Hunting Build 4.0

The build is finally far enough along to start this thread. After three previous Tacomas (2004 Ext. Cab, 1998 S/C Ext. Cab, and 2007 DCSB) this one should be the final truck

The second gen was a great truck and my most complete prior to this one. 37s, shifted LCAs, 14" of rear travel, high clearance rear swingout, winch, full sliders, etc. But a few experiences had me wishing for a smaller, lighter truck again. Looking into the future at the need for another motor, the decision was made to swap trucks instead.

Reasons for going back to a 1st gen:

• Smaller, lighter narrower. The goal is to be 1000lbs lighter than my 2nd gen
• Simpler drivetrain, easier to work on and parts are cheaper
• More boost friendly
• Love the looks, especially of the double cab
• Prefer the partially boxed frame design
• Manual T-case

Purpose of the truck. It's a toy, rarely or never daily driven:

1. Hunting trips. Some local, but lots of state-state trips too. Long (16+) hour drives followed by a need to go on some awful trails. Ability to haul up to 800lbs max, usually closer to 300lbs.
2. Winter lion/bobcat hunting. Capability in deep snow is a must, and places to store recovery gear along with the dog box.
3. Trips with family/kids to places we don't want to or can't take other vehicles
4. When it snows 3'+ and our other vehicles can't make it out to town.
5. Summarily, made to get to rough places as quickly as possible, with maximum reliability. It's not a dedicated offroader, and some design decisions were made with that in mind.

Current Mods:

• Rear Suspension
  • Chevy 63 swap, Slag Factory mounting kit w/5" shackle. Poly bushings, all new pads and clips.
  • Chevy bump stops, custom extensions and mounting
  • Gen 1 Raptor 2.5" Internal Bypass Reservoir shocks. First .015" shim removed, second two set up as a flutter stack, two extra .080" holes drilled 1" and 2" up from the bottom of the bypass tube.
  • Boxed (windowed) rear frame. All non-washdown friendly geometry removed. Mastercoat primer and Raptor bedliner coated. Crossmembers welded back in, spare carrier removed.
  • Longer brake line
  • Roughly 13.5" of travel
• Front Suspension
  • Icon 2.5 IFP coilovers, 550lb King coils. Digressive geometry minimized with a spacer shim.
  • Amazon UCA
  • Cut & shifted LCA
  • Reinforced coil buckets
  • UCA double shear
  • Welded cam tabs
  • Taco Tabs
  • Custom spindle gusseting/boxing
  • Total Chaos lower uniball conversion
• Engine/Fuel
  • AEM 340 fuel pump
  • Black TRD supercharger
  • Amazon Flowmaster knockoff and rerouted exhaust
  • TRD boost gauge
• Armor
  • Plate aluminum front winch bumper w/hoop
  • Plate aluminum rear swingout bumper
  • Aluminum single tube sliders
• Lighting/Electronics
  • LED front bumper blinkers
  • Odyssey 27F battery, welded in larger battery tray, rubber isolator, QD terminals, machined aluminum tie down.

Future plans:

• Engine:
  • Haltech or other controller maybe?
  • Water/Meth injection as an alternative to the above
  • 310cc injectors if going with the ECU option
  • Back to stock airbox, cowl routing
  • A/F gauge
• Suspension
  • Homemade +1.5 high clearance LT kit. Currently fully designed but no time to work on it now
  • Continued analysis of current setup. Maybe experiment with valving
  • Heim double shear steering
• Armor
  • UHMW Skids. Maybe aluminum hybrid, maybe not.
• Frame
  • Continued coating with Mastercoat when things are out of the way
• Drivetrain
  • 4.56 gears, front e-locker
  • Manual transmission swap
• Lighting/Electronics
  • 13K winch
  • Amber fogs in bumper
  • Reverse lights
  • Cutting lights

 

Bumper and Slider Builds:
Ended up getting all of the aluminum for everything for under $300. Selling the stock bumpers and tow package paid for it all
The goal was higher clearance, much more protection, recovery functionality, and strength with little to now additional weight. The rear bumper is probably a little lighter than the stock bumper and tow package, albeit with a much lower load capability for towing. The front is a little heavier, but maybe only 20lbs more.
The bumpers were all designed in cardboard, with inspiration from pictures online. Patterns were transferred to the aluminum plate and cut out mostly with a Skilsaw and an aluminum blade. Everything is TIG welded. Mostly open corner joints on the plate. Adequate reinforcement was added where needed to make it much stronger than any force that will be applied short of a collision. Added some reinforcement to the frame with welded in studs for the front bumper. The sliders bolt on similarly with steel brackets that are welded to the frame. More pics to come after coating and final install. Still need to put the finishing touches on some brackets, cutouts on the front bumper for winch & lights, and the swingout latch.

Update 9/6: Sliders and both bumpers installed. The sliders are way more solid than I expected. They matched calculations moreso than expectations. Front bumper went well, it still needs the winch and fog cutouts when I get time to install those. Rear bumper is ok, really not what I'd hoped. It can't support the tire on the swingout so that will take a few more design tweaks. Everything is coated in Raptor liner. Some cheap Amazon LED blinkers are in for now.

 

Frame:

This truck was very clean to begin with. The PO only used it occasionally and took very good care of it. That being said, I had to do major rust repair on my previous 98 and never want to go there again. Previously I've just dealt with cleaning and recoating every 6 months, but the plan for this one was to do it once and never again. After some research I settled on Mastercoat silver primer and Raptor liner for the coating.
It has been debated at length on the forum, but after some analysis and crunching the numbers boxing the frame made the most sense for several reasons:

• Frames aren't only loaded vertically, they're almost constantly under some kind of torsion load. C channel sections are terrible under torsion loading. This occurs from suspension, off-camber terrain, and dynamic forces with the truck in motion.
• A boxed design facilitates washdown once the stupid brackets inside the frame are removed. The short boxed sections and shock mounts are nearly impossible to remove 100% of the salt, mud, and water from. Even with the bed off and fuel tank removed there was still residue inside them after a close up pressure wash. With those removed, a boxed frame can be washed down from the back end. A gap at the far end makes this work. The windowed design aids washdown and drastically reduced the amount of needed welding without sacrificing rigidity. It also allowed for finishing the coating along the edges where it was left out for welding on the inside.

The frame was wire wheeled and phosphoric acid etched prior to coating. So far adhesion seems excellent, we'll see how it does long term. The bolted connections for the crossmembers were lost in the boxing process, so they got welded back in. Might be slightly less ideal but it'll work. The shock mount tube will add a lot of rigidity as well.

 

Rear Suspension:

After researching leaf packs, the decision was made to use a Chevy 63 swap.

• 1st gen packs that can give 12"+ of travel, handle a load, and ride well empty are rare and expensive. All options are $800 to as much as $1200.
• I toyed with the idea of using a 2nd gen pack, but the combination of cost and hanger availability made it less attractive

Initial front hanger location was set by centering a tire in the wheel well. Then they were squared off of the rear of the LCA mounts. Square was then checked to the frame. Front hangers are frenched about 7/8" into the frame. Crossing my fingers it tracks decent. A u-bolt flip was the initial plan but in the interest of avoiding the stress concentration on single points 2nd gen u-bolt brackets will be utilized instead.
Rear shackles were set for a 40 degree angle at ride height, to not hit the frame at full compression, and to be just shy of 90 at full droop.
The rear Raptor shocks are set to bottom out just past where the leaf packs go flat, and the bump stops should be at compression there as well. Total travel should be about 12.5". This resulted in about 2" less uptravel relative to the truck, but it seemed an ok compromise to keep the springs in good shape. The angle and location do a decent job of maximizing travel out of the shocks without stretching wires/park brake/brake line. Mount tube is 2" OD .120 wall, with about a 3/8" deep notch to better fit to and weld to the frame. The end is capped and welded to the outside of the frame as well.
Gen 1 Raptor shocks sort of accidentally fell into my plan. They were on Marketplace for $100 for all four, just needing a rebuild. Removing one of the first .015x1.6" shims should get the valving fairly close. The Raptor shock bolt holes are annoyingly just under 1/2" and have to be drilled out. I'll post results once their rebuilt and have been tested a bit.
A couple of the park brake cable brackets had to be relocated to the shock tabs, the routing was very different on this truck vs others, not sure what year they changed.

Update 9/3: After getting it all together the various components aren't playing well together. The 63s feel fantastic in terms of total travel, spring rate, and articulation. However, they have very little up travel and that is putting the Raptor shocks down in their bump zone resulting in an absurdly stiff ride. That will be addressed with a couple more bleed holes in the bypass tube and lighter valving. Even if the valving works out that still leaves very little up travel, so it may be necessary long term to do something different with the springs.

Update 9/6: Added two more free bleed holes to the bypass tubes 1" and 3" above the bottomed out position. Also deleted one more 1.6x.015 shim and rearranged to make it somewhat of a flutter stack. That worked wonders for the valving. Also determined, with input from others, that my bumps engage too soon and the lower shock tabs need to move down. That will put the piston above one more bleed hole and maybe the shim regulated ones on the bypass tube. More pics of the current state of it at full articulation attached. The springs can go up a couple more inches before hitting the frame.






UDPATE:
On the first go around the up travel was way too conservative. I was following the general rule of not letting the leaf springs go negative, but they're $100 junkyard springs. Moved the lower shock tabs down 1.5", moved the bumps up 1.75", and added top plates and 5/8" U-bolts from Ruffstuff. Way cheaper than a U-bolt flip kit marketed specifically for Tacomas and probably better components overall.
The truck now has 5-6" of up travel in the rear. The down travel more closely matches the capability of the springs. The biggest benefit was getting the shock pistons above 2 more bypass holes. This keeps the ride over small bumps very compliant while keeping the heavier bypass zones for heavy loads and big hits. The front spring retainers hit the frame near full bump but it just pushes down on the lowest spring. Overall it's much better than the first time.
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AEM 340 Fuel Pump:

Since the bed was off and the tank was out, this was the perfect time to swap the fuel pump. The stock one was functioning, but the fuel system wasn't keeping up with the supercharger. Based on the experience of members on this site, I went with an AEM 340. Install was a breeze aside from the wiring. Wanting a clean install, I decided to connect the AEM pump directly into the stock Toyota connector with no wire splice. There are two crimps on the metal plugs inside the connector. One holds the wire jacket and was easy to undo. The other holds the actual wire and was impossible to undo. To address this issue I crimped the new AEM wire jacket with the jacket crimp and soldered the wires to the remainder of the old wires and the connector. The solder joint was too large to slip into the plastic connector so it got filed down to a perfect fit. The black AEM wire went to the black Toyota wire position and the red one went to the green/blue Toyota wire position. By some miracle it all worked and the truck fired right up with everything reconnected. Haven't driven the truck yet but will post results when that finally happens.

 

I too avoided splicing the wires. Those looking to do this can purchase the OEM style connector and wire terminal that can be crimped onto the pigtail that AEM provides with the fuel pump.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2559981875...iOKcRyaz+Q8wpxDHJhu2gWGB+mEx|tkp:BFBM4sm0665k

 

That's good to know, seems like that would be the way to go. Did you use any kind of a special crimp tool?

 

No special wire crimping tool needed.

 

Front End:

From the beginning the plan for the truck was some kind of skinny 35. Kenda KR629 was the #1 option but I found a set of Trail Grappler 35x11.50 for a steal. Similarly to my 2nd gen, I decided to cut & shift the LCAs to gain caster and shift the tire forward where it belongs. The goal is max travel range for a 35 inch tire with minimal trimming.

LCAs: To shift them, I started by cutting the front two rivets, drilling them out, and cutting out the material around them. This allowed the ball joint adapter to rotate forward. The total shift is 1". Afterwards the existing LCA material was welded to the BJ adapters and filler plates welded in to fill the gap. It's a substantially cleaner and stronger design than stock. All holes were filled in and the bushing sleeves were wrapped as well. Clearance between the CO and CV is a little tight, but it looks like everything is good to go.

Travel is a little more limited than I'd hoped. The CV (I believe the inner joint?) is the first limiting factor after the stock UCA. Stock UCA binds a little more than an inch before the CV. I tried to use a Tundra inner joint but absurdly, it doesn't work. Shaft OD is almost identical, the relief for the locking ring is identical, but the splines are different. Anyone have a lead on a way to get a Tacoma length CV shaft with Tundra splines? It's very tempting to cut and weld one if I can keep it straight enough.


For UCAs I decided to roll the dice on some Amazon UCAs. Had to fix some undercut and one crater crack on the welds to the ball joint cup but for $120 that was worth 5 minutes. Will post travel numbers once I mock them up. Also made some quick double shear brackets.

This time around I made my own spindle gussets. It was cheaper and I like the design better but probably not worth the hassle vs buying them.


Got both sides assembled and started trimming in the front this morning. It looks like shifting the LCAs negated the need to tub the firewall.
The travel numbers are pretty uninspiring, but that's no surprise. Max hard component travel is ~8.5". Update: The CVs are definitely the hard limit to down travel. UBJ, LBJ, and tie rods all have at least an inch of down travel left in them, and the CO has maybe 1/2". Those numbers are all from the hard limit, CV bind is 1/2"-1" above that. All together the CVs are limiting travel by about 1.5", maybe more. The Total Chaos lower uniball conversion is great, plenty of travel at both ends. Since the TC conversion flips the tie rod to the top side, the tie rod gains some down travel from the conversion as well. The truck currently has one OEM CV and one aftermarket one. The OEM one seems to bind a little later but both limit travel by .5"-1". There really needs to be a way to put Tundra inner joints on stock width arms.
After installing the Whiteline bushings I think they may make as much difference in performance as anything else. The ability of the LCA to move freely should be very significant.

Front end is all together. Added some preload after this pic, front lift is around 1.5". Coilovers are Icon 2.5 with King 550 lb 14" coils. The Taco Tabs worked really well, alignment was a breeze. Camber is within .5 degrees.



UPDATE:
Had to rebuild the coilovers. They were leaking oil and had very little gas pressure (under 100 psi). These Icon IFP were a much more difficult rebuild than the Fox reservoir shocks. Gas charging in particular was finicky, it requires a very low volume gauge to check pressure without bleeding off.
Pictures below of the valving. I don't believe the spacer shims against the pistons are stock, a previous owner must have installed them. At one point I was erroneously plan to plug all three free bleed holes and drilled them to 4-40. Now there's one hole open instead of two, and it's slightly smaller in volume than the area of two of the original #2 holes. So far the valving seems close for the application.
The 550 coils are looking to be slightly inadequate, 600s would probably be more appropriate. They're run down almost as far as they can be without coil bind. The front and rear both have 1" of driver's side lean, so that will need to be solved in the future.

 

Man you are running almost exactly the same setup that I had been running, only difference is that I move the LCA outer point so that the inner most gusset hole on the casting was aligned with the outer-forward hole in the stamping (wider by around an inch) and moving forward similar to what you did. I found the trakmotive extended CV's allow for more travel without bind, but the Tie rod inners are even more restrictive than the OE CV with steering angle applied.

Solid Build so far!

 

Thanks! I thought about moving them out but ran out of time to extend the UCA to match and test everything. I've got finished models of a +1.5" kit as well but probably won't pursue it for a while. How close to the bottom of your coilovers do your Trakmotive axles come? The Icon 2.5s are really close to my stock CV shafts so I didn't dare try the Trakmotive ones. If I ended up going to a CO with an extended rod end I could probably use them. For now I'm contemplating cutting a Tundra CV apart and rewelding it together at the Tacoma length. The stock Tacoma inner CV is limited to 22.5 degrees or so, I'd have to see what the Tundra inner joint is capable of to see if it's worth the effort. My ITRs have 1" of down travel left at the outer joint with the TC Lower Uniball conversion flipping them up to the top. They don't really advertise that as an advantage but it was a pleasant surprise.

 

Odyssey 27F Battery:
The battery that was in the truck quit not long after buying it, so it was time to put in a proper battery. Bought a cheap battery tray, machined hold down, and new terminals from Amazon. Welded the battery tray in, hoping it will help hold the heavier battery. There's 1/8" rubber under the battery in the tray to isolate it. The cheap hold down and terminals are actually pretty nice.