drizzohs '21 off-road build

Good deal. I'm mostly just after better looks (I absolutely hate the look of an accordion tube), some sound and increased smoothness during acceleration and shifting. Intake mods always seem to help out with these which makes it more beneficial to me than just possibly increased power. I've seen some guys saying mpg went up but I doubt I'll see anything there. Parts should be in by the end of the week so we'll see how it goes. Hopefully the shocks are back this week too.

 

Got my suspension back from ADS last night with the new tuning changes I requested that resulted in "the lightest Tacoma shocks we have ever done" regarding stiffness. For the first time the shocks finally feel like they are setup properly for this truck. I need to put some more miles on the new setup and fine tune the compression again but it is a completely different truck compared to before the revalve. One size fits all does not pertain to damping, and I appreciate ADS working with me to get the truck riding the way I've been wanting it to since I first installed the shocks in November.

The goal with the whole suspension setup was to increase the ride height while keeping the ride quality close to the stock Off-Road feel, but improved. I still wanted the suppleness associated with those shocks but without the vagueness; and with increased high speed stability, greater roll, much better fade resistance, and progressive valving qualities. And let's be real, reservoir shocks look cool as hell.

I first had them reduce the compression in December which was a big improvement to overall harshness. The truck has evolved since then and required some significant changes in order to perform how I wanted. These changes included a softer leaf pack (from Icon RXT to Deaver J66), upgraded shackles and reduced preload up front to find the sweet spot for down travel vs. lift. With the correct suspension geometry and spring rates, the tire pressure was retuned as well. With the tires and springs balanced for my weight, the shocks stood out as the oddball and the necessary changes in the latest revalve were as follows:

• Soften front high speed compression to make it happier over potholes, drops, speed bumps, etc.
• Slightly increase front high speed rebound damping (slower) to reduce harshness
• Significantly increase rear high speed rebound damping (slower) to reduce bucking (more than fronts)
• Soften rear low speed compression to get more weight transfer and body roll
• Soften rear high speed compression to make it a little softer than the front

These changes have resulted in a truck that is now very comfortable on the road (that can now go over potholes and speedbumps without giving you an additional asshole) while still providing increased feedback in the steering and tires and you can still feel the road without additional harshness. The weight transfer properties are much improved now with the rear actually having some body roll when cornering which makes it feel balanced to the front with the removed sway bar. These changes have also reduced the braking nosedive (unexpected, but not unwelcomed) and increased slow and high speed stability. The truck is much nicer to be in and it does not feel like any performance has been lost. I'll be the first to admit I was nervous to test drive again after getting them back this time, but this has been a huge win and my proposed tuning changes were spot on.

You could feel that these were performance shocks since the initial install, but they always felt like they were tuned for a much higher weight class and with an emphasis on performance vs. comfort. The truck could almost hold a candle thru the high speed corners to my street-tuned coupe which was absolutely not necessary on an offroad vehicle. Stiffness is good, but excessive stiffness is not anyone's friend. Everything about the truck is better with these feeling like they are finally correctly balanced for the truck and the entire suspension setup feels in sync now. To be honest, with all of the raving reviews on these, how they are riding now is how I was expecting them to ride out of the box. Glad I stuck with ADS because they really do make an amazing suspension when it's tuned right.
That said.. given my track record with this truck I'll probably be hating it again by next weekend. But until then, cheers because the truck has never felt better.

 

Good news, I still don't hate the truck yet. Absolutely loving the changes I had made to the shocks. Bad news, it's raining today lol.

