One more Turbo Taco Build

I've been lurking for a while, and I've finally decided I've got a thread worth starting. I've been wanting to turbo my 3rz Tacoma forever, and after months of research and figuring I think I've finally accumulated most of what I need to start!

I'm bad at taking pictures, but this is the truck currently.


I've had this truck for 10 years now, and for about 4 or 5 of those it sat in my yard unused until I finally convinced my wife to let me spruce it up a bit. Took the bed off, cleaned up the frame, painted most of it and applied and internal frame coating.



After I finished with a bit of pre-emptive rust prevention, I went through and replace pretty much everything suspension and axle related. On the font, I went with 2.5 Icon coilovers, Camburg UCA's and for the rear OME Dakar leafs paired with Nitrocharger shocks.

I don't really have any good pictures of the process, but I pieced together an elocking axle for cheap by finding parts off facebook market place. Found a 4.30 elocker diff for $200 that needed the actuator rebuilt, and a housing from a 4runner for $100. Ground off of the 4runner nonsense, and welded on the perches and stuck in!
Finding a font diff in 4.30 was bit more of hassle, ended up sourcing a used one from some used parts shop that lives near me. Have no idea about the miles or abuse it suffered, but the gears looked fine when I split it to convert it for my manual hubs. So, I'm running with it with no issues.

Once the suspension got done, I finished up by freshening up the paint with Monstaliner. It was kind of a pain, and the sanding and cleaning took forever, but I'm really happy with how it turned out.



Started out rolling it on the bed, and that worked ok. Unfortunately, some over use of the rollers did leave some chunks in, and, because it takes so long to roll, some bits started to cure in the pan, which didn't help.

For the cap, I said fuck rolling it, and bought an under coating gun and high pressure 21 gal Harbor Freight air compressor and sprayed it.


Spraying worked so much better, and by the time I would run out of air I was usually ready to refill the canister.

Sorta last up, in this history lesson was a new rear bumper. The old one I took was rusty dented up trash, so I decided to build my self one. I went dug through the local scrap yard and found a 4ft piece of 4" x 4" 1/4" square tube and some mix and match plate. I think everything I got ended up being around $30. After a bit of figuring I ended up with this.



I'm definitely not an expert welder, but I think it didn't turn out half bad.

Now to the meat of the thread, it's a rainy day and I figure it's as good of a day as any to get started on the turbo preparations. Since most of the parts I've ordered have finally shown up.

First off I plan on pulling the oil pan, and welding on the return bung. This has the added benefit of addressing the slow leak I've had from the side of it.

Once I've got that done, I'll be figuring out the nitty gritty of stuffing this turbo:


Into my engine bay. It's Holset he351, while it's not perfect for my engine ( I think ), it was cheap and in good shape. The complication is that I like to make things hard for myself, and I've decided to weld up a custom manifold for it out of weld els and a lc engineering exhaust manifold flange.


Hopefully it turns out ok. Figured I'd rather do it myself instead of ordering a cheap ebay manifold of questionable quality, and because the Treadsone log manifolds have been on 3-4 month back order, for the last 3-4 months.

Specs:
- 98 Tacoma 4x4 SR5
- 4cyl / 3RZ

Suspension / Drive / Wheels / tires
- Icon 2.5 Coilovers
- OME Dakars, medium ones I think
- Nitrocharger sport shocks
- Bastard 4runner elocking axle housing paired with mystery elocking 3rd diff
- 4.30 gears
- 16" wheels from an 08 FJ Cruiser
- 32" Dick Cepek trail country EXP

Armor
- All Pro tube front bumper
- Custom built rear bumper
- Custom built front skid plate

Future
- Figuring out some on the cheap rock sliders
- THE TURBO
- More ways to waste my money

 

Who doesnt love a Hiroshima hairdryer?! Good luck with the build.

 

J hook it and let it eat!

 

Haha yeah I know. We'll see how it goes, but a deal is a deal. Currently this project is more of figuring it out build. Planning on finding a 3rz core to rebuild to handle some horsepower later down the road. May end up going with a different cheapie turbo if I have to.. or just blowing the head off this ending and making my own core. Luckily it's a project and not a daily.

 

The world needs more turbo builds!

 

My thoughts exactly.

 

Few more parts came in while I was in the garage.
A fact cheapo eBay intercooler that I can hopefully fit behind the grill.


And some assorted madrel bends for the exhaust, another eBay special.

 

Had hoped to get a bit more done than just dropping the diff and pulling the oil pan yesterday, oh well. Got the return bung welded on the pan without blowing through the sheet metal!


