Another Truck?! Third Time's the Charm TURBOCHARGED

Okay lets turn it into some sheet metal now...






I don't have any real sheet metal tools, so all fit-up was done by hand and with a ball peen hammer. Also anyone else doing this should know that a wire wheel removes the stock wheel well coating really well.










That about closes that one off, plenty more welding to do but for now I think I will take a break and move to the other side.


With more confidence, I just went ahead and cut the fullsize hole the first time...




Pretty damn close right on the first try...


Good place to rest your foot...


Pretty much prepped for welding now






Gotta pull it into place as much as possible...




Time to close up the odd cut I made to allow myself enough room to use the clutch pedal






This is all the rage in welding fashion


Here it is all finish welded and waiting for some seam sealer. Got lucky and a local place had SEM seam seal for sale.




and all slathered up with sealer








and finally with some bedliner over it (its a rubberized feeling bedliner in a can material)




Next time I'll get the bumper cut up properly and show the fitment of the front fiber glass (spoiler it's good from afar but far from good)

 

Spent an afternoon with a local friend cutting new rear wheel arches and bashing in the front side of the front wheel wells near the airbox and battery.







Okay so fitting fiberglass is easily way harder than the tub job... it wasn't fun, makes a huge fucking mess, and unless you're a body guy it's still gonna look about 85% right at best. I'm thankful one of my car wrenching friends is a body guy with a local dealership. As far as I'm concerned 85% is fine for a wheeling truck.

 

What were you able to accomplish on the N/A side? Are you running any intake/exhaust mods at this point?

 

It's a drivable tune that feels pretty safe, didn't hear any pinging or anything. Haven't done anything to the intake tract yet and the exhaust is stock until the muffler. I'd hesitate to call it bombproof, but it drives like stock minus the startup

 

I've always wondered what the Volvo MAF and a full exhaust could do with a proper tune. It's amazing what a difference similar hardware and tune will do on a turd gen.

 

I've tuned MAF based standalone systems, I've never liked the Volvo MAF idea on the stock computer... But with a standalone and a real resistance map for the Volvo MAF there could be some power increases, but I doubt anything over what the later MAF tacos 01-04 can do since they have a way less restrictive MAF than the 95-97 models. I think it's likely in the realm of 10-15hp difference though, the real power increase NA would come from cams and valve springs so you could rev higher and running high octane and turning the timing up. Probably find 30ish horsepower under the curve like that.

 

Okay tiny time warp since I either don't have pictures of or can't find pictures of putting the bumper back on and cutting it for the tires/fenders.

But I went a got the rest of my 35s mounted on wheels and cleaned the wheels since the weather was nice...


Also took the time to burn my sliders together and burnt them onto the truck (forgot to take pics of that).... Can tell I was coming down to the deadline for a trip lol




Little picture of it after the shakedown to work

 

Truck got its first real use on 35s on a trip down to Utah. First time I went I didn't get to do the regular activities everyone always seems to do like Fins n Things, Hell's Revenge, and White Rim. Last time we mostly went through the outskirts of Canyonlands and the Maze. So this was a fun trip to just test out the truck and camp a bit.

Moab Album Link:
https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjAepeS

This was at Dome Plateau, much of it is no longer accessible by vehicle


Still an excellent view even if you can't hang your ass off the edge anymore.


I'm coming around to the idea of taking panoramic shots, but my dumbass forgot to bring a lens hood, so some of my panos this trip have multiple lens flares haha


Isn't that the rock from the license plate?


It is! They forgot to include the multi-national tourists on the plate though and those are basically permanent installations.


Gotta love the rock formations


Another excellent camp spot




Sunset in a canyon is pretty neat


Looks safer than most of America's aging bridges (civil engineers come fight me )


I took no pictures at Potato Bottom Camp Ground, but in a break from the wetness I did take one on the way out


Gotta claim your campsite... even if you're setting up your tent near a soon to be river.


Hard to tell it was snowing pretty intense the night before, along with raining so much we had a river form under Mike's truck and Richard's tent collapsed from snow load.


Even if you cannot see the sun it is still an excellent place to see the sunrise




I skipped a day of mud going up Onion Creek, but the end campsite was worth it, nice hard packed snow is way easier to walk on.

 

is that area no longer accessible to vehicles because of that new land closure thing that happened recently for moab?

 

I'm not entirely sure, they assembled a new block to the path that went down there and tossed natural barriers along much of rest of it as well. But it didn't have any signs stating why.

 

I keep driving it when I should be taking it apart, so nothing has gotten done in a little bit.

 

Awesome build man, just found it. Sorry to bombard you with likes lol

 

Thanks! Glad you like it, winter is kinda the slow season around here but hopefully I can get back to work on it in a couple weeks.

 

I can relate, I did a bunch of stuff around the end of summer then pretty much nothing since then. At least I’ve been saving money lol

 

How many miles have you put on the MOOG lower control arms? Have you had any issues? I'm looking to replace mine as well but nearly $1,000 from Toyota Parts seems ridiculous. Just trying to find out if non OEM brands like MOOG or Mevotech or Aldeco are safe options. Thanks in advance.

 

I think I probably have about 6 to 7,000 miles on them now. I have no complaints. I think the arms are plenty strong the only concern I would have is maybe the rubber bushings but it's going to take years before those are a problem still. And you can always replace the bushing separately

 

Looks amazing!!! How many miles on your Taco?

 

Thanks! It's a lot of fun down there. My taco just crossed 160k mi

 

Progress? There's progress?! Nah, not around here, we don't make progress.

So I've had to go back and forth from Spokane to Seattle a lot lately and took one of those opportunities to swing by a friend's house and pick up a differential for my truck (thanks again @drr). So now I can finally have a locker and some gears a bit better suited to the 35s.



@6P4 was totally cool and sold me a matching 4.56 front and he did an amazing job packaging it.



The truck got some minor freshening up in the wheel wells, I resealed one of my tubs that I had to make a modification to and then painted the entire inner fender structure to make it stand out less (they were white mostly)




Okay getting closer to fun stuff now, first step to installing a turbo charger system is to get the fuel system up to snuff. So goodbye stock pump, but first goodbye bed.







Got it all set down on the metal saw horses


Then proceeded to break off three of the fuel sender bolts in the tank, tried my damndest to extract it and gave up, they were rusted in too well.


Ended up buying a used tank from a local that parts out old yotas, $50 to save a headache of installing M5 thread inserts. Used the drill battery to drain the old fuel (and water) out first.


Cleaned it out with a bit of brake clean and some shop towels...




Time to install the new Aeromotive 340 pump


Cleaned the contacts on the fuel level sender as well so hopefully it doesn't jump around as much now, checked out well on the multimeter at least.


New used tank all assembled now.

 

You have a build thread!? Shit I’m in half the pictures