One more Turbo Taco Build

So I've finally *mostly* finished getting it all put together and drive-able! The main hangup was finding time to get the exhaust 90% there. I was trying to avoid buying more exhaust tube and figuring out how to make work and not look too janky took a bit of figuring, grinding, and awkward tacking.

Took the truck on it's first "real" drive to top up on some 93, and finally got it into boost on some short straight aways! I think it only got up to around 4psi, but I was stoked to see that.

I'm not sure, but on my first test drive a week or so ago it didn't seem to want to get into boost. I had the map sensor plugged into a port off the throttle body, and it the gauge would top out at 0psi. After some reading there seemed to be some indication that those aren't the best ports to use, because there's maybe a check valve. So, I took out one of the plenum plugs and threaded a barb into it. I found too that the wastegate actuator bracket I made was a bit off. It was positioned in such a way that it made the actuator hold the wastegate slightly open which probably wasn't helping anything. Another bug I found was that the vband flange I put on my down tube to mate with the turbo is a really really close, but not perfect match for the one on the turbo. ( and/or very slightly warped from welding ) Hopefully a bit of the high temp RTV sealant solves that problem, and if it doesn't I'll just just weld the darn thing to the plate!

After a drive around, I think the AFRs seem mostly ok. I don't have a logger plugged into my sensor yet, but just glancing it looked like when I was hitting boost ratios were between 11 - 13 and cruising 14-15. What's annoying is that it's still rich at idle, but it doesn't seem to bog when taking off and it's not idling high. @yota243 recommended the a flow straightener before the maf, and I may try that next to see if it helps. There's a 45 bend not far before it. Also may move the maf on the intake side to see if that helps. I've also got the FPR plugged into the first nipple off the throttle body. It seems to run the best there, but perhaps it should be somewhere else?

Definitely some bugs to work out, and shitty gas mileage aside, next up is to sort out an oil leak or two. Looks like there's oil coming out by the filter housing. That might be caused by me pulling and a replacing a plug when trying to figure out where to place the oil feed. It wasn't there when I started, and hopefully it's not leaking from where it bolts into the block. There's also a drip at my return.. and that one may just be a shitty fitting that I used. Hopefully some teflon tape and a bit of tightening sort those out.

EDIT: definitely found one oil leak. It was the forward plug on the filter housing.. not even hand tight!
Real happy that didn't come completely loose and blow out all my oil.

 

Got a chance to take the truck on a longer drive yesterday, about 4 hours total. All in all I think it did pretty good, and it's pretty awesome being able to accelerate up hills in 5th gear with 32's and 4.30 gears. It's never done that before. Definitely still some bugs to work out, on the drive I found that I'd neglected to tighten the coupler on the throttle body. That made it run kinda weird ( and made funny noises), made it lean bog on acceleration after a deceleration. Tightened it up and it drove a lot better, but sometimes there still is a slight bog with that same pattern. Now, though, if I accelerate after a coast I'll get a nice cloud of smoke. Kinda like rolling coal, but not on purpose. I really think that I just need a computer to tune with. Planning on picking up a mega squirt when I've got some spare cash. If anyone has a thought on the issue, I'd love to hear it. Regardless, I still need to start logging AFR/Boost off my gauge and ECU data so I can actually use some data to tune. May build an android app to use something like this:

IOGEAR Bluetooth Serial Adapter, GBC232A

https://www.amazon.com/IOGEAR-Bluet...rs232+bluetooth+adapter&qid=1622371394&sr=8-3 to get it.

I did track my gas mileage over the trip. Filled up, started a GPS tracker, ran it all day, and filled up again when I stopped. Worked out to a hair over 19mpg. I was pretty darn surprised about that, figured it would be lower with it dumping enough fuel to make a smoke cloud occasionally. I guess 5th gear actually being usable made a big difference. Wondering if I can make it even better with some actual tuning.

Been lacking some pictures lately so here's and obligatory engine bay shot


And I manged to hide the intercooler behind the grill with a very minor amount of trimming


The grill is a little crooked.. but I'll fix that at some point. Next up on the list is to buy a universal radiator condenser that has AC lines connecting on the side to squeeze in between the intercooler and radiator. Should be something nice and annoying to figure out. My plan currently hinges on the local hose and fitting shop being able to make a some soft ac lines for me.