Intake installed Saturday morning. Decided against the Injen Evolution that I was originally planning on after spending some time offroad in a cloud of dust. Figured it would be better to hop up the stock airbox and try to preserve the filter and oil a bit more. If the truck was strictly on-road the Injen would get my vote, but in mixed terrain I feel like this will be a better option. I also don't like how the Injen intake blocks visibility and access to some of the fluids. So the parts installed this weekend were the

$201 K&N 57-9039 K&N Cold Air Intake System: High-Flow Air Filter, Increase Performance & Towing: Compatible with 2016-2023 TOYOTA Tacoma, 57-9039

K&N 57-9039 JR Intake Kit (tube and filter) and the TRD Intake Flow Accelerator (P/N: PTR03-35160-AE). IMO this is visually nicer and much cheaper than the full TRD kit but should provide all of the gains (if not more due to a better tube design). I also removed the charcoal filter from the airbox lid. I wasn't expecting huge gains, but I am very impressed with how the truck feels. The throttle response is much snappier, it seems like it downshifts easier/smoother/faster and from a stop it accelerates easier. Best way I can describe it is the truck feels like it's lighter. I've seen quite a few reviews that say this increases mpg by 1-2, but we'll see if that's actually the case as time goes on (update from a few months after this post - no difference to mpg, as expected, lol). I'm not sure if it added any power as I don't drive it that hard most of the time, but the smoothness gains make it worthwhile. The intake is audibly unnoticeable until around 4000 RPM and then it's like a switch is flipped and the suction noise gets pretty loud, which is about as perfect as you can ask for IMO. I'm happy there's no droning without the giant resonator on the intake tube - no idea why that needs to be there on the stock tube either - it's just a huge heatsoak lol.

Before (soooooo stock):



Installed and charcoal filter removed:



After (I love how clean kit is):



Stock airbox inlet vs TRD:

 

So now that the shocks have been back for a bit and I have some miles on them I needed to get back to fine tuning the rest of the settings again to maximize the ride quality and performance. So I did some more compression and psi adjusting this weekend and got the truck driving and responding the best it ever has. The front still feels fantastic at 7 clicks from full soft and 37 psi. Ended up increasing the rear compression from 0 to 5 and dropping the rear psi down to 34 (from 37). The rear is finally feeling softer than the front which I've been trying to accomplish since November. It's very comfortable to be in without being squishy but still offers great road feedback and just enough body roll to let you know you're up high. The washboard section by my office is finally about as smooth as it should. At this point I think only upgraded hangers or additional weight can get it any smoother.

Being finally happy with the ride height and ride quality, I went to see the alignment gods over @ Forza Automotive in Tempe, AZ this morning. I love working with these guys, they kill it every time. They corrected the caster back to down to 4.2° (was up to 4.6° on the driver side since lowering the truck causing it to pull right) and set the camber to -0.5°. Toe is in the 0.2° range as well per side. Now it is driving the best it ever has. No rubbing so far and back to one finger steering on the road. Feels like driving a stock vehicle again.

Very happy with this truck at the moment

 

Just a happy truck

 

pretty truck, I am not a big fan of off-roading but I like the way off-road mods look

 

Still happy with this thing since the latest revalve. Weather has been unseasonably cold here lately (80's-90's) so it's made psi tuning the tires difficult, but the truck is really happy now @ 35F / 33R. Any softer and it feels too squishy for the road but this is a great street balance with my setup. I liked the previous psi's cold, but was still a little on the harsh side once they heated up from normal driving. This is much better @ driving temps.

Also one of my friends told me yesterday that my truck rides nicer than another Taco she's regularly in with the Fox 2.0's which made me even happier because generally any 2.0 should ride smoother than a 2.5 on the street.

No other updates for now, still need to install the Warfab tie rod sleeves but it's been grosssss outside.

 

As of yesterday I've had the truck for a year already. Time flies when your truck lives on jack stands for half of the year!

Happy anniversary lol. Truck is almost unrecognizable from what it was stock lol.

Pic from when I picked it up new @ the dealer.

 

Have a few mods that I'm working on that aren't finished yet, but these showed up yesterday so I threw em in.

Replaced my fully blacked out mirror signals from TacoGarage with the new smoked MESO V5 Sequential Turns (installed in the pic). These have a much better color match to the Morimoto XB Headlights and I love how the sequential flows from the headlights into the side mirror now instead of at the same time. I didn't hook up the DRL as I think that looks cheesy, but I dig the new look.



Little gif of them doing the things they do:

 

Awesome build!

quick question, did you use your rays valve stems with oem or aftermarket tpms? I want to use the rays valve stems on my TE37X but not sure which tpms to go with. My stock ones will stay on my stock pro wheels so I don’t need to keep swapping them over.

