Not A Copy/Paste Tacoma Build

honestly, as soon as I started pulling the engine apart, I was like, well it's never gunna be this easy to pull apart and check/clean... and as soon as I thought that, it was an easy leap to just gain a quick 100hp for no extra work... I'm quite good at twisting my own arm. Also I change my mind constantly. I should probably stop writing stuff down.

 

This struggle is real.

 

Do you think you'll offer the ls swap as a service for customers in the future?

 

I'd be willing to do it, but it wouldn't be especially cheap. But when you consider a supercharger is around $8-9000 + labour and you get 60-70hp, an ls swap starts to seem reasonable. Buy an ls for $4-5000 and sell your stock drivetrain for the same amount and then all you pay is labour, unless you want to build the engine/trans at all. Can pretty easily get 450-500hp. All I'm doing is a cam in mine and it will do 500.

Obviously what I'm doing goes beyond your typical ls swap, so it's taking way longer.

 

Got the cab off, and the old frame is chopped up and stuffed in the recycle bin.

New frame has suspension loosely mounted so I can cycle with the 40" tire. I just have a bit of the wheel well / core support left to locate the headlight. Am moving the cab as far back as I can while still clearing the headlight. Need to cut out a frame crossmember to tuck it back a bit further, though the cab might hit the frame where it swoops up.


The cab is sitting high in this photo

 

Any plans for an upgraded front diff?

 

I haven't decided what to do for the front yet. Unfortunately I have to do this build in 3 "phases" so I can keep it rolling so I can keep all the lifts open for customer jobs as much as possible.

The first phase is the frame swap, cab cage, and getting the LS in and running. Then the truck can drive.

Second phase will be back half, trailing arms, 9" rear end, etc.

Third phase will be the front half where I would love to do a 9" front diff and make my own long travel.

 

So what was the point of the new frame lol? Sounds like you’ll maybe just keep a little bit of it under the cab

 

It's a good question. I don't have a good answer.

Reality is I don't have time or space to build a tube chassis, so the truck will be full framed for a while, then back halfed maybe later this year, and front halfed maybe in a couple years, if I even do. Better to start on a solid foundation imo

 

Always better to start from a clean slate in my opinion. Less guesswork.

 

For $1400 to start fresh with metal that actually existed, it seemed like an easy decision.

 

Oh well yeah you win lol! I’d pay that for a new frame right now, and I don’t even have rust. How??

 

that's $1400 cad, so just over a thousand bucks for you guys. It was a killer deal for sure. It sat covered outside for a couple years, so it's got a couple tiny spots of surface rust, but basically brand new. Just came across it on marketplace and went for it. Helps that it didn't matter to me that its an access cab frame even though my truck is a dclb.

 

Got the cab mounts made and the body located on the frame, so could cut the front end off



Gotta put the trans on the motor and get those located so I can get the engine mounts tacked, as well as get final dimensions for the trans crossmember I've been designing as my first cad project. Aiming for flat belly if I can, but as long as I can get ride of that anchor of a crossmember, that's a win. The trans will bolt to the mount which will bolt to the crossmember, which will bolt to frame mounts welded to the frame that I haven't designed yet. Very excited for my plasma table to arrive!

 

It can be done!

 

Hell yeah!!! that's awesome! nice work. What a difference that must make offroad for clearance. insane. really cool to see such a similar design for the actual trans mount too, bit of proof of concept.

I hope that I can clock the np241 up like that with the blackbox underdrive. I think I should be okay. Stoked to know it's possible. I really want to plate all the way across so there's nothing to get hung up on, but I also don't want to trap all the exhaust heat in there, so probably not the best idea.

 

It really does make a huge difference, I rarely even scrape there anymore, there are only a handful of scrapes there over the past three years of running it like this all the way from the dip back up after the IFS crossmember to the back of the Tcase. I would try to leave it open if possible, not sure that plating everything over has that much of an advantage anyway, havent seen any scrape marks that would indicate that I ever was hung up in that gap.

That should be a good case/crawl combo, what tranny are you mating it to?

 

I just wanted the aero. Haha kidding, yeah it's probably pointless for sure.

It's going behind a 4l80e which is bolted to a cammed l92 aluminum block that should do around 500hp. I'm gunna mock everything up soon and get the engine mounts tacked in and get all the measurements for the trans cross member, then I can pull it and start the cage!

 

Got the rest of everything pulled out of the cab.

All TPMS and airbag wiring is removed from the harnesses, just gotta pull out all the abs stuff now. There's probably a few other things I can pull out as well, but that will work for now.

Ready for sound deadening everything!