Tacomarin’s Chubby Unicorn Build

Jeeez, spoiler alert!

Yeah I got the Northstar installed.


I'm planning on doing the same thing as you. I picked up a NOCO genius G7200 to top off the battery when needed.

 

Great build!

 

keep coming back to your build page to just look at the ADS suspension, I have not yet installed mine. Need to get around to it but the snow has been to good to not go to the mountains. Anyways, How are they? Impressions after having them on for a while now? Had to adjust them much?

 

You’re going to love them. I unfortunately haven’t had a chance to really take them off road yet. Hoping to remedy that next month. I lowered them down a little from my initial settings to get me at about a 2 5/8” lift up front. I haven’t done much with the compression adjusters yet because I have liked how it rides. I’ve got it set in the middle right now. My only complaint right now is I think my UCA are maxing out pretty easily. I rode in my buddy's truck with a Fox setup and the same amount of lift but a uniball UCA and his doesn’t seem to top out at all. Who knows.....

 

I had the debate over Uniball UCA vs others ended up going with JBA UCAs. I have nothing bad to say about them and supposedly according to his website they should out perform a uniball. I also don't want the maintenance that comes along with the Uniballs. Your ride is looking sweet. I cant wait to get ADS on all four corners. Pretty excited to try them out this spring around Moab

 

This build is.... Aight

 

After doing a bit more digging in the ADS thread I'm pretty convinced I'm actually feeling my coilovers topping out. It's pretty rare, just when I'm dropping off a ledge or mobbing over speed humps. Going to do a bit of digging this weekend but I should have about 3" of down travel so I'm kind of surprised they are topping out. Apparently they have been working on a topout softener so it's less abrupt but I'm not sure when they are going to put that in the 2.5's. They also said that topping them out doesn't hurt anything which definitely makes me feel better about it, but I don't love how it feels. Hopefully by the time they're due for a rebuild they can add those on to mine. Either way, you're going to love your setup!

 

Confirmed today that it was my coilovers topping out. The UCA still have more room to go. I had 1 7/8" of down travel and so I dialed my coilovers down a few turns and that seems to have resolved my topping out issue. Now to wait and see if I need to take a leaf spring out of my pack to get the height right...

 

Mind sharing how many threads you have showing now?

 

I’m at 3/4” of threads on passenger and 1 1/4” driver to compensate for the lean. That’s on 700#x14” springs.

 

@tacomarin do you have the measurement from hub center to fender for the amount of lift you have? I have a DCLB with aluminum front bumper, 10k winch, RCI aluminum differential and transmission skid plates, RCI sliders. I tried to use your last preload setting and from what I see I'm only at 1.5" of lift. This is based off a factory 21" measurement from hub center to fender I took from a truck at the dealership. I have a bit less weight and the same preload on 700 coils on ADS extended travel coilovers on the same groupbuy so I'm confused why I'm not getting a bit more lift compared to you. Thanks!

 

Yo! So a couple things to clarify.... 1) I lowered my front end down about 1/2-3/4" from where it was in these pics. I wasn't happy with how much it was topping out. It actually rode fine generally, it's just when I would go over potholes or mob over speed humps it would top out. Pic below of how I've got it set now.

The other thing is the lift measurement nomenclature. Since all these lifts work with 2nd gen Tacomas which were 1" lower than 3rd gen Tacomas, all the lifts are based on those numbers. So a 2.5" lift is actually just 1.5" over stock 3rd gen. I'm measuring about 22.25" from hub to fender right now, which is a "2.25 inch lift" for Tacomas, but 1.25" over stock for us. It's stupid nomenclature but that's how it is. From my experience, you don't want to go much higher than 1.5" of lift for the 3rd gens because the CV boots will start rubbing. Lots of people are running 3" spacer lifts but most people with coilovers are sticking to 2-2.5". The good news is 33's-35's look pretty awesome on these trucks with all the appropriate trimming. I'm making my way to 34's here soon which I'm pretty pumped about because I think it will look 100x better and perform even better offroad.

 

You are the man! That makes so much better sense. I knew the 3rd gen sits an inch taller but I didn't realize the lift numbers are based off the 2nd gen. Thanks for the knowledge!

Are you going regear for 34s?

 

Yeah I don’t think most people do know the second gen thing and it confuses everyone. They really should make that clear when they sell these kits.

I probably will regear eventually. I picked up an OVTune kit recently that I’m going to try first and see how that feels. Still waiting for OVtune to send me an invoice for the license for that though and it’s definitely testing my patience. I have some weight reduction plans for this summer too so we’ll see where that all ends up.

 

Any chance you could share the rinse kit heaters rod diameter and the thread size that it came with? That’s a great idea and I’d love to adapt it for my own shower idea.

 

Does the last paragraph of this post give you what you’re looking for? https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/tacomarin’s-chubby-unicorn-build.536001/page-7#post-21204229

 

Yes it does. Thank you. And sorry for not taking the time to find it in the thread. I’m sure you don’t love repeating yourself.

Anyway, awesome build. Very inspiring.

 

No worries man. I knew I had recorded it somewhere I just couldn’t remember where I had it. Let me know if you need more info. Also happy to share the solid model for the part I made if that’s helpful. Thanks for the compliments!

 

Thanks man. I really appreciate that. What did you use to model the part? I use Solidworks for work.

I was actually thinking about using the heater on this tank: https://www.grainger.com/product/VE..._on_Your_Search-_-IDPPLARECS&cm_vc=IDPPLARECS

What do you think? Only concern is that the tank has a tapered taped hole.

 

I used solidworks. I’ll dig up the file and upload it if you want.

I’d be concerned about using a steel tank for water storage. For one, it’s not going to insulate for crap. The other thing is it’ll rust unless you coat the inside. I’m also not sure how well that heater will work for a 6 gallon tank. I think 3 gallons is about as much as I would have patience for. If you need more than that you might want to look at a different water heater setup.