 

Well, things got busy and I got lazy about posting on the internet about the random things I've done to my truck. But! I'm back with an update.

Initially, I'd started out with a cheapo mystery hx35 I got off facebook for cheap. It spooled pretty quick, and I felt like it worked pretty good until it decided to start rapidly evacuate all my engine oil through the exhaust. And by rapidly I mean, a quart an hour. My hopes of getting lucky and being a cheap bastard at the same were dashed, and I was force to admin to myself that I knew better. I saved up a little money and started doing some shopping. Eventually I settled on an AGP 5457 after talking with Ben from AGP ( Who was very helpful. Me, being in a hurry for no reason, ordered the turbo with an elbow welded on the compressor in the wrong direction, and he even offered to fix it for free. I'd highly recommend these guys to anyone ). With the new turbo came some changes to the setup, the main one being the need for an external wastegate. So, I pulled the header and cut a hole in it.


The position isn't the best, but whatever, it works. Figured I'll make a better one once I buy a tig welder. I didn't really take many pictures, because I was more interested in getting the truck running.
Here it is with the new turbo installed.


The only other change was moving from a v-band to 4-bolt for the exhaust down pipe. I took the lazy route, and just welded the 4-bolt flange straight to the vband flange. It made bolting it up a bit tricky, but it seems to work fine!

With turbo in, and engine running I checked off something else that has been on my list for a while now, bucket seats with a side of heresy. In, my area it seems like every used pair of seats are both trashed and outrageously expensive, and all the "okay" ones in my local pick a part smelled and looked like way too much trouble to clean. After much browsing on facebook market place, I stumble across a set of Trail Max 2 seats for $200 in pretty darn good shape.

The heresy being.. well they're jeep seats

Thankfully, they're actually pretty nice! To get them installed, I went to town on m old bench seat with an angle grinder and cut all the slidy bits off.
I didn't really get an good shots of the grinding action, but here's how I tacked everything together.

I manged to only put a couple burn holes in the carpet. In inconspicuous locations, of course.

And the finished product.

For the most part the brackets are pretty solid, but the right slider is only one thin(ish) strip of metal going into the track. I can't remember exactly, but I think I made the front most cross bar out of 3/16" and the rear out of 1/4". For the left side I found two perfect pieces of scrap 1/8" square tube to act as risers with a piece 3/16" flat stock on top. It ended up leveling out pretty nicely. On the sketchy side, I added some 1/8" reinforcement where I could.. So it wasn't just dependent on a weak little T joint. It seems pretty solid, and I think it would be fine in the event of a wreck, ( the seat belt bracket goes straight to the actual seat bolt ). But I don't particularly want to test it out. In the meantime I think it's a good stop gap until I decide to pony up for some corbeau seats.

Last up, and possibly the most important is that I've got AC back! Coming up soon I'm planning on making a cross country drive, and I really, really wanted AC for the trip. I've been scrounging together a few parts over the past few weeks, and I finally made it happen the other day. With the intercooler, the stock AC lines, condenser, receiver/drier were all in the way. All the freon had leaked out over the years from a collision with a deer, and the front parts of the ac were in need of a refresh anyway.

I found an "universal" condenser on Amazon for around $60. The big thing was that the ports are on the side, and not in the front, like stock.

Here it is mocked up for lines and figuring out brackets


Being a cheap amazon china mystery product, it came slightly warped. I dunno if that's thing or what, but finding a condenser close enough to the right size configured in a way that would fit well was kind of a pain. This one was actually one of the better options I found, that didn't involve spending tons of money. Next up was a couple trips to my local hydraulic hose shop to get some custom hoses made, which ended up being way easier than I'd anticipated. I took home some hose and fittings to mock everything up, and went back and had them cut off what I needed from the oem hoses and crimp them on to new ones.
This is what I ended up with:

It almost looks like I know what I'm doing!

Last thing in was a new receiver. I found another wonderful product from amazon, a $20 thing, that's kinda big. Here it is installed with a little bracket I made out of scrap.

