2002 Tacoma for Autocross

Can it be made out of Chromoly or Titanium?

 

In this case I am actually thinking I am liking the sound of the additional 40~ pounds in the rear of the vehicle.. it's another 1% closer to the coveted 50/50 front to rear weight ratio while boxing in the rear frame rails for added strength and rigidity!

I like the bolt on design of the oem, makes me think I can potentially bolt it elsewhere such as up between the frame rails, flip it to raise the receiver hitch, etc.. guess we will see how bolt on it ends up being over time.

 

Thinking and reality are two different things.. I got that oem tow hitch and popped it on there yesterday, and then immediately removed it!

Definitely felt the extra weight back there, but it was too much weight too far back on the truck for my liking. Felt nice for a hard launch from dead start having the extra weight, and also on the highway it smoothed out the ride and the rear felt really planted. But I could actually feel the weight was too far back since it really slowed down the turn in speed and ability to change directions quickly, and the extra weight felt heavy in the hard turns and the truck lost its super light nimble handling character.

Also the weight really does affect the acceleration on this little 4 cylinder, even though the grip felt more stable than ever while launching, I could tell the extra weight slows her down a little bit. The main issue is the majority of the weight is behind the frame rails and hanging quite low, even scraped my driveway coming out the first time too straight!



So although the tow hitch did not work out for a performance upgrade, I did learn a lot about how much weight and where you place it really changes the way the truck acts. Since I realized this I decided to also remove my spare tire and the steel bars that align the spare to drop even more weight in the rear even though it is within the frame rails instead of behind, although its not within the wheel base so it may not be optimal. As a nifty bonus, the tow hitch included some parts called rear frame reinforcements which are basically angled steel parts that tie the bumper mount to the frame rails for a bit more sturdiness. I kept those on there hoping for a bit of stiffness without any weight drawbacks.

I was stunned to find the spare tire and mounts when removed actually lifted the rear back up about 1/4", so this was a a notable change visibly even and there is certainly much less weight on the rear now. Next up is the test drive to see if it feels better without the spare, or if a little bit of weight there keeps it feeling a bit more balanced.

Oh yeah, I am signed up for the next event next weekend as well to see how the truck is feeling on the track!

 

I was able to make it to the test and tune autocross event this Saturday to test out the new mods (lsd, 2" more drop, etc..) and had a total blast in the "new truck"!

It is at a whole new level of performance for certain, and rides so differently I am still getting used to it. However, where I previously measured myself 15% behind the national champs 911 GT3, my lap times were already coming in only about 7% behind his times! I though this seemed like a huge improvement, of course I need more seat time to extract all I can from Trudy now too...

Link to video here!! Sorry the quality is not premium, video was a total after thought and this was picked up on an older cell phone.

Trudy handles totally different now, no more tire spinning at all coming out of the curves thanks to the limited slip diff. It worked very smoothly and I could not feel or hear it if it was making any sounds when actuating. It definitely changed the way the vehicle handles, I need to modulate the throttle to help lay the traction down now in a controlled manner instead of just letting one tire spin until it catches grip! The extra drop worked to keep her more poised and helped with the tire wear, and I was not rolling over into my sidewalls any longer.

I did go for an alignment the day before, and oddly the shop said I was under 1 degree negative camber, where as prior it was set close to 2 (at another shop). He didnt want to even mess with it saying there was no more room for it to move since it had been shimmed in the past. I am not sure if this is the drop spindles affected my camber, or if it may be due to flipping/rotating my super worn out (coned) tires that may be skewing the measurements. Either way forget this "pro" I am going to try to get more -camber out of it myself, adding some shims to the upper control arm to see what I can get. Then probably take it back to the other pro to set it properly!

There was one hard turn on the course with a pothole in just the right line for the passenger front tire to rub the inner fender well as I braked hard, but it wasnt bad enough to stop the action or ruin my day. On Sunday, I already ironed out the kinks and gave the tire another full inch of clearance any where it had rubbed along the fender well. Also needed to trim a bit more of the plastic fender liner too, and removed a bit of my air intake from the fender well while I was at it. Happy to report there was no rubbing of the battery tray at all, which I was a bit concerned about still. No rubbing in the rear at all either as far as I can tell, fender wells and bump stops look clean and mark free. In fact I think I might try to go just a bit lower in the rear to see if I can get more weight back there for better balance and handling.

 

Sounds like the drop spindles and rear suspension mods, combined with your LSD are doing a great deal of service.

Pretty sure members looking through the stats are going to be very surprised about your truck being so high on the list.

 

Put together my "camber kit", which consists of some body shims from the local harbor and some extended bolts (M12 x 1.25 x 70mm).



I added 4 stacks of shims to each upper control arm mounting bolt. Each stack being the same 3 shims (1/8, 1/8, 1/16).


