Another Truck?! Third Time's the Charm TURBOCHARGED

Okay, revalve done... again. This is what I ended up with...



And I have to say wow, what a difference. Finally think I am really on the right path and so far this is the best any of my trucks have ever rode. Definitely a little room left for improvement but it would just be nit picky at this point. It's nice to know that my gut feeling that it was "packing" was correct, too much rebound damping for these springs. I just bombed a washboard road aired up and with a mostly empty truck and it was buttery smooth, like a normal road.

Also welded in a replacement lower mount and a reinforcement plate to both.

 

A nice side affect of having the rebound set right is that the compression adjusters make a much more noticeable difference, feels like I can actually fine tune things now.

 

Man those shock mounts hang down so low. Those would be complete rock magnets on the trails I frequent

 

They are on mine too haha, the shocks were purchased for a different location and I'm making do with what I have in the mean time. The last mount didn't bend on it's own lol

Believe me I'd love to move em but I've got to get the sequoia axle on since there isn't enough room outboard otherwise even with 2.0s

 

Ah gotcha. Outboarding is much better solution

 

Yeah it'll afford me much more control and free up a ton of space under the bed I'd like to use. 10" shocks package so much better under the bed but I would lose out on a lot of travel with them unfortunately and I'd still have to buy shocks again. Couldn't pass these ones up at the price they were offered during COVID when you couldn't get anything within a year. Looking forward to figuring it all out again when I can get them into the wheel well area.

 

You'll have lots of practice with valving when it comes time to do it all over again lol

 

Tell me about it, getting to be kind of fun minus the mess it makes though and I feel like I'm really learning a lot about suspension behavior I thought I already knew.

I think today's task is going to be to go to the metal distributor and buy some aluminum angle stock so I can make a little tray for the fridge to sit within and keep it rooted to the bedslide firmly.

 

Well I did get the bedslide sorted with the fridge, wasn't too bad and I'm happy with how it came out. I will get some pics of that later. Started cleaning up and fortifying the electrical under the hood in prep for moving the battery. So 1st step was to get everything with crimp terminals on it so it can go on the terminal blocks after the battery is moved.

I got a pic halfway through, ground side done, positive next and I'll grab another picture.

 

So I often get a hair up my ass about dumb shit and today is no different. As I drove my stupid little Corolla to work my sleep deprived brain searched for something to ponder on and I started thinking about front coilovers on the Tacoma again. My Sway-A-Ways are some of the first coilovers available for a 1st gen Tacoma, I think the only other brand at market was Donahoe (Icon) and they were the first 2.5" body ones. Either way neither of those offered an extended travel version at launch... SAW never did in fact. But having taken apart my coilovers a few times now I know the internal spacer is just a chunk of aluminum round stock with a hole in it and a register for the top out washer to slow down the piston with. But if I chucked that in the lathe and cut on the side without the register I think I could make these SAWs extended travel pretty easily.

The thing about factory fit coilovers is they rarely tell you extended and collapsed lengths... really why would they, they already told you they fit

But ADS is different, they give specs...


So that means an ADS extended travel shock measures out at 20.214 extended... and it just so happens I have this on hand still for the SAWs


Looking at this we can see a SAW "standard travel" has two measurements... and that brings the question of where ADS measures from on a factory fit coilover... the top of the tophat to the lower eyelet or from top eyelet to lower eyelet. The number that makes the most sense with what I've heard and observed about our front suspension would be from tophat to eyelet (also the safest number to work from), otherwise there's a whole inch of shock travel missing from these SAWs and an inch of shock travel on our IFS is much more at the wheel. From what I've seen extended coilovers generally provide another inch of wheel travel over standard, maybe up to 1.5" depending on CO brand. So a little over a half inch of shock travel is actually missing. I need to chop off .634".... totally doable on that spacer.

Next rebuild on the fronts is probably coming in January where I can take what I've learned about valving and make changes to them again. They're actually pretty close to how I like them now but I want to make their rebound a straight .015 stack. So I will also put the spacers in the lathe and turn them into extended travel. I will also look at fitting reservoirs to them, looks really easy and while the resis from SAW are available, I think I will buy some from FOA since they're super affordable and really, it's a resi even they can't screw up a single seal piston haha.

 

Damn lol, FOA reservoir comes with IFP, hose and fittings, end cap with schrader, and all seals... $45
I can get both and not even be out $100 vs getting a single reservoir replacement from SAW

https://f-o-a.com/shop/f-o-a-2-5-inch-replacement-reservoir/

Reservoir, IFP, and both end caps... no hose.... $256
https://afepower.com/afe-power-56210-sp02-afe-control-sway-a-way-2-5-reservoir-assembly-5-875

 

Good ole FOA, my buddies and I used to call those "Fucked on Arrival"

 

I believe it, I had a set of FOA 10" smoothies on my last truck for a minute. Came time to rebuild them and I threw em out. Looked like a man with Parkinson's honed the bore with a wood rasp. But the resis are just extrusions, so I'm hoping they'll seal, for $45 I can afford to find out lol

 

I've had SAWs, Kings and now ADSs. They each do 'extended' differently in terms of talking about it. Like SAWs = not at all. Kings were conservative and their extended version is the least extended of all. The ADS extended version extended length is a good 3/4" longer than the King extended version.

A couple of photos from back in the day comparing SAWs and Kings:



The SAWs were purchased in 2010 and may be an earlier spec compared to what they do now.

Some photos comparing the Kings to the ADSs:

 

It kind of looks like your sway away 2.0 had the same as your king extendeds. Which begs the question how short are King standards? I have sway away 2.5s which are pretty much similar extended length as the two in your picture.

 

From the image and from what I recall, the SAWs were maybe 1/4" longer than the Kings. I remember being very surprised by this and a little concerned.

Before anyone questions whether my Kings were in fact the extended version, I asked this of Tim. When he rebuilt them he confirmed they met King's specs for extended.

 

Another trip in the books and I got back home to a Blackstone test from the previous oil change (Montana trip and a little putzing around before)


Not looking so hot, but also not surprising, well everything but the lead isn't surprising that it. The lead is a little surprising and unfortunate. I remember when I had the oil pan off to install the turbo drain (and cleaned it) the remains of the last oil change were in there and looking a little "sparkly" but I didn't think much of it and it looked nowhere near as sparkly as my old big block chevy. So chances are my bearings are on their way out but also that they have been since before I turbocharged it. Regardless I have another UOA coming up now so we will test once more and if she comes back as bad or worse it'll get some fresh bearings and maybe an oil pump for good measure.

 

Sucks about the lead. Another surprise is the titanium. I wonder about the source. Mine is 1 for titanium and 1 for lead. I just sent off another sample after Mojave. We'll see.

 

I don't even know what in that engine would be titanium certainly it doesn't have titanium wrist pins. And I know it doesn't have titanium rings. I suppose it could be a false positive. Overall I'll be a little surprised if the lead doesn't actually drop quite a bit on this one. But still not a huge deal. I can do bearings without doing anything other than taking the engine out in fact if I took the diff out I could probably do them in the truck

 

The thing is it's only a reading of what's in that small bottle of oil. And universal averages don't mean that my high content wouldn't still ride out for another 90,000 miles problem free. It's not what I wanted to see but it's not enough on its own to condemn it is what I'm saying