 

Thx rip!

Swapped my TPMS over and am just using the caps. The stems are cool but they are incompatible with TPMS. If you're going to run multiple wheelsets you'll need a TPMS programmer as well to recode the truck each time you swap wheelsets.

 

Gotcha, thanks for the clarification!

 

So one thing I've been wanting on this truck was the TRD Pro knob. I love how tough it looks, the only problem is that my interior has zero red in it and I wasn't looking to add any. I inquired with a few modders on this site to see if anyone could accomplish the look I was after and nobody was interested so I figured I'd tackle rebuilding the Pro knob myself. The idea was to restitch and repaint the knob to match the factory Off-Road color scheme + add custom painted MGM accents to match the rest of my redone interior trim. How hard could it be right?

Honestly.. as soon as I figured out the trick to the stitching was pretty simple. Pulling the knob apart took about 8 seconds and painting is pretty straight-forward. Came out really well.



Pulled the knob apart and tackled the stitch-work first. Without matching this to my seats there would be no point to painting the boomerangs so I wanted to knock it out before proceeding. Took about 30 min to figure out the trick for the first seam, then about 5 for the second.

I used Selrec UV resistant polyester upholstery thread for this project. I have like 1499 yards of it leftover - if anyone wants some snail-mailed to them - just shoot me a PM.



Next was to paint the boomerangs. Used my standard prime / paint / clear process and let each stage cure a day before moving on to the next (same as I did on the vent rings and the other interior trim pieces).



After painting the boomerangs, the color difference between them and the TRD logo was too great, so the knob got painfully masked and +3 more days to paint that section.



After that fully cured, the knob was finally able to be reassembled and slapped into the truck for the first time, and it looks doooope. It is very understated now vs the red, and if you didn't know any better you would likely think it's just how the truck came from Toyota. I'm calling it the TRD 'Off-Road' Knob and I'm super into how it turned out.



I know my truck is dirty and the lighting in these pics isn't the best, but the knob really flows with the interior and ties in the MGM accents perfectly.





And just for fun, the stock vs the TRD 'Off-Road' Knob:

 

Duuuuuuuuuuuuude. As someone who has the OR MGM interior but also wants a pro knob without the red, this is such an elegant solution.

I'm sure you've mentioned it before so forgive me, but what paint are you using? I'm now thinking I need to pick some up for some custom projects

 

Appreciate it man. I started redoing my own parts because I was less than impressed with the MESO AC rings that were supposed to be MGM (their fitment was crap too). That post here: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/drizzohs-21-off-road-build.748190/#post-26645173

For paint I'm using the DupliColor high heat primer (it's what I already had in the garage from when I did my brakes), DupliColor Perfect Match

$17 BTY1619 7 Perfect Match Automotive Spray Paint – Toyota Magnetic Gray Metallic, 1G3 – 8 oz. Aerosol Can

BTY1619 paint, and the new DupliColor 1K high gloss clear. 1 can of the Perfect Match did all of my interior parts so far with 3 coats, but I will need to pick up another if I want to paint anything else.

 

Awesome write up on the shift knob. Looks awesome. I actually have a faux pro knob and hate the red stitching. Can you provide some detail on how to start it and end it? lol I may try to copy you.

 

That was the hardest part since it's just 1 thread that zig zags back and forth (if you keep the factory pattern). I looped it over itself and tied it into a knot (read: a bunch of knots) on both ends. Then after both sides were completed I put a few dabs of gorilla super glue on all ends to hopefully keep them from unraveling.

 

After a year of waiting I finally received the matching locks to my lug nut set so I threw those on this weekend. Very subtle change but looks better when you're looking at the wheels.

Aside from that, nothing new to report. Still loving this truck since the latest shock revalve!

Happy #tacotuesday

 

Nice clean build so far man! Love all the subtle mods. I got a 2023 white trd OF coming and I'm pumped. Like you this will be my first truck after moving lots of jdm cars.

 

Appreciate the love dude! These trucks are fun but tbh it took about a year for me to really start liking this one. Tune is a must.