Crashnburn80's Supercharged Gladiator Mojave Build

Man, if only I had the time. Kid comes first.

Found this photo dump recently of the in-house designed and manufactured V8 Formula SAE car from my college vehicle design program. What unlimited time buys you:
https://www.reddit.com/r/FSAE/comments/eqsctm/western_washington_university_recently_recovered/

One more fun video from the program:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_2o6DVJ_qs

I do have an interesting idea to explore though for those vent lights that will maintain the vent function and possibly achieve my desired outcome.

 

The very first set of Gladiator Bed bars on the market from @RelentlessFab



My thoughts on why bed bars are superior to full racks can be found below. I ran Relentless bed bars on my Tacoma as well as my preferred design.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...-upgrades-and-mounting-recomendations.680321/

Looking forward to using my RTT again. I’ll get these to my powder coater with some other parts I have in the queue. I painted my last set and the paint was not as durable as I would have liked.

 

Wow, you installed something and it went smoothly? Seems fishy imo

 

Who do you use for powder coating?

 

ThermoTech in Monroe.
http://www.thermotechcoatings.com/home.html

For something like sliders, you can also ask for a can of matching touch up spray. Whatever it is they provide is covered in all sorts of warnings implying certain cancer and death and it goes on like tar. You cannot wipe it off even when wet. The stuff is great.

 

Excellent. I have a bumper I really don't want to paint myself. Will give them a call

 

At an undisclosed location, but supposedly heading my way.

 

I only see 5... I thought you were going with 2 full size spares.

 

You think these could be run on stock Mojave wheels?

 

Tires have finally arrived!

Possibly, but cannot say for sure. The OEM wheel is under spec at 7.5" wide when the tires specify 8.5" minimum. I'm going to run them on an 8" wide wheel, with only 7.17mm less offset than the Mojave wheels (+30 vs +37.17). I suspect the first contact point will be the lower control arm at lock if they do rub. If so there are aftermarket control arms with a greater bend in the arm for greater clearance with larger tires that may solve the issue. The Vision Flow 351 wheels I chose are very reasonably priced and lighter than stock while also moving the offset and width in a slightly better direction for the tire.

 

I don't mean to bring up the wheel debacle considering what you've been through to get to this point, but will 8" be alright at speed if 8.5" is the spec?

 

LOL! Wheel debacle was a PITA. I wasn't even sure if I'd get refunds from some of those foreign entities, but it all worked out eventually.

With all things engineering there is a safety factor built into the spec (from reputable companies). I wasn't thrilled about running a 7.5" wide wheel on an 8.5" wide min wheel spec for the tire as that is effectively 2 sizes off spec, but an 8" wheel is just one size off spec. The difference is 1/4" more pull in per sidewall, over the course of a 10" sidewall. There is always risk running outside of spec, but I am not concerned with this mild difference. For reference the 2022 Ford Raptor runs these tires on the min spec 17x8.5" OEM wheel.

 

So did you find some Jeep center caps to replace those Vision ones yet?

 

Still trying to evaluate if Hellcat titanium lug nuts are worth it to shed an additional .55 lb rotational weight per corner. Haven't looked at center caps yet.

 

Recently drove some windy mountain highways with horrible visibility in the 'bomb cyclone' weather event over the weekend. Couldn't see a damn thing and vehicles just ahead of me would disappear in the wall of water and mist. That was until there was a Range Rover with OEM rear fogs. Couldn't see his tail lights at all, but his rear fogs made him highly visible where others would disappear. This made me step back and reconsider, I've always been so focused on seeing, have I focused enough on being seen in those conditions? I thought I might have to invent the wheel here to add rear fogs, but turns out it is an OEM Euro spec option that can be retrofitted to USA trucks. This is now on the to-do list.

PNs:
68338390AA
68338391AA



Euro rear fogs installed on a US truck


Lots of info here:
https://www.jeepgladiatorforum.com/forum/threads/what-plug-would-plug-in-to-this.28684/

 

That's cool the OEM euro housings fit. $40 for a plug.


It'll be well worth it though for visibility.

 

I always liked the rear facing fog concept. I'm seriously considering something like that for the new 4Runner. It has LED tail / stop lights that I'm very concerned will get totally snow covered in certain winter conditions that occur relatively often up here. (Blowing snow on expressways.) What I'm currently considering is some sort of red LED pod (2 of them) mounted inside the vehicle behind a portion of the rear window covered by the defroster grid. This would prevent them from falling victim to the same snow cover as the tail lights. Still working on options though.

 

this is awesome. Any idea what could do the same for a Tacoma?

 

The euro spec dial adjusted headlight leveling is nice as well.

When you first get a rental car in Europe and think the headlights are trash, just turn the dial on the left dash to 0 and watch the beams start motoring up and off into the distance.

Then when you load your luggage up in the tiny car with springs meant for an RC car, dial it back so you don’t blind everyone with your Carolina squat.

 

The Tacoma, being a North American only product, doesn't have a nice easy bolt in solution. Newer Hilux models have the fog light integrated into the tail light assembly, so that won't help here as the lamps are different. Older Hilux models have a separate unit that mounts flush low down in the bumper... it's the old style fluted lens with a plain old 21W hot tail lamp bulb. Still far from bolt in, but I have a box of them, so eventually I'll mange to mount one on my truck.

Maybe now that crash's interest has been piqued, we can get him to employ some of his excellent testing methods to show how well these work?