Not A Copy/Paste Tacoma Build

Incredible. Great job!

 

Re: what color blue…is there even an option eh ?

 

Haha I'll let you know

Thanks!

I don't drink, but I do like that blue honestly!

 

Got the belly mounting points done and tacked in. They use 5/8" gr8 bolts through the short tube stubs into the frame, plus there will be two front tube clamp tie ins and four rear tube clamp tie ins. Hoping that is strong enough if I smash the belly on a rock! Should be totally fine for sliding over obstacles though!

Got the first set of mounts tied in to the belly. I also beefed up the trans crossmember. It had some flex before but now it is extremely rigid.

 

Wow I don't post here much...

Some work has been done

 

Sweeeeeet! Shake run at KOH or wussup!?

 

Haha Koh 2027 maybe?

@tacotunner06 is letting me take his ls3 linked taco to hammers this year though!

 

lol yeah I was kidding I know you got some metal to fuse but myself and a couple of Jonnie’s of TW we’ll be there cruising bro. I got you some solid red Tecates.

 

anybody know much about swaybar geometry?
I've heard two different mind sets:
- sway bar arms level at ride height
- it doesn't matter as long as it cycles.

If I put the bar level at ride height, it's pretty tricky for me to build the rest of the back half how I want. So I've tacked it up with the arms up at right height and just below level at full droop. Every cycles well, and the swaybar links are near vertical the whole way through their travel, so I think it's fine, but I don't know a lot about swaybar geometry.

I am kind of erring to the side that it doesn't matter too much, so I'll probably just send it how I've got it fabbed up right now, but wanted to know if this was a really bad idea from somebody experienced before I locked it in.

 

Lots of variables, but in general, the closer to level the arms are at ride height, the more linear the force curve is through your travel. And in this case, linear means predictable. That however assumes a close to 50/50 up/down travel. If you have a significant amount more drop or compression than the other, you can jack up the truck or compress the suspension until you're at the midpoint of your travel. And set the arms level for that point, regardless of what ride height is.

What you don't want is a truck that has 16 inches of drop, only 8" of compression, and the arms are already pointing down at ride height.

 

I cycled the rear metal to metal at 25.25" of travel. Will be limited around 24" and should be pretty much 50/50 12 up 12 down give or take an inch depending on exactly where I settle on ride height once it's all together.

I figured with the arms flat at ride height, they would be at their most leverage in that zone, and increase equally in both directions. The way I have it set up, the arms are only pointed down for probably the last 4" of travel roughly.

 

Only pointed down in the last 4 inches of drop? Meaning they point upward most of the time?

Edit: are you at or near full drop in the photo earlier on this page?

 

Yes they point upward most of the time, and that photo is at full droop.

 

will the swaybar do swaybar things angled up at ride height? yes. will it behave the way you want it to? maybe.

Assuming you spoke to Tony at TK1 to pick out the specs on your swaybar, he will generally advise based on the arms being horizontal at ride height. what you need to consider is how the bars resistance to articulation changes when the arms change angle. what you're looking at is "effective arm length". say you're running 22 inch arms. with arms horizontal, your effective arm length and actual arm length are both 22''. so the bar preforms as expected. when the arms are angled up (or down) at 45 degrees, your effective arm length drops to 15.5''. this means the swaybar will feel roughly 30 percent stiffer than when the arms were horizontal. The shorter the effective arm length, the more force it takes to twist the heat treated chromoly shaft. so the result of what you're planning to do just means that the average stiffness of the swaybar throughout your travel will be greater than if the arms were horizontal at ride height. nothing wrong with that, but if you find it to be too stiff, that's why. easiest fix is to call up tony tell him you need a more flexible bar. he will adjust the heat treating appropriately and all you have to do is swap out the shaft. not additional fab work of packaging concerns.

 

ok so than can we assume as long as the link ends and the arms are perpendicular at ride height it would work ideally? wether or not the packaging constraints or anything else would work that way i cant say but i guess that makes the most sense if its just from a leverage of angles idea.

 

ideally is a bit of a relative term, but yes. Consistently and predictably would be the words id use to describe it.

Here's a qualitative force curve of what it takes to twist the swaybar based on the arm angle assuming the links remain vertical throughout the travel. you can see that as the arms increase in angle, the force needed to twist the swaybar increases exponentially.

if you have horizontal arms and vertical links at a ride height that is 50/50 up/down travel, the force throughout your travel follows the blue portion of the curve, meaning that the swaybar's effect on your vehicle is very consistent throughout the travel cycle.

given all of the same specs but your arms are facing up at ride height with vertical links, you'll experience the pink curve, meaning your swaybar will be much stiffer as your suspension compresses. if your arms faced down at ride height, you would experience the mirror image of the pink curve.

now, a variance from the blue curve could in fact be used to your advantage if you wanted a certain point of your travel to be more or less restricted than another. that's why "ideal" is a relative term. some people may desire something outside of the blue curve based on their intended use. a rock crawler may want less ability to flex with the suspension dropped all of the way out, since that typically means they're in a precarious spot and are looking for minimal movement. A truck that jumps a lot may want the swaybar to have less influence at full drop so that in the even of an off camber landing, the truck can absorb with each tire individually, instead of trying to snap the truck back to level immediately.

 

Thanks for the explanations, all makes sense and basically what I thought, but laid out much more clearly!

Is that graph accurate? Could I measure sway bar angles and sort out where I'm at with that?

I am mounting the links to the trailing arms which also adds motion ratio to the swaybar making it softer, but I haven't figured out the actual ratio yet. The arms are 24" long and I got his medium heat treat bar.

I want to do it right, but I also don't want to compromise my entire back half because of it. That said, maybe there's a way to make it work.

 

I'll also say the intentions with the truck are obviously high speed desert, but also a decent amount of rock crawling.

Like you mentioned, I could just build it, and if it's too stiff, swap just the bar to a softer one.

 

its just a a qualitative map to demonstrate the physics theory behind how it all works. it's accurate in the fact that as the arms approach 90 degrees (read also as the arms and links approach paralelle), the forch to continue twisting the swaybar approaches infinity, since nearly all of your force is in-line with it, and not trying to rotate it.

it's complicated, but you could certainly add real numbers to the graph if you wanted to get really technical in dialing your swaybar. data plotting would look something like anchoring one side to the ground, and lifting the other with a load cell. you'd then be able to measure the force required to twist the bar one degree, or lift the end of the arm a half inch, etc. just looking for a repeatable measurement essentially. that's the easy part though. using that data to determine how the truck reacts is something best suited for advanced modeling software.

the real benefit of testing the swaybar with a load cell would be to determine at what angle on that exponential curve the force really spikes. it's likely somewhere between 45 and and 60 degrees. ideally you want to stay below whatever that critical angle is to keep from bending or breaking components. kind of like a CV axle. sure it can articulate to 65 degrees without binding, but anything past 45 degrees under load will cause it to fail.

 

I think that's the biggest benefit of the TK1, and why i put one on my truck too. its so easy to play with arm length, link length, and heat treatment level, independent of mounting locations, that regardless of your packaging limitations there's probably a combination of parts that works well.