Clean, Purpose-Built 3rd Gen SR5

very nice, i remember seeing his rig before. Kinda like what mine has become.

 

Welcome to the Taco family! I am still trying to keep my build as clean as possible! I appreciate the kind words.

I’ll need new tires at some point this year but that’s really the only new purchase on the horizon. I feel like it’s really dialed in right now for how I use the truck. Tons of functionality but still gets great gas mileage for my long trips.

 

i guess my 2021 cpo tacoma trd offroad with stock suspension has this vibration of the hood on high way speed (mostly in the center portion where it kinda flaps a bit), is that something I should be worried about?

 

what tire size are you running now and what kind of mpg do you get? My tundra gets about 10mpg in the city and 14mpg max on highway, I assume it can't be any worse than that? But tundra did have the 38gal fuel tank.

 

have the dealer to check and fix before your warranty gets expired. If you have mods that is connected to it, then warranty won’t cover. You have to pay out of your pocket.

Edit: The hood with scoop doesn't have this problem... My truck has scoop on the hood.

 

Im still running the LT265/75/16 Grabbers (E rated).

Around town I average ~18 MPGs and on the highway I average between 20-22mpgs depending on traffic.

 

I see, I will get the dealer to look at it, do you happen to know what is the problem with it being vibrating? I cant seem to imagine how bad would a flapsy hood be and what even could be a fix? new hood with gussets underneath? Thank you for your time!

 

It could be missing seal or something that they use at the factory. You never know, it could be something else such as latch. Dealer can check everything so the hood won't vibrate again.

 

Good point, I was planning on putting a pair of ditchlight brackets onto it, i guess i will wait lol

 

Hey man been following your build since I signed up on the site. I’m really digging it. How’s the KDMax tune treated you long term? That will probably be the first mod I do to mine in the near future

 

Hey bro thanks for following along!

I absolutely love it. I’ve upgraded to the newer versions as they came out a couple times. I still need to get the 10 or whatever the most recent iteration is now, I just haven’t had time to get around to it yet.

I highly recommend it. It’s one of those mods that I would immediately buy again if I had to start my build all over. It has saved me so much heartache. It makes the truck much more fun to drive and it legitimately helps when going up and down big mountain passed and long hills.

I was actually able to test the difference between the stock tune and the KdMax by switching between the adaptive cruise control and the constant speed cruise control. The stock tune had the truck at such high RPMs that it felt like the engine was going to explode. It was holding like 5 or 6,000rpms just to get up hills. Sometimes it almost redlined just to try to keep up with the set speed. With the kdmax it stayed around 2-3,000 and there were zero issues.

I swear I would have considered selling the truck after my Montana trip if not for the KDMax tune because it made driving through the mountains so much easier and the shift points were so much smoother. It helped the truck maintain much lower RPMs when climbing the mountain highway passes. I’m positive it’s extending the life of my engine and transmission.

It totally changes the truck for the better.

 

Great to hear that. I can’t wait to get mine tuned. I’m so tired of the constant downshifting lol. What throttle setting are you using on the tune?

 

Honestly, I can’t remember lol. I believe it’s the middle option… I can’t even remember the name without looking it up haha. I didn’t want anything too crazy so I didn’t go for the super high speed option and I’m glad I didn’t because the throttle is really sensitive with the middle option.

 

Gotcha. Probably what I’ll end up picking if I had to guess. I bet any change from stock will feel pretty sensitive and take some getting used to lol

 

Oh yeah, it really does but in a good way. My wife still gets mad sometimes because of how light the throttle is now and she thinks I’m messing with her by jolting the truck forward haha. It is such an improvement over the stock shift points. I thought everyone was exaggerating until I got it.

 

Hahah... That happened to a friend of mine who tried my truck.. I have Pedal Commander for the throttle. He stopped at the stop sign, I quickly changed the mode then he push the gas pedal and my truck jolted quickly. He was like Whoa! Heh.

I plan to get my truck tuned like yours in next few months.

 

I’m sure you’ll love it when you get the tune done!

 

I’m super excited that Expedition Overland’s Africa series is finally out. Their stuff has evolved into trips and gear that are far out of reach of the average joe but the production quality is so impressive.

Their early stuff is one of the things that first got me into Tacomas and adventure.

https://youtu.be/r53MpGLyU4A?si=nbDUchTAdXRcbJq4

 

I’ll have to check it out, can’t say I’ve heard of the series. I’m not a huge YouTube watcher.

 

Some of their stuff is a little cringy because they take it so seriously, but the last few seasons they have done legit expeditions. Their Alaska series is one of my favorite “shows” of all time. If you want better quality than YouTube, you can watch them on Amazon prime on a TV too. It’s like movie quality stuff.