2002 Tacoma for Autocross

Last race of the year is in the books, and boy was it fun. Pretty chilly both mornings, but we had a great time warming up the tires. My wife made me a shirt for the weekend and everyone loved it, I'll post pictures of the Tacoma doing it's best tripod impression soon.

 

Awesome!

 

My old truck doesnt even have ABS from the factory, talking with @Murd3rd about that lspv made me wonder if my rear brakes may be locking up a bit too early.. You know maybe I should try out some left foot braking, I have my right foot having all the fun out there with lack of shifting on these courses! Maybe get a bit quicker too.

Thinking of my upcoming event this weekend and recalled I was thinking to chop up some lowering blocks and drop the rear maybe another 1/2" or so. Was hoping this will get a bit more weight in the rear to balance her out some more, reduce oversteer and carry more speed in them curves. Just hope it doesnt bottom out on me as I dont have a bunch of time for testing, tuning, and reworking at this point.. We'll see what I can muster in the shop I suppose with the limited time.

That garage pic with the new glove really inspired me too, I need to get some more seat time this week and get myself and Trudy in the zone for the big weekend!

 

Neat sequence of shots showing the truck diving into a corner.

 

Showing how flexible she is.

 

It got up on two wheels a few times, and some people said the visible twist in the chassis of the truck was pretty apparent. When I say two wheels, I mean front wheel about 10-12 inches off the ground and rear wheel skipping. Not serious bicycling territory yet.

 

Dayum! I bet that had them in stunned surprise. Got plans to add frame reinforcements?

 

Tada, tripod Tacoma!

 

Yes, I have a factory x-runner x-brace to put in the rear frame, and I'm going to get the hellwig rear swaybar probably. Something to help keep the front end down. It's fun having a wheel off the ground, but I paid for 48 inches of contact and damnit I want to use it.

 

So no rear sway bar yet? Addco may also still make them.

What about the front? Is it the OEM sway?

 

Yes, oem front sway bar, and no rear bar currently. Just the 4x4 four leaf spring packs.

 

I forgot I had this pic saved in my Snapchat. I hadn't fully finished it yet in this pic, that top nut is run all the way down to keep it in place. But you move both nuts up or down to change the position of the lever and change how much pressure goes to the rear brakes.

 

I'll need to check my Tacoma and see if it has this...

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/2nd-gen-brake-bias.715215/

According to this thread, the second gens do not.

 

This might already be your current knowledge, but the XR springs have a higher PPI than the 4x4 leaf springs. However. They will raise the rear about a 1/4".

Pretty sure you can get the XR rear sway will bolt up to your truck as well. If yours is missing some mounting brackets, www.sosperformance.com should have them.

I know that I have the larger than OEM XII Performance XR sway bar in my attic. Not sure if I also have the rear one. I may have both, but would need to double check. Still in their original packaging.

 

Correct.

 

Finally was able to get out there with Trudy with the culmination of all her mods and tuning combined with them brand new Bridgestones.. basically the highest performance status she has been in ever! OPf course I had a total blast racing against veteran track only mega-build muscle/race trucks, and ended up coming in second place in the truck class at the Nitto NMCA AutoX World Finals with my little daily driver!!

It was super exciting since I was even right on the heels of the 1st place truck and ended up just only less than .2 seconds from his lap time. These trucks the Tacoma was up against were all classic American muscle built with high horsepower LS swaps, full custom frame swaps, custom 4 link coilover suspensions, cages, 315's, interiors stripped, etc.. Yes that does say 72 Bronco down there so you get an idea of how "built" these "trucks" were.



There was definitely some observers that took note of Trudy's stout performance and I heard some great comments such as "Doesnt he know that truck is not supposed to go that fast?", "Who are you and where are you from?!", "Now I want a Tacoma just like this!" and many other folks had fun commentary seeing the little Tacoma in action!

As far as the overall raw results you can click here to see the list, she took 40th place out of 70 entries so she is far from the slowest in overall time against mostly high dollar modified muscle machines with a couple sports cars thrown in against Trudy. The obligatory list of folks that were thinking twice about Tacoma's on their way home:








Alright, let me dig into the GoPro to see what kind of videos I may have captured to share.. I hit the button a couple times back there and removed the lens cap too for at least a few runs!

 

I was able to find a video on my phone my wife took from outside the truck, this was actually my fastest lap of the day that moved me into second place!



Enjoy.. I sure did!

 

That is so bad ass!!!