Hopefully I'll have some time to get pan and diff back in this evening.

 

Been a little while, but time for a bit of an update. One thing I learned, might welding a manifold kinda sucks. The welds aren't pretty but it seems solid.


It's not equal length, but I'm not building a race car either. I did mess up a little by making it a bit too tall which is forcing me to get a little creative with the internal wastegaye mounting because it hits the hood.

Lessons learned, and I'm not building another without a tig machine. Thankfully it all fits and there's little to no warpage on the flanges.

Next up is getting the exhaust built. My one hang-up is a replacement for the stock o2 sensor. The OEM one has a two bolt flange, but I'm really hoping to us a m18 1.5 screw in one. Does anyone know of a non flange sensor with this plug?


I suppose I could splice to another similar sensor? Just can't really figure out what the difference is between the $80-$100 4 wire one I have vs a 4wire $35 denso sensor.

 

Someone here probably knows
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/turbo-bs-thread.481844/

 

Did some more googling and searching at the part store and found one that has the right plug. The denso part no is, 234-4622, and when if forget I can just look here!

 

Been moving a little slow figuring out how to get everything together. Had a couple issues with oil lines. Bought some AN connectors, and one went on perfect.. then while I wasn't being careful enough I managed to absolutely destroy the threads on my other oil feed line. So, after a little looking around I found a hose and fitting shop who were awesome. They made me a JIS 4 feed line, crimped on a end for my return ( since one of the ones I bought was a shitty Amazon buy ), and even happened to have an m18 1.5 to JIS 4 that could go directly into my oil filter housing. Super nice not having to put a bunch of sketchy T's off the oil pressure sensor. If anyone is in Western NC, Cross Hose and Fitting is awesome. I'm never going to bother shredding my finger tips on stainless jacketed hose again.

Starting work on mocking up how the charge pipe and intake are routed. I still haven't decided if the MAF is going on the intake or charge side of the compressor. I'm leaning towards charge side, same distance from the intake as stock, but opinions are appreciated.



Also cut some holes in the front to figure out how I'm gonna hide the intercooler. It's a tight fit, and it'll take a good bit of cutting on the grill, but I'm pretty sure it's gonna work out.


If anyone has any grill mod ideas that might make hiding this thing easier, I'd love to hear them.

Currently waiting on a couple more silicone couplers to show up today and tomorrow, and hopefully I'll have this thing running by the weekend!

 

I screwed the threads up on my oil return line and just went to Lowes like any good redneck would lol

 

Ha yeah, figuring something out like that was my fallback. I really wanted some solid oil feeds, and I'm trying to do a little less redneck engineering than usual.

Because I made my manifold too tall, the waste gate hit my hood in the stock position. So, I chopped up the mount, and welded it to some plate to position it a bit more down. Hopefully it works, I don't really want to drill into my manifold to weld on a tube for an external one. Forgot to add that I switched to a knock off hx35 turbo, another super cheap facebook find, and it fits better.

 

Bit of an update, the charge side and intercooler all hooked up! It was a major pain in the ass. Ended up taking out the ac condenser and related bits to make it all fit since it was broken anyway. ( If anyone has ideas some sort of smaller condenser, I'm all ears) Long story short, it cranks and it runs!

Still need some paint on the metal parts of the charge pipe.

Also got the afr/boost gauge in. Cut a hole where the clock is supposed to go, and it fits in nicely.


The exhaust is only partially done, I'm short a flange to weld on the end of the downtube. So, I just clamped on a pipe to make it just long enough to hopefully not mess with the sensors.

Haven't gotten to take a test drive because it's a bit trapped in the garage. It seems to be idling fine, aside from it sounding ridiculous. But according to my wide band, the afr is around 11.8 at idle. That seems a bit rich. Obviously it needs a test drive to see if it's bogging or not. Any ideas out there on that?

 

What are you tuning with? What injectors are you running? Sounds like you need to pull a good bit of fuel if that is idle after it warms up, those are boost number goals afrs do you have a flow straightener upstream of your maf? You may try clocking you maf a bit but it shouldn't impact afrs in that big a capacity

 

As of yet, no tune. Just pink top injectors and a better fuel pump, a dw100. Really only going for <10 psi, so I should theoretically be fine on stock fuel system and ECU.

Right now the the maf is on the charge side, and there is a 90 pretty close to it.

Edit: I should note that I think it's I've got a bad coolant sensor as well. Could be a suspect.
Regardless, it's more of a learning experience than anything else right now!