Long Travel BS Thread

F it...Spool time....I bet you could just run 140w hypoid...

 

I run 250w…. But honestly think I’m going truetrac. The one we have in the 600+hp chevelle has been amazing. Blow the tires off at 60mph and it just keeps going straight. I just wasn’t sure how well they would hold up to shock loading. But we’re gonna find out.

 

Powertrax is like a trutrac

 

the Tacoma only has 4 body mounts holding it. You could pretty easily cut those off and move that cab back a few inches and then mount the engine a foot back without sacrificing much leg room. People forget that rangers have been built to full on race trucks for decades! You think those c channel frames are any better? when you have an engine/cab/bed cage all tied into to each other and plate the frame it really doesn’t matter what truck you start your desert build with. People don’t want to build a tundra for a couple reasons. My main reason is weight. The tundra stock ways almost 6k being a limited double cab short bed with the 5.7 4wd. After installing a cage etc by buddies LT tundra ways a little over 8,000 pounds!!. Try getting spring rates dialed on a truck that fuckin heavy! Plus those stock tundra motors can only hold 500hp, you’d need atleast 700hp just to get the truck up to speed for whoops! Plus it is far wider, and ground clearance is also worse because of were the lca mounts on the tundra frame and diffs are super low being much bigger. My LT Tacoma weighs only 5000 currently, once I add the cab cage it’ll way closer to 5400lbs. I have a full engine cage/bed cage on 35s +5 custom kit and 40” trailing arms out back. The 285hp these trucks have is plenty. I can go 80-90mph on a desert road no problem with the 35s on 3.91 gears stock.

@906taco

 

When you do the cab cage you will find a ton of ways to save substantial weight. My truck full cage front bumper to rear bumper scaled in at 4680 with a full tank.

 

Wow that’s light! I honestly haven’t weighed my truck. Was just going based on number in my head. I’d imagine are dcsb trucks are closer to 4200-4300 stock then? So I’m probably right at about 4400lbs currently. That’s awesome. Glad to know I shouldn’t weigh too much when I burn in the cab cage.

 

Wife’s truck with 33’s and stock bumpers with sliders comes in at 4600. And I’m on 37’s lol. Coming from the car world where every pound matters, I’m super weight conscious on builds. There are many ways to keep things light.

 

Gotchya I see. Where on the truck were u able to save most weight? Did you just remove a ton of the cab metal sheeting to make a tight fit up for the cage? I could think of the deleting the rear crossmembers in place of some .120 wall 2” dom tubes maybe. Couldn’t think of much to remove from these truck to save almost 300lbs that you got.

 

I removed a pile of airbags, modules and wiring, a bunch of unnecessary sheet metal and the factory seats are also heavy AF. But I also only used .120 wall tube for the main structure of the cage. Everything else varies. Some stuff as thin as .063.

There are so many things in the truck world that confuses me. Seemingly every part you buy is minimum 1.5x heavier than it needs to be.

Race car world main cage sections are 1.625x.083. Some sections are 1.25x .049. These cars clap walls and other cars at 200+MPH. While I understand these trucks are heavier, a full on 2”x.120 cage is absolute insanity. Main structure .120. Everything else, up for debate. IMO.

 

I do wish I had thought a bit more about using thinner wall tube in more places on my cage. I'm guessing my truck will end up around 5500-6000lb all said and done, but probably with a 40/60 rear weight bias. But I also have the LS3 to move the extra weight. I also built the flat belly of my truck super beefy cuz I plan to launch this truck off ledges into boulder fields and don't want anything bending.

I'm curious about rally car cage specs, as I would guess that is the most comparable to offroad. Street cars I don't think have as much potential for the pointloads that offroad would see in a crash, like hitting a tree or rock, or flying off a cliff. Tracks are usually pretty safe in that regard haha

 

Yea the te cage I bought has 2” .120 mains with 1 3/4 1.20 and 1 1/2 .120 stringers. Didn’t Realize how overkill it is. That’s wild they use tubes as thin as .043 and it holds up. Yea seems like alot of airbag wiring under the back seats to remove and save weight plus the airbags up front. Yea stock seats definitely seamed a bit heavy when I took them out last. I took off my doors in the summertime for rock trails, they weight a fuck load. Each door is say is close to 70-80lbs. If someone made some lightweight aluminum ones would really save a lot of weight. Plus the whole rear bed structure is a lot. Thinking about doing a back half soon to into the cab and get a proper 4 link paired to my trailing arms and delete the panhard. I think ideally these trucks need to be bumped 1-2” above the frame out back for ideal up travel in the whoops. I’m bumped about 4” below my frame currently, it’s not the best. But I get a lot of down travel so it helps soak up the whoops.

 

Thing with the TE cage is it’s race spec. Race spec is almost always over kill AF. With good reason. But for weekend warriors like most of us, it’s really overkill in a big way. Hell, our frames aren’t even .120….. The heavier these things get the more issues they will have. Like pretty much everything else in the performance world.

 

yeah SCORE kinda drives what most people "want" because its "what the big boys do"
and they took their spec from the... 80s FIA article 253 which was last updated in 2009 then abolished in 2017?

now the NASA spec sheet that still references article 253 for cage construction is the standard.

for reference in my race car - 1.75 x .095 docol fro primaries, 1" x .065" secondaries, in offroad vehicles I've built, primary members were 1.75" x .120" DOM and secondary's were 1.75" x .095" DOM... but those weren't for SCORE

 

I don’t think most comprehend how strong certain materials actually are.

But I certainly think you’re correct on people just wanting to use the same thing the big boys do.

But as wild as those trucks are, I’ve heard an average wet weight with dual spares and 100+ gallons on board is like 5k. Which is pretty damn light considering the pure beef of everything.

 

I think a full TT is closer to 7k, or at least it was when the Brenthel gen 3 was being discussed on youtube

I think Loren Healy's Ultra 4 bronco was around 5klbs fully loaded tho.

and yeah, just making well thought-out gussets with thinner material add sooo much strength to a chassis, I low key hate that I am building a gen1 taco as it is impossible to keep a safe distance from head to cage to operate without a helmet, so I may end up doing something unusual.

 

I will soon.

 

Mason shows 5,000-5,400 for a 6100. But regardless. Weight is big and it should be a topic of conversation for every upgrade you do if you want performance. But it’s unfortunately rare.

 

That is the plan with the truck is to race it. Hoping to do the knolls 250 to start off with. Need to get a fuel cell in place and delete glass with nets in place right to even be considered being race legal for most serious even with a cage. Do I need 5 or 6 point harness for race legalities? I have an old carbon fiber Han’s device my dad used to use when he raced ferrari challenge, it works with 2” harness straps. It also has a com built into the bell helmet I have and water system. Not sure if the helmet will be legal anymore tho being 10+ years old.

 

isn't that the "TT-lite"?

I'm also googling lol, Masons 2wd listing:

 

Some people like my buddies GX weighs in close to 8,000lbs from what he told me. He had a full drawer system he built with like 8 Milwaukee pack out drawer filled up. Plus a winch and and a bunch of other overbuilt bumpers. He wonders why his stock 8” diff keeps failing rock crawling haha.