Being bigger than OEM, I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing. ( Also, does anyone know if you can mount these things sideways. It would be super convenient.) But I got everything installed. Then I rented a vacuum pump and manifold gauge set from O'Reilly auto, and went to town testing the system and recharging. I'd never messed with AC stuff before, it was way easier than I thought, and a $150 cheaper than having a shop do it. I'll spare everyone the details, but this thread: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/1st-gen-a-c-system-replacement-how-to-seized-compressor.293204/ was extremely helpful. I very well could have done something wrong, but as of now the AC blows cold! In retrospect, if anyone decides to start fucking with custom AC stuff, I'd recommend using as many oem parts as possible, and just attaching the proprietary fittings to custom hose. I think went I revisit the AC, I'm going to figure out how to fit a denso condenser in because I don't really trust the one I have now.

That's about it for this update, for the truck. I've got a kayak/dirt bike trip planned for the PNW at the end of the week, and hopefully nothing goes wrong on the cross country rally! Next on the build, I'm hoping to get a computer in so that I can tune better. I'm leaning really hard towards going with a MicroSquirt. I'm thinking that it has everything I need to just use it as a fuel piggy back ( with options for other things), and it's half the price of an assembled MegaSquirt 3. Does anyone have any experience with with them? I'm not really having any major issues with how the engine is running. The only two things are that it's a bit rich at idle, and it likes to lean bog a little when I shift in lower gears. I guess it's just the ECU trying it's best to stay at 14.7, but when it catches up it pulls great.

P.S. A little bonus add on I've been working on. I've really wanted a lift up style moto carrier ( like a moto jack rack or ultimate mx hauler ), and I prefer to waste my time than spend my money wisely. So I've been building one. In case anyone is wondering, there don't seem to be any plans out there on how to build one, just one crappy youtube video.

This is a shot of figuring out how to lever everything correctly, all tacked together.


And this is some testing on my Ford.


On my ford, the lowering height is almost perfect. The lift arms need to be longer so it drops the platform about 2", then I'll be able to roll my dirt bike on without having to pick it up at all. Right now, it's about like putting the bike on a stand. Originally, I'd hoped to make this thing work so it was easy to use on my taco when a bunch of stuff was in the bed. Unfortunately, the combination of the lift and hitch built into a high clearance bumper means it's gonna be hard to load no matter what I do, unless I make it sketchy and ridiculous. I think I've mostly figured it all out now, and I'll make an off topic build thread if anyone is interested. I can't be the only person who's wanted to build a dirt bike rack like this.

 

Been a while, might as well update this with some of the new stuff! There's been a couple different projects stacked up back to back is, and here's the chronicle of the last few weeks/months.

Some Mild Safe-T-Cap Frame Repair
A couple months ago, I discovered something rather unfortunate.



The dreaded frame rot on the driver side leaf hanger. Initially it was just a little hole, but it's always worse than it looks so I went to town with a taint tickler, I mean needle scaler, to clean up and remove as much external rust as I could. I got the really bad area cleaned up, and went to to town on the rest of the frame with a hammer and scaler. Luckily it seems like this is the only really bad spot.

I then did what any reasonable person would do, I bought a Safe-T-Cap frame repair set for both sides ( just in case ), took my truck apart, and started cutting up my frame. This isn't a step by step how to, but obviously the bad parts have to go.

Starting to remove some of the rust, cutting and probing what needs to go.


Cleaning out the inside of the frame rail.


Need clean metal to weld to obviously, and there's always more rust to cut out. The metal wasn't great under the cab mount either so more cutting to install...

For those who haven't used these, the quality is good, and the installation is pretty obvious. Clean up the frame to bare metal. Cut out all of the old rust crap. Slide this bad boy on and start measuring to make sure your hanger is in the right spot. I'd recommend measuring a lot, and comparing to the other side, if it hasn't fallen off yet. It's annoying to tack something up, and have to cut it off because you're an idiot. Ask me how I know.

But once you've got it close ( enough ). Weld it up!

Tacked/Partially welded. I think just before this I got scared and started measuring more. Then, it's just welding all around in 2-3 inch stretches.


Part of the cap stuck out into the C-channel section of the frame, and it would have made a bit of a place to catch water and junk. So I cut a bit off and folded the cap on to the end of boxed section of frame. Is that right? I dunno, but it looked nice once it got all welded up.


