Hookers & Blow: Bendilzerians PreXRunner Build

Starting up a build thread before I get too far into my project, as I have big plans for down the road and I'm starting to do all the little stuff first.

I bought this 2015 DCSB Prerunner after my last truck was stolen. Got about 23k miles on her. Since I'm used to buying my cars with 100k+ already on them and 8-15 years old, this felt essentially like a new vehicle to me. Love it!

Pic as purchased:



I'm calling the build a PreXRunner because it's going to be built into more of a 'street truck' than a lifted off-roader. I would like to keep the stock height for ground clearance and I don't like the slammed look on a truck. I also don't like the bodykit that is on the X-Runners. So basically I will be building a fast X-Runner that has some ground clearance.

I never go wheeling which is why I got a prerunner, and I prefer having my cars tuned for aggressive street driving. I got a truck because I got used to daily'ing a truck and I like it, plus I can keep the utility of having a bed to haul dirty/big items when I need to occasionally. I know it'll never handle like a sportscar, but I intend to improve it as much as I can.

Without further banter



Let's get to the first few mods!

I removed the mudflaps, replaced the side steps with Nfabs, and got a new wheel/tire setup first:










Not perfectly clean in these photos neither are they professional but I needed a few of the new setup!

The wheels are 20x10 -18 Fuel Formulas, and the tires are 285/50 Nitto 420S. These are awesome street tires made in a lot of truck sizes.

They only make wider (265+) sizes that are of approximate OEM height for wheels 20" and up which made my wheel choice difficult. I had to find 20" wheels that I thought looked good on a tacoma. I am not a fan of most truck wheels cause of all the blingy chrome accents, fake beadlock looks.

I was happy to find these wheels cause not only does the step-lip keep them from looking too big like a lot of 20s do on tacomas, but they are pretty low-key. The -18 offset makes them a little too aggressive for my taste in terms of poke (+0 or so would have been better), but I had to take what I could find. These were discontinued and had been for a few years so it took me about a month of contacting wheel suppliers to find the last set in the US in a 20" size. Maybe some of the aftermarket flared fenders would keep them looking tucked in a bit, but they're expensive. Maybe later.. I need to fab up some TRD centercaps for these, the Fuel ones are awful looking. Running none right now

Next up I'm working on improving the body roll and nose-dive when braking/turning by sourcing some large swaybars from X-Runner aftermarket suppliers and also getting one of the X-Braces installed.

 

Subbed! You end up going with a 6spd like in the xrunner or a 5spd auto? Good looking truck. I like the idea of making a quick street truck out of a taco. I really want to supercharge mine

 

Thanks! Nah I will keep the auto 5sp for convenience since it's still my daily and that is probably one hell of a job. But yes - down the road a magnuson 2.55", 7 injector setup is on my christmas list.

Also - in the first picture you can catch a glimpse of my Supra in the garage. She's my fun 6 speed when I really want to row through some gears.

 

Sweet! Im definitely interested in seeing how your build turns out. Also, badass supra, i bet that thing is a blast to drive!

 

Yeah if you didnt buy it w/ a 6spd its way too much of a pain to swap them out. I found my 6spd 4x4 but it took me about 8 months or so to come across one close to me. From what ive read the manuals use a different ecu and wiring harness so its a big job if youre wanting to swap one out

 

Didn't get around to posting it, and didn't take much pics (boring job - not really a mod) but did some maintenance this weekend as well.

Did a full trans flush with Amsoil ATF, swapped the diff fluid for some Amsoil Severe Gear, Changed the engine oil (I use M1 in everything), and swapped my plugs.

The plugs were the interesting bit. They were a little more toasty than I expected at 30K miles....\






Does this look normal? Only thing I can think of is I did run a full bottle of seafoam through it about 3k miles ago.

Anyway, replaced with OEM spec Denso's. So weird how Toyota mixes plugs left/right bank...

 

In

 

White DCSB FTMFW

 

You know this
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I really like those wheels a lot by the way. Was looking at them myself.

 

Thanks man, I remember PMing you about them. They were a tough find. I really like how the step lip keeps them from looking like 20" and more like 18" wheels cause I'm not about that bro-lip rubber-band tire look.

 

Shit looks fuckin good homie

Pull em off and paint those hubs now




Did mine last weekend. Not too bad, about 25 min prep.

 

Thought there would be pics of hookers here.

 

Hook, line, and sinker!

 

Hey man going to be doing this this week I believe. What did you do/use for prep? I was thinking one of those little cone wire brush things attached to a drill. Some of the hubs are rustier than others but I want it to be a nice clean surface before I paint, only wanna do it once.

Also, what paint did you use?

 

Wire brush, sand paper, brillo. Thorugh cleaning with wet rag

Then clean with rubbing alcohol and let dry for a minute.

Mask and paint

My mask job wasn't great but you can't see it once the wheel is mounted anyways.

 

Haven't had time to get the pics off my phone and hosted, but I got some more fun stuff this week done.

Painted the hubs, rotor hats, and my rear drums a gloss black. Paint looks to be holding up so far. Used 1 coat of VHT before the gloss paint.

All my LEDs showed up, pretty much everything interior and exterior besides actual headlight/highbeam bulbs and fogs. Pretty excited. All I got installed so far was the license plate lights cause they're easy. Still deciding on fogs. For the headlights, I received my harness from RallyLights in order to run some high power bulbs I got from susquehanna (?) motorsports. So all that will be going in sometime this week.

Also, did my Homer grill. Took WAY longer than I thought it would but I'm pretty OCD about that stuff. I have yet to do the bottom part I will probably get to that next week. Also I'm going to paint the bottom plastic trim that goes int he center of the bumper to a smooth gloss black once I sand down the textured finish.

 

you now, mostly I'm about the bigger tires on tacomas. I like some good street trucks, but I've never seen that tire/wheel size combo like that. It looks REALY clean!! I like it a lot...one of those that makes you go back and look at it again. nicely done

 

Thanks man! Glad you like it! Took me 3 attempts (wheel/tire combos) to make it look right. I dig the SS10!

 

Finally off work again this week so got some time to upload my pics. Will be doing some more work on it this week but for now let's play catch-up.

Got some nice new rainx wiper blades. This is a small mod that actually is very pleasing and it DID improve the looks of the truck by removing the ugly spider-like faded black metal wipers with clean blade that isn't faded.





Next I went and painted my hubs. I ended up taking it a step further and doing the entire rotor hat and rear drums as well. They turned out really well and the paint on the rotors/drums has withstood the heat so far. I used 1 coat of VHT then a few coats of gloss on top. I used a dremel with a small cone wire brush attachment to clean up all the rust and stuff. Took quite a while but I'm happy with them. Might not even do centercaps now.

Before:


Cleanup:


Prepped & Ready:



VHT Coat:


Finished: