Brice's NA V6 Build

Well I've never tried a blow torch! We use a degreaser called EBC and it works quite well. We used to use zep purple and it works but is hard to wash off. You could mix zep with sodium hydroxide (drain cleaner) and it should help remove it. If they weren't sealed you'll probably need to let it sit several times.

And I hadn't thought about it but a little bracket to the axle tube would be pretty easy.

 

I saw it somewhere online and had to try it. They are not sealed so very porous. I did a cycle of some nice degreaser and spraying it off.. but I dont have a pressure washer. May try some different mixtures like you suggested. Otherwise, I may borrow a weed torch and then I can really get after it. lol

could probably source a set of shock tabs pretty easily. Like a pre-made, DIY one. one set would be enough for both sides. one on each. already have the bolt there to locate the tab to the housing too.

 

I have some 1/4" mild steel laying around that'll probably work. I only have this bar on the one side and it seems to work well enough on its own. When I chase more power I'll have to do something else I'm sure

EDIT: just realized I think you mean both sides of the trac bar, makes sense

 

I was actually thinking you had them on both, so yeah.. one tab should do it!

 

Interesting. Good to hear this solved your problems. Definitely more of a solution for a street truck. I'd imagine it would severely limit your suspension travel under offroad conditions where you're flexing things out a lot more.

 

Not operating on the same arc as the spring would make it bind a ton, kind of why it work as a traction bar though too, luckily his springs are flat at ride height

 

It basically never off roads, I've got an open diff, 2wd and very street oriented tires. I haven't tested flex yet but I will with some ramps or something.

I need to measure the leaf hangers and see what their angles are and if theyre the same. I'm designing some tpu bushings with some reliefs so the bar doesn't shove the leaf hangers as much...or as much as it might be, haven't checked yet, but the ones that came with the eyelets are a hard non-compliant plastic. At the very least its probably stressing the stock rubber bushings too much.

otherwise I'm very happy with the results.

 

As @XPOTRPR suggested I went ahead and added another tab to brace the bar. It made it 500 ish miles on a camping trip, where I was not kind to it, then broke rolling out of my apartment lol. There was maybe a millimeter of wel around the bolt head holding it on. Before the trip I mindlessly ground down the weld to allow a washer to sit flush with it.





And the new setup


Mind the precision paint job

 

That double shear support will definitely help, but as another member suggested, that bolt is under a considerable binding load. Due to the way that it articulates in relation to the axle.

Look up the Calvert Racing Caltracs. How they attach at the front leaf spring pperch. Then you could easily replicate that, and it would last you a good deal of time longer.

 

I agree that there is certainly a better solution and caltracs would certainly do better. I'm comfortable with this bar as a band-aid between my deciding what I want for a permanent rear suspension set up. Also time is another factor. I happened to finish work early yesterday and spend a few hours fabbing up that bracket ( the First one I mismeasured).

I'm certain I could make a caltrac style solution but I'm not exactly set up to fab sheet metal quickly. When things slow down in the winter I'm hoping I have a permanent solution figured out.

I've also left the rod ends loose so they can allow some torsional movement, I figure since they're both captive and the bar isn't straight it won't hurt anything.

 

So I had mentioned swapping the stock 16mhz crystal in the ECU for the engine CPU to a 20mhz. I ended up swapping it to a 19.0 something crystal that I got from a place in Houston called Ace electronics (super cool store).

First thing of note is obd2 communication with the scanner I have no longer works...so that's not great.
Second it seems to run just fine.
Third it now revs out to around 6750-6800. AFR's seem stable in the mid 12's, I just wish I knew what the ignition was doing.

The stock trans CPU will shift it early at like 5700, but while I was at the store I picked up some higher mhz crystals for it as well. Its a 8mhz stock so I got a 9.0 something and a 10. I've just installed the 9 after testing the engine CPU.
I'll post a video here later.

 

Very interesting.

When at Ace, you should always then stop by Katz coffee. Before the ride to wherever

 

Noted. I'm definitely gonna go back at some point, way too many little things in there not to check out.

Also swapping the trans CPU crystal didn't change anything so it must not work like the engine CPU. Regardless I can manually rev it out to 6800ish. It definitely falls off at 6500 so I wonder what retarding the cams a few degrees would do. I made a couple new slots in the cam gears as close to the stock locating hole as I could so at some point I wanna try those out. No idea how many degrees they will move but cam gear are cheap so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Some oscillators


Stock 16mhz


New 19.6mhz


And some proof
https://youtu.be/y4nK_vxUCXs?si=0RKRGgLqDFEhCJR0

 

Dayum. Out revs my engine, and mine is crazy built and has a Haltech. Lol

 

It should be ok to do it too considering the rod ratio is about 1.8. It's kind of funny that it has good geometry to rev super high but Toyota said "Nah truck motor" on the other hand the same geometry that lets it survive high rpms also make it last forever at low rpms so i suppose it does make sense.

 

Little update.

So I'm not sure if the old a340e's can "learn" but I drove the truck about 500 miles yesterday and now the trans will shift around 6200rpm instead of 5500~5700. Kinda cool or something is breaking and prolonging the upshifts lol.

 

So I did some messing around with the cams today and learned a few things.

The notches I put in the cam gears were way too much and wouldn't work. So instead I figured I'd retard the cams by just moving a tooth over on the belt.
The cam sprockets have 48 teeth so 360/48=7.5 degrees? I'm not sure if it translates that way but hey.
The truck runs fine actually like this until 3400-3600 rpm ish then I can feel that it is pulling all the timing out of itself, like it wont rev past 4000, it just kind of sits there, so that sucks. It does idle with a little less vacuum and the exhaust sounds pretty cool as well as the intake noises, it just sounds meaner. Unfortunately without timing advance it means nothing and I cant test what retarding the cams actually does.

I have some ideas in my head to work around this so I'm gonna order some new cam sprockets to see what I can come up with, I wanna scan the right side sprocket into fusion so I can see how every thing lines up.
If I can get the stock ECU to behave as if nothing has changed timing wise I feel like it'll be a pretty good bump in HP for a NA motor, especially now that I've got 1300 extra rpm.

Right now I'm thinking of moving where the cam position sensor picks up the cam. Right now its picking it up 7.5 degrees after it thinks it should, relative to how it would be if it was all timed properly. I may be off, but if I moved the pickup on the gear forward 7.5 degrees, the sensor wouldn't know anything different and tell the ECU all is good. This (in my head) would mean that I would get the stock timing behavior back (I think?) while the cams are still physically behind stock cam timing by 7.5 degrees.

I dunno, we'll see what happens.

 

Went ahead and ordered some cam sprockets for testing. I've got a few ideas to make the hall pickup adjustable. Should be fun to play around with in fusion.