2002 Tacoma for Autocross

Hahha too true! Of course Trudy has beaten anything you can imagine to the delight of many onlookers, but has also been spanked by everything ever made too fairly handily. Guess the vehicle truly is nothing without the driver at the end of the day.

However, the Tacoma does seem to turn heads and set the tone to pure fun when out on the course like no sports car could ever dream of doing.. basically everyone is living in Tacoma World when Trudy is on the track!

 

^^^The best equalizer to the comment, "Should've bought a sports car."

 

I'm still shocked that you're not carrying a tire off the ground, all the trucks that run with us do it to some degree or another. I'd be in seventh heaven if I could use all my traction.

 

Hmm.. maybe shock tuning, spring rates, sway bars, alignment, or combination thereof!? I dont run a rear sway bar, have a couple (SRunner, Addco) laying around and never tested them out since my truck is feeling pretty good to me but I do wonder how it may impact the ride.

Is that an LS swap above, wonder if my truck is perhaps a bit lighter than others?

 

Sounds like it is time to try those sway bars out.

 

Whoa.

 

Yes the truck in the pic is ls swapped with a t56 magnum, making about 450 to the wheels, running a 315/40/18 square setup. He's done a full custom 4 link rear with coilovers, no more leaf springs. Even I get the front tire in the taco up that high on occasion too. I'm running the 4x4 leaf springs, no rear sway, stock front sway, and the feal coilovers.

edit: that s10 weighs 3200 lbs, my Tacoma weighs 3600 with me in it

 

Interesting, wonder if the 4x4 leafs are softer combined with extra hard front springs upfront amplifying the handling character seen above? Or perhaps a combination of soft and no sway bars with stiff/soft springs working against you.. hmm, just thinking over here and wondering how to bring some contact back to the ground! Have you gone full soft on your shock settings to see if it lets the truck settle a bit? Do you have a sway bar upgrade or other springs to test out?

Is he running at 3200 pounds in CAM-C? I believe the minimum weight was 3480 with driver looking at the rule book, maybe he is quite large or!?



Gotta keeps these fellow truck racers honest you know!!

 

Reminds me of the time I took the ex-wife's Integra to an event as my car was minus an axle at the time. I handly out drove the two other modified Inteagras that were there with her bone stock one. Also was the last time she let me take her car to an event. Apparently she didn't like having the tires scrubbed 2/3 of the way up the sidewalls.

 

Looking for a little advise, I've been looking thru the build thread and see you were running just about 600lb/in coils at one point, is that still your current setup?

your truck is absolutely a benchmark for me!

 

Thanks!

Definitely reread my thread as I have never ran 600 lb coils, I am running 368 lb custom built from Deaver Spring from day one of my drop... stiffer actually may handle a bit better for high performance, but my truck is a comfy daily driver too and that is how its built. So you could definitely build a much higher performance truck than I did if this is your ultimate goal!

My build thread has all the detail of the 2 year evolution to build my truck from scratch if you like, heck its way more than I could ever recall from memory.. thats why I documented it!

 

I.... don't see it either, but thanks for the confirmation!

 

You dont see the link to my build thread in my signature? Isnt this where all the cool kids put their build threads nowadays?!! Here it is since it was so hidden in obscurity..

The story of Trudy (my build)

 

If you're on mobile, signatures don't show up unless you use landscape mode.

 

Also my Dumb Ass thought this WAS your build thread????

lmao

maybe my brain will run faster as my tacoma gets faster

 

Finally! Another Tacoma at an event with us!

 

Race truck putting in work after winning its class.

 

It's been a while.. thought I may as well share this video of old Trudy doing what she loves!