like a great time too! Always nice to be with friends! Fire ban is on hard here in BC right now. forest fires everywhere

 

Oh we know all about your forest fires as Calgary is getting all the smoke from them. Hope you and yours are all safe.

 

Where are the pics from the trip to Argentina?

 

all of my family is thankfully safe, thanks!

Most of the fires are started by inconsiderate smokers chucking their butts and trying to force all of us to inhale smoke all day long. I just dont understand how people can be so stupid with stuff like that

 

Trip hasn't commenced yet! We were in the prepping stage (saving money, setting up the truck etc) Though we are in a tough spot... we had originally planned to be leaving in September, but now our business is starting to really grow unexpectedly, and we don't want to throw it away, so we may have to delay our trip until we are able to get our business stable and find somebody who can manage it. Pro obviously being income while we travel, Con being that we have to wait a couple years....

We are figuring all this out, but it looks like I should be changing the title of this thread... Just can't follow all of the passions at the same time.

 

Congrat's on the booming business. Maybe our trips down south might overlap now. ;-)

 

Thanks! we are about to take a huge leap and open up an actual retail space, which will be amazing, but is also a large financial risk (obviously). Super exciting, but super terrifying at the same time!!

That would be incredible if we could meet up and do part of the trip together!!!!

 

Well, after a blown nitrocharger strut, a timeline crunch, and waiting for warranty, I caved and purchased the OME BP-51 kit


I deliberated for a very long time on whether to go King or OME. It basically came down to what I valued more: an inch or so more travel from the King's or more sophisticated damping and rebound control with the BP-51's. I decided that for my uses, I would rather have the ability to adjust both compression and rebound, and would reap more from of the benefits of the internal bypass system rather than the extra little bit of travel.
Being a few hundred dollars cheaper didn't hurt either. Sure they're not as blingy as those beautiful blue Kings, but I don't regret my decision. I have never ridden in a vehicle fitted with King, while I have had the opportunity to drive the ARB 2016 Tacoma, so that may have helped the decision as well! 3 year warranty is also nice.

I can't compare to King, obviously, and I'm sure I would have loved the ride on those as well, but what I can do is compare the BP-51's to my old nitrocharger + 886 set up.

Install was pretty straight forward. Fitting the front coilovers was no problem. I already had the Dakars w/ AAL, so getting in the rear shocks wasn't difficult either. I did run into 2 issues though, that had nothing to do with the BP-51's. First off, I could not get the top nut off of the old OME shocks off. Despite much wire brushing, lubrication, etc, the nuts just would not come undone. I ended up just cutting them off, which kind of sucked, but whatever. My second issue was the reservoir mount on the driver side. It is supposed to reuse two bolts that hold a rear brake line bracket. Once again, after much wire brushing and lubrication, I attempted to remove the bolts which snapped off with almost no effort on my part. Of course there's no easy way to get at the back to cut off the welded on nuts, and no way to drill them out. After spending a bunch of futile hours attempting everything I could think of, I gave up, and just welded the mount on, and welded the brake line bracket back on top. Not including those 2 hickups, I estimate the install took me about 4 hours.

I had enough time to get the compression and rebound pretty well dialled in for my typical terrain/load in the last 2 days of being off road (finished the install yesterday, and immediately left for a solo camping trip.), and the difference from the old suspension is substantial.

On road, the ride is pretty well the same. The only big difference is that body roll is pretty well eliminated. I have no sway-bar, and used to have to hold on to the console or the door when going around decent bends. If there was an S in the road, the weight transfer of my top-heavy (and over all, heavy) truck was pronounced, and you would have to be ready for it. With the BP-51, my truck stays level through all of the same corners, but still feels smooth over regular road imperfections. Another big difference was speed bumps. The Nitrochargers had a strong tendency of topping out super hard. come over a speed bump and there was a loud thud as the suspension fully extended. The first thing I did once I had finished the install was hit the speed bumps by my house a few times, and I could go quite quickly over them, and there was no suspension noise (my truck makes lots of other noise...) and over all, the whole experience was entirely uneventful.