Gave the frame a prime and a few rattle can coats of enamel. Sure looks nice at first. It never lasts.

Since I never want to do this again, I immediately converted to the church of oily undercoating that gets everywhere. I chose black Fluid Film.

Start of the spray of the black gooey rust stopping goodness. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of it finished up. I covered everything inside and out with it, and with a decent undercoating gun it's really easy to apply. So far it's been sticking well, the black looks nice, and I think it kinds smells good. Maybe I'm weird.

When I had the bed off, I probably should have gone ahead done a shock mount relocation, but I didn't because I wanted to buy other things. I'm a little worried the new frame stiffness will break off the driver side shock mount, it's a bit rusty but not too terrible. Suppose I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. I'm sure some shocks with a longer stroke would be real nice...

New Exhaust

One might have noticed how janky my exhaust was. I noticed all the time, because it was terrible and I started to hate it. I cheaped out when I first did it and used a aluminized mild steel kit. It was easy, but it rusted like hell. I did something about it.

I don't like making things easy on myself, so I did some measuring and guessing and ordered a bunch of stainless pipe from https://siliconeintakes.com. I've been using their stainless tube for my intake/intercooler piping. It's nice and thick ( I didn't get the extra thick ), and it was marginally easier to weld than the super thin Amazon stuff. These tubes have rolled/raised ends for clamping silicone to. I didn't cut it off because it turns out it kinda hides some of my sub-optimal stainless flux wire welds. On a side note, running blue demon flux stainless flux wire kinda sucks. I couldn't get a tank of 98%/2% argon/co2 or tri-mix my required time frame. So I ran the flux core. Started out with trying to run it with a back purge it didn't run great. Eventually got lazy and gave up on the back purge and ran without, it was the same and maybe a bit easier. There's some sugaring on the inside where I was too hot, but fuck it, it's exhaust.


Ew, the old and rusty turbo down pipe. I hated looking at it.

But the new pipe is so nice and shiny. I like looking at this version. Here it is tacked up.


My old run to the muffle was.. a bit odd. I had some strange bends to work it around the cat heat shielding under the passenger seat and to line up to where I mounted the muffler. It was stupid, but I was in a rush when I did it. This time, I made the damn thing straight. I still messed up measuring a little, but the fix to line everything up was to just delete the cat heat shield. Turns out, I don't have a cat, and I haven't noticed a difference.

One might have noticed how terrible my exhaust hangers were from an earlier photo. You know, just some casual AutoZone rusty trash. I did myself a favor this time and found some nice stainless hangers on amazon, and actually lined everything up with the existing frame hangers.


I reused my old muffler. It's theoretically stainless.. or something corrosion resistant(ish) and I added an actual tail pipe. The new exhaust with thicker pipe and a tailpipe is significantly quieter than my old setup. As of now, the only regret I have is that I didn't put a v-band clamp on the muffler. Might get around to that one day.

Other bits
Somewhere in the midst of this, I did a big 3 and alternator upgrade. I threw in a Denso #210 - 0461 105 Amp alternator ( detailed here https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/1st-gen-105-amp-bolt-in-alternator.630459/ ). This alternator actually does almost works ( not much about 3rz in the linked thread ). It bolts directly up, but the only problem is that the 5 rib belt in the 3RZ does not work as well. The pulley on this guy is a 4 rib, and it'll tear the extra rib off the usual belt.. again, ask me how I know. Don't even think about swapping the pulleys either, the one off the OEM does not fit. That ID of the OEM is too small for the shaft. It was a pain in the ass to figure this out kind of. Probably because I used a subpar homemade strap wrench to hold the pulleys. The solution? Buy a 4 rib belt and run it:

$10 Bando USA 4PK880 OEM Quality Serpentine Belt

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000CAXHHG?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title.

Moving into the future.. I finally ended up ordering one of these: https://www.diyautotune.com/product/the-ms3pro-mini-ecu-only/. An Ms3Pro Mini. I've been running a turbo for a few years now, and it's been almost always great but not perfect. I finally pulled the trigger a little while back, and have since taken the plunge.