Bandido's Bad at Taking Pictures '03 DC Build

Working on that now. Trying to find the min angle from vertical that lets me stuff the rears without bringing the shocks to full bump.

 

@m3bassman ben this may be a good solution for the tacoma locker you have been without for so long.

 

@gordi @m3bassman I'll check my rock auto orders and try to post a link to exactly what I bought sometime this weekend if that helps.

 

So I finished the rear suspension, but with the new shackles and new springs, the truck held its ass in the air like a bitch in heat, so I immediately modified the OE shackles to fit the greasable bolts from the daystar shackle kit, seems to work.... Pic of the ass up high:


Also after replacing the upper heims on the A-arms and the Tie Rod inners, my steering rack still had a ton of play resembling a tie rod inner... but as it was only on the driver side, after some searching, I determined it was the steering rack guide! I found a thread from a 3rd gen 4runner forum that was a great write up on how to change the guide out... however I'd suggest some changes for anyone who has a '03 or '04 first gen taco. They re-designed the rack guide to be just a teflon plate basically that will almost never wear out. Instead the spring just sags, and you can add a few ft lbs to the backing plate to tighten it back up, and save yourself $80.

The old spring is almost 2mm shorter!
I also fixed an exhaust leak and tightened my serpentine belts, truck is in top form right now.
I should probably take a picture of it...
I did notice while doing this job that my skid plate is very good friends with my stability bar, stability bar is now in the cross hairs for a mod.

 

I think my Icon's are in need of a re-valve and my front LCA bushings are in need of replacement. Truck wallows in the corners more than ever now, even with the stability bar back on. I kind of want to change the LCA mounting to correct geometry a little... but this could impact reliability, so I'll draw some stuff up before modding. I also realized I should change my rear shock mounting, I can get the shock almost a full inch higher, which I should do...
Anyway, revalve planning, my 2.5" icon should currently have:
Compression stack T D

1. 0.015 0.925
2. 0.015 1.05
3. 0.015 1.175
4. 0.018 1.3
5. 0.015 1.425
6. 0.015 1.55
7. 0.015 0.925
8. 0.015 1.55
9. 0.015 0.925

total thickness 0.138

I think I want to switch to:

1. 0.018 1.3
2. 0.012 0.925
3. 0.012 1.175
4. 0.015 1.3
5. 0.018 1.425
6. 0.01 1.175
7. 0.018 1.55
8. 0.01 0.925
9. 0.01 1.175
10. 0.01 1.55
11. 0.012 0.925

total thickness 0.145

What this should give me is: more digressive preload, resulting in better cornering stiffness, but also a smoother/bigger crossover step, with a second crossover shim after the main crossover, this should make the shock behave more digressively (stiffer) at low speeds, but then also more progressively (stiffer) at higher speeds. The digressive region of the curve should be an even shorter spike than the Icon valving, but with a pretty smooth, and also more extreme falloff in damping force, before ramping up more quickly than Icon's valving to be slightly stiffer at peak piston speeds. I'm not sure if the 1.3 shim after the fulcrum shim will do what I want it to do, it should serve as a "flexible backing shim" vs a rate plate, controlling the peak piston speed, I'm adding this shim under the assumption that the piston ports will not limit peak piston speed as they do in a conventional progressive shock.
Changing shock valving 'cause it will cost $300 and 12 hours vs buying a proper long travel setup, or even more/bypass shocks.
Feedback welcome.

For the stability bar, I think I'll try to install a BMW hydraulic center section with an electric valve to clip the loop, when the loop is open= SB, loop closed = no SB. I'd also like to stiffen the SB somehow, either by replacing a large portion of the center section, or sleeving it to make this change even more noticeable.

 

Realized I haven't made a post in a while...
Just got back from the DBBB for the first time, GF and I did about 45 miles worth or so, first 3 trail sections, it was real muddy, and I got caught out in one section and had to air down. Probably should have done this right after the "sensitive land owner," I unfortunately added to the ruts a bit in that first section...
We did have a small scare when we stopped for lunch, the truck wouldn't start!
I DC'd the battery and waited for ~10 mins and then it got started... it stumbled for a couple minutes but then ran fine.

I had the go-pro on for the first section of trails, that section was definitely the most challenging, and mostly due to the mud, if I think of it I'll put something on YouTube later.

 

Realized that I never posted any "after" pictures with the bed off from doing my rear shock relocation.


After driving around for a bit now, the body roll is not as bad as I feared, but I still want to reinstall sway bar(s) (with disconnects), especially when/if I'm able to do all the mods that I want to do...
A couple more things are going to need attention soon, my front rotors have either already warped, or have accumulated so much pad, that they are making the truck shake HARD under braking... I've also noticed that my rear brakes aren't doing shit, so my brakes need some work.

I've been really busy with non truck stuff lately, so parts have been piling up, and so have plans!
Parts:
x20c winch
arb knockoff LED's
snorkel
R150F + all the stuff


Plans (with a semblance of order):
-Install all that stuff ^
-Do a .69 Hino 5th swap prior to sticking the box in
-Regear to... 5.3s? my math says that with the 5th gear and 35s, I should be turning ~2600RPM at 70MPH, would would be downright pleasant
-CB radio setup
-Make a rear swing out
-Make a bed rack (1.75"x.083")
-make a roof rack (1.00" x .065")
-Get an RTT (scene points af)
-Get 35s
-install front and rear SB's with electronic disconnects
-aux fuel tank where the spare tire used to be
-dual battery setup, I'm unsure which route to go for this one
-GM 250a alternator
********************************************************
-2GR swap... no one seems to agree with me about how good this would be in a 1st gen, maybe I'll post about all my reasons if anyone cares lol
-make a long travel setup up front (ideally switching to 2nd gen spindles, no feasibility study yet tho)
-bypass shocks all over
-1GR supercharger, I'm 97% sure this will work on the 2GR, the 2GR lower intake manifold to upper mating surface/bolt pattern/ports is identical to the rev2 1GR

Realistically this means spend another ~17k on my truck, with about $12k below the ***, but I had to write it all down somewhere so that I could maybe stop thinking about it all... hopefully it will all happen in the next 2 years or so, but we'll see.

