Angerbot's Build/Adventures Thread

Hello everyone! Long time lurker, first time caller here!

My wife and I picked up our first Tacoma, this very morning. We're coming from a 2015 4Runner TE and moving into a 2020 Tacoma TRD OR.

We live in the mountains in Western Alberta, and most of our offroading is running up and down Hwy 40 and it's various offshoots rather than rock crawling or tight technical trails, so that will inform most of the mod choices throughout.

Here's the truck as it sits today, bone stock with only 16km on the odometer:



We'll be working mostly with Krave Automotive out of Calgary for mods to this truck as we've dealt with them before with our 4Runner and their service and advice is second to none.

The goal with this build is to have a light and fast truck to get to far-flung camping spots. Comfort at speed on rough terrain is a key requirement, and we're not planning on running heavy steel bumpers/armor or massive 37inch tires or the like.

Immediately planned mods:

• Regear to 4.88 or possibly 5.29
• Greenlane Offroad Hybrid Sliders, full plate with kickout
• Greenlane Offroad Bed Rack
• Falken Wildpeak AT3/W in 265/75R16 on the stock rims
• RCI Aluminum skid plates all the way back
• Elka 2.5 Remote Reservoir Shocks, with dual compression adjustment. Standard travel with factory UCAs.
  
• ICON add-a-leaf to help control the weight of RTT + Rack + gear in the bed
• Timbren active off-road bumpstops in the rear

Medium term (probably winter 2020/spring 2021) mods:

• An aluminum hybrid bumper, probably SSO or Greenlane offroad
• 10k smittybilt winch
• ARB on board compressor
• Wildpeaks in 285/70R17 along with appropriate aftermarket rims
• Ditch lights, probably something like a KC Flex or Baja S2s. We had a set of cheap cali raised ones on our 4Runner and they were awesome for mountain backroads in the winter.
  
• A safari snorkel. Dead useless for us in all honesty but they just look so damn cool.

Happy to hear suggestions and feedback on my current plan or answer any questions about the choices made here!

 

Welcome guys! Put on your thick skins LOL. Lots of great folks here, but it can get a little harsh on occasion. Don't take it seriously, there's too much good info here to ignore.

 

Welcome to the forum and great looking truck! Looks like you have it planned out very well and can't wait to see the results!

 

Definitely go 5.29 for gears. 4.88s should have come stock, if you add any weight (which I see you are going to) go 5.29

 

Thanks! What I've heard from Krave is that 5.29s tend to have gear whine and 4.88s are better for a DD unless you're adding TONS of weight. We're going to be pretty conservative (120lb tent, aluminum armor only, P metric tires) so going to try 4.88s for now.

FWIW, I test drove another 2020 with 35s and 4.88s and found it totally sufficient for us on the highway. We're also going to take the tent off between uses and it'll be off all winter.

 

First "mod" done, armed with a hair dryer and a spray can of adhesive remover my wife and I got the TRD decals off the bed in about 15 minutes. Job was much easier thanks to the truck still being very new, and I like the cleaner look.

Tomorrow the truck goes under the knife for new tires and 4.88 gears.

 

Sometimes it’s better......

 

It's regearing day! 1 of 2 as this is about an 11 hour job all told. Sliders, bed rack, and skids are all ordered and should hopefully be here in 2-3 weeks. Suspension order is in with Elka and they're saying end of June currently. We'll see what happens though as Quebec could easily go into lockdown again and delay that further.



Looking minty on the lift. So odd to see drum brakes on a vehicle built in TYOOL 2020.



Sun's out guns diffs out!



Install kit ready to go



Since everything is apart already, we're also having the ECGS clamshell bushing upgrade done. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and all that.

 

The build is coming (slowly) along. Our Greenlane order arrived last night, unfortunately it was shipped by mistake to Krave instead of us. However, Ryan (co-owner) kindly drove our stuff out to us in Canmore - talk about customer service!

Neither the bedrack or sliders came with instructions though, which is a bit of a let down as I wanted to get it all installed this weekend. The bed rack was easy enough to grok from just looking at pictures on their website, but the sliders are less straightforward. There appears to be 15 holes in each side, but I have 16 bolts total, 24 small washers, and 8 large washers. I'm not sure which holes to use and where to put which washers, or what to torque everything to. So I'm going to leave that until I hear back from Greenlane next week.

Very happy with the bedrack though, it sits at a nice height that should ensure we still fit in garages with the tent on and aren't seeing a lot of drag. I bought a couple of quick fist mounts to get the shovel on the rack, but I'll need to figure something out for the maxtrax. None of the holes are spaced correctly to fit the pins and they don't offer any sort of bracket. I suppose this is the downside of going with a small company rather than a well known vendor like RCI who makes accessories as well. My only other gripe is that the hardware to mount the panels is stainless steel, I think it would look much better black.

 

Well, I couldn't find them anywhere else on the internet, so here are install instructions for Greenlane Offroad 3rd Gen Tacoma Sliders: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13gImYQ-6Y7mhpBAmoPVKdTnYt3hkAngT/view?usp=sharing

 

Sliders are on, and I've just heard that the skids should get here sometime in the next couple of weeks! I really like the sliders, the 15 degree angle looks great. They are a little high to be useful as a step mostly because they're only about half an inch below the actual floor of the truck so you have to do an awkward sort of half step. But they'll be great quarter panel protection which is really what I wanted them for in the first place.

 

The taco is coming out nice!

 

Thanks! I'm really happy with it so far, and looking forward to getting the new suspension on. Looks like our target date for that is mid-July now as there's been some delays with the factory in Quebec due to COVID.

 

Awesome! Can't wait to see it!

 

Got the skids on this week, getting the carriage bolts tightened up from the top side of the frame was a huge pain in the ass but I'm quite happy with the skids. Plan is to take the truck out for our first camping trip of the season this weekend, planning to explore a bit around Crowsnest Pass and find some new spots.

 

Got the Elka suspension on today finally! So, so good. Worth every penny IMO, I've only got ~100km on them but about 25km of that was down a rough road that I've very familiar with. Unloaded, 2 clicks away from softest seems to be the sweet spot for high speed compression (haven't played with low speed compression yet). On sections of road where I can normally only manage ~40km/h or less and routinely hit the bumpstops with the stock setup I can very comfortably cruise at 70-90km/h and not bottom out at all.

I ended up with about 2 1/4 inches of lift up front, I imagine it will settle down to 2 inches exactly, and kept the factory rake with an Icon AAL. Also did Timbren Active Offroad bumpstops and a u-bolt flip kit.

On the street the suspension is firmer than stock around town, but on the highway with HSC kept soft everything is butter smooth. The best thing about this suspension so far is how you react to potholes - instead of slowing down or trying to avoid them you just go faster. The harder you hit it the more compliant the suspension is, it's unlike anything I've driven before.

 

Awsome man! Congrats on the lift! Got to see some pics!

 

A couple quick pics now that it's "done":





Holding up the old stock shocks to the new ones is hilarious, they look like spaghetti noodles in comparison.

 

Mine arrive tomorrow!!!!! Trying to get them along with UCAs and removing the front diff drop knocked out this weekend!

 

Congrats, you're gonna love them! The waiting is the hardest part, but they're worth it. Even my wife who normally thinks I'm nuts for spending so much of our money on the truck is happy with them.