Used only two of the longer bolts in the rearward position for my first run, since it had almost twice the shims already. Passenger side below, front is at the bottom of the pic:


Definitely noted a visible increase in camber, but not too much just going by looks here..


I was stunned to see my first measurement come in right at 2.1*, I was aiming for 2 so not bad for my first time around!


I took a bunch more measurements, and had my wife help out taking some with me in the truck even. It seemed to vary a bit the more we measured, and oddly changed by 1 degree when pointing the display forwards vs backwards. This is my first time with the tool so maybe I am not quite using it correctly, either way all my results showed at least 2* up to 3* even. I do have threads coming out on the other end of the coil pockets too for good measure. I took a quick neighborhood run and the truck felt extra responsive and grippy, no noted decrease in stability going 55mph.



I do want to go for a more extensive test now with the obligatory spirited canyon run to ensure there will not be any clearance issues with the coil to the upper control arm as the pro said there would be. I can slip my fingers up to two knuckles in there now with the truck jacked up for full downward travel (I noticed this has the least clearance since the coil moves inwards towards the frame as the suspension travels, so I am feeling fairly confident things will work out. If all goes well then I will take it back to the pros for fine tuning to 2*.

Oh yeah, I should probably drop the rear a bit more too before the next alignment..

 

The canyon test run proved to be successful, there were no clunks or bangs nor any indication of suspension clearance issues with the additional negative camber! No new tire rubbing issues either, but then again I only had issues when on the track. At least the new tire angle did not produce any new issues for normal to spirited driving.

It is pretty drastic how it affected the overall handling, more so than I expected anyhow. The front end just feels really planted and stable while at the same time it feels like the steering is more responsive and quicker now too while really holding its lines. I did a short 70 mph stint on some really rough highway lanes and it seemed to track just about as nice and stable as prior to the change from what I could tell initially. She felt very confident overall and ready to attack the the curves with more grip than ever basically!



Some 3" drop blocks were just shipped my way, planning to shave them down to get maybe another 1/4 to 1/2" more drop in the rear over my current 2" blocks. Some trial and error and suspension travel limits will likely determine how much more drop I can squeeze back there!

 

Went to another event yesterday. Managed to hold my own against several fast cars to include a roush supercharged mustang, and gt350, lol. The turbo Taco is always the talk of the event!

I was the only guy in Street mod, so I got bumped to bump class. I placed 3rd out of 5 in that class. I believe 27th out of 55 for the whole event.

 

Hell yeah!

 

"Trucks roll over. They aren't safe for racing." Truck whoops ass.

 

Just plain AWESOME.

Thanks for sharing these ultra bad ass action shots and your results.. your tuck looks so sweet and poised out there!!

 

Another event coming up this Sunday. I finally got my welder set up in my shop and ordered some materials after taking some measurements. I finally converted my mushy rubber bushings in the strut rods to heims, with some WAY OVERKILL quarter wall DOM tubing. I ordered a 1 foot piece, cut it in half, and used about 6 inches for each strut rod. It's def overkill. You would only need about 2 inches of DOM for each side and quarter wall is not necessary at all. I'm think about offering this as a service, but since I don't have spares, your truck would be down for a good bit while pieces are mailed and fab'd.

 

Some more pics

 

Good grief! Fill those things with some lead to help corner balance!

 

I only cut the strut rod short enough so that the heim would be close to stock length. Inside the DOM the stock strut rod goes all the way up to the heim rod end. Surprisingly, if you hold a stock one and the modded one the weight difference is negligible. I swas shocked, because that 1 foot section of DOM was heavy lmao

 

These pics show what was removed. You can tell that I only cut off what I HAD to to make the heim close to the stock length. Then used the threaded portion of the heim to dial in the length. They turned out great, BUT if I had it to do all over again I'd use thinner wall DOM because I almost had a clearance issue getting my stock sway bar back on. Although, a longer end-link will help with my clearance, which I need anyway due to suspension angles. Either way, I'm friggin stoked, and can't wait to feel the difference on sunday.

 

You'll have to let us know. I just got my engine back in working order, I'll be able to make it to the last race of the year next weekend.

 

With all due respect and I’m not trying to be negative! But don’t the heim joints transfer a LOT of noise and vibration? I would *think* an polly bushing about half the size of the OE rubber might be better? Had a friend that had a mid-engine VW sand rail and he changed all his suspension bushings to heim joints. God in no time it was a rattling mess.

 

Yep, you're 100% correct. But it's a race truck to me that literally never gets driven on the street. Comfort is of no concern.

We'll see how much I can tell it's no longer got a bushing on it this Sunday.

 

Go for it‼️
Now I don’t know crap but I *think* they make Heim joints with some type of nylon between metal on metal.
These maybe over kill but I rather be safe than sorry… I just don’t know how much stress on that particular joint.

https://www.ballisticfabrication.com/products/3-0-forged-ultra-duty-ballistic-joint