 

Makes me feel better about my to do list lol

 

Going all out!!

 

But how many of my "to do"s have you already done??

 

Fortunately the immediate "to do" list isn't so bad!

But looking at dynos all day... the 2GR mod looks so good!
add 20-50 ftlbs across the board, add about 100 hp, increase the redline by 1500ish RPM, improve cruising VE which should eke out an MPG or 2...
Which is similar TQ gain to an SC, better power gain, and a huge power-band increase, for a similar cost, but more effort.

The 2GR coupled with 5.29's and the hino 5th... I might get back closer to 20mpg, and I'll go 0-60 in single digit numbers!

For the effort, a UZ or UR (not going LS) would offer more power, and much higher power ceilings, but the cost would be a bit more, and MPG hit would be substantial.
Adding a 1GR S/C to the 2GR would add an estimated (based on TRD Aurion) 40ft lbs across the board, and improve low end TQ by almost 65 ft lbs, and shouldn't negatively impact cruising MPG...
But the cost of that S/C is a ton, so this mod is out in lala land for the time being.

 

Scored some hekkin sweet seats today that I hope will fit in my truck.
I think they are out of a Camry, originally from an IS250 or something, the leather is beaten up but they have all the bells and whistles...

Once I can figure out what they're from I'll be able to hunt down a wiring diagram, and see what I can get to work.
GF is very excited about the prospect of Lumbar Support/Heated/Cooled seats...

 

Keep us updated on the seats! I see something that looks like a fan under there... Are they ventilated seats?

 

They seem to be!
They weren't set up correctly in the car I got them out of though, so I don't know what works.
I'm gonna test fit
Build stanchions if need be
Search up wiring diagrams
Do some bench testing to get stuff working
Wire it in and install.
It'll probably be a few months before I install tho.

GF has stuff I need to get done first lol.

 

Nice build, sub'd to see more.
Have you done the 5 speed swap yet?
Im thinking of doing the same but there are so many options for transmissions and the one I want seems non existent.
Ideally the R151F with a gear driven tcase would be the best option but second option would be the R150F.

 

Haa just did the same on your thread!
I haven't done the swap yet... I do have all the parts now, but my truck is winter DD so I'm waiting for the weather and my Girlfriend's to-do list to mellow out before starting.

I agree that a R151F would be optimal, but theres so few available, and people want $1200+ for them . My thinking is that with 4.88 or 5.29 gears an R150F and a .69 5th swap, you can get the best low/high speed compromise out of a manual at the lowest dollar.

 

Did you got with the R150F for your swap?
Also I recently decided I need to do a SAS, but that will be in a year or two and run 35s or 37s. I currently have 4.88 and the truck feels like stock with 33s.
If I go with a 5 speed and 35s with my calculations it will be just about the same. with 37s it will be slightly under geared which I would be ok with.

 

Since I need to know stuff... I made a spread sheet to help figure it out.
Below the Stock AT and Stock MT(MT) use 30.5" for tire diameter and everything else uses 33" X and Y axis should really be switched, but W/E.
The AT with 33" tires and 4.88's will maintain almost the same rpm@speed as the MT with .69 5th gear on 33's also with 4.88's.
Since wheel torque is also a top issue, I made a chart for that too!
in this one, AT and MT are both 5vz with 30.5 diameter tires.
My chart doesn't show Torque converter torque/slip, but basically draw a flattish line off to the left of the first slowing in the torque curve to simulate that... So the AT has MUCH less net torque at speed than the MT, however at 0mph, it has lots more 'cause of the magic salad mixer.

The yellow and grey lines represent a 2GR torque curve. I've mapped some other options, such as 5vz supercharged and 1GR, 1GR supercharged etc, but since I'm currently planning a 2gr swap thats what I left turned on in the plot lol, key point is that the powerband is almost 2k rpm more than the 5vz, with more power and torque.

The drive force plot doesn't account for the increase in rotational mass of switching to a heavier larger tire, but it should. Maybe I'll make an estimate based on fortera triple tread data and Duratrec data and check the result. Certainly the heavier tire negatively impacts available driving force, and in this case, would lower all the non stock tire curves a little bit.

 

You got me. I didn't do calculations to this extent but here is where I ended up.
3.4 engine has 2 options 4 speed auto and 5 speed manual
4 speed
1st - 2.804
2nd - 1.531
3rd - 1.000
4th - .705

5 Speed
1st - 3.830
2nd - 2.062
3rd - 1.436
4th - 1.00
5th - 0.838

with my handy online calculator I've came up with the following: (this is for 4 speed auto)
stock 4.10 on 30s traveling @70mph I'll be in (2266rpm)
current 4.88 on 33s traveling @70mph I'll be in (2452rpm)
Option 1: 4.88 on 35s traveling @70mph I'll be in (2312rpm)
Option 2: 4.88 on 37s traveling @70mph I'll be in (2187rpm)

Now with a 5 speed swap here are the numbers:

4.88 on 33s traveling @70mph I'll be in (2915rpm)
Option 1: 4.88 on 35s traveling @70mph I'll be in (2748rpm)
Option 2: 4.88 on 37s traveling @70mph I'll be in (2600rpm)

I think the 3.4 5 speed swap on 37s will be different from stock running at 334rpm higher @70mph is as close as ill get.​