Over rough/loose dirt roads, I can move a lot faster than before, and still feel easily in control. The suspension stays completely composed through rough pot holes at any speed that I tried (got up to about 80km/h through a bunch of pot holes). Going around 60km/h with the nitrochargers had me bouncing around and every bump was harsh. With the BP-51, those moments when you're driving at night and see a cross ditch just a little too late and hit it going too fast, I would be completely tensed up, wincing hard, and double fisting the steering wheel with white knuckles expecting a loud bang, and all of my belongings to attempt ejecting through the roof. But the hard bottom out, and big bounce afterwards never came. everything in the back stayed in place, and I kept moving forward, without getting squirrelly or any of that nonsense.

I would have to say that having the rebound adjustment is probably more important than the compression adjustment, in my opinion. Being able to find that fine line of traction, without the potential of getting bucked after a deep compression was huge. On the compression adjustment side, I found that keeping things a little firmer in the back really helped out the Dakars with my heavy load. For the fronts, I kept things pretty well where they were, just enough that I was using most of the travel consistently, and would only bottom when I knew I had made a mistake and hit something too fast. I tried softer, and it was a nice ride, but when I pushed it a little more, I was riding the stops. Firmer was just unnecessary, and i could really feel the smaller bumps. Speaking of adjustments, it's really awesome how much of a difference even 1 or 2 "steps" change the ride quality. I say "steps" in quotations, because these are infinitely adjustable, with no preset "clicks".

Slow moving situations where flex was more important, everything moved predictably. There was no bouncing, or excessive body roll, the wheels just stayed planted as you would expect.

Washboard was very muted. I ran my tires at 18psi, and that obviously helps a lot to take the edge off, but I could definitely tell the difference, as the truck maintained traction while my old nitrochargers had a tendency to start to lose traction at speed.

Braking traction was good, and the truck didn't try to nose dive as much as it used to when I jammed the stoppers. In dirt, I found that the ABS doesn't kick in as easily (in fact, very rarely), which means that the wheels are more firmly in contact with the ground, maintaining good traction, which prevents lock up.

As for cons, using the adjuster wrench between the coils is a bit annoying. King's compression adjuster knob looks much easier to use, though King doesn't have a rebound adjustment. Also, I understand that OME's whole thing is that you can install their product on your vehicle without any other modifications, however, it would be awesome to have the option to get the benefits of more travel combined with internal bypass damping. Also, one other thing I didn't mention about the install: the design for how the rock guards on the rear struts attach is stupid. It works fine, but it could have been way simpler and easier to use.

I'm sure kings are the same way, and maybe even better in some ways (definitely in looks... that blue tho...) but over all, I'm super pleased with the BP-51's. I am really excited about the adjustability, and look forward to playing around with them even more. The suspension stays composed through repetitive bumps, and doesn't jostle you around.

Anyway, to those of you who actually read that entire brick of text, congratulations!

 

Great write up, I'm now super jealous - where did you get the kit from?

 

Thanks!

I got it from @Wheeler's Off-Road Inc . They were super quick on the shipping! Got them on and dialled in just in time for next week's long weekend!

 

Not to sound uber creepy but I literally just followed you out of the Highstreet Mall parking lot this past evening.

Nice truck!

 

Haha that's awesome! My wife and I saw your truck walking back and were like "hey a cool Tacoma that looks like it actually goes off road! We should be friends with that guy!"

You have a sweet truck too man!

 

I indeed I do. Truck has lot's of bumps and scrapes.
I was admiring your high clearance rear bumper. I need something similar after pretzeling my stock rear a few weeks ago on a tree lol. Do you live in the area?

 

Haha yeah man! Badges of honour! I highly recommend getting an HC rear. Helps in a lot of situations, plus just never having to worry about smashing it.

I live in New Westminster! We were just out in Abby meeting somebody about some marketing stuff for our business!

 

Definitely. I have a standard all pro rear that's been waiting to go on but hell, I keep smacking those lower box sides lol so it's gotta go.

Nice! My girlfriend lives there too. We'll have to go for a rip sometime! Are you in the BCToyota4WD group on facebook?

 

I'm not on Facebook, but my wife is in the group!

Definitely let's get out there!