My Ultimate Toyota Tacoma Upgrades

OK, so this 07 Tacoma 4x4 extra cab TRD Off-Road package (the ones without the non-functional hood scoop) V6 is a pretty sweet ride just the way it is.. I've been driving it stock since driving off the dealers lot, for about 35k miles and it's been great. During that time driving it stock on that way too soft suspension and the lousy OEm tires I have been plotting and planning for the ultimate upgrades to make my truck really fit my type of driving.

I use the truck as a daily driver and also put a fair amount of highway miles on it too going to wherever I'm going. So, I'd say about 10-12% of my driving is off-pavement (always wish I had time to do more though). And that off-road travel is usually on dirt roads, jeep trails, and whatever.. sometimes it's driving just through the woods, no roads at all... So, I needed a setup that would meet my needs both on and off road. Nothing too extreme and nothing too tame.

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Here is the equipment I bought and installed on my vehicle (most of it I bought from Wheelers, they were AWESOME to deal with):

OME N140S Front shock set (add $200 to have the spring and shock pre-compressed)

OME 886 Front coil set

OME95PF5 (5mm spacer trim packer)

10mm lift enhancement kit (add .5" additional lift in front)

OME 2.75" Lift leaf spring set

CS047 bushing set for the above spring set

U-bolt set for leaf springs

OME N182 rear shock set

OME FK29 driveline carrier bearing drop kit

Total Chaos uni-ball upper control arm set

Front differential drop kit

ARB bumper

Warn 9.0RC winch

KC HiLites 660 Hid - 6" stainless 35w long range (pair)

BFGoodrich All-Terrain KO 265/75-16 (these are about 1" larger diameter then TRD Off-road package stock)

Stainless steel brake lines (front and rear)

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The installation notes and comments follow below:

The whole front suspension was quick and easy to R&R. Total Chaos UCAs were very easy to install. The OME shock/spring strut setup popped right in. The brake lines had some issues with the end connectors being mishaped.. so I had to grind them out a little bit to fit correctly. The differential drop kit went on easy, but then I had some issues with the skid plate rubbing against the differential housing. I was uncomfortable with that so I made some minor modifications to the skid plate (basically I bent it so that there would be some clearance). Total time for the front suspension was about 4 hours (I did have my wife on hand for this to hold this and that for me, and ask over and over again "how much longer.." Arggg)


The rear suspension was also very easy to R&R. The Dakar 8 leaf pack is pretty heavy (much heavier then my 3 leaf stock pack) so holding it up in place was a challenge. But really no issues.. again the brake line ends didn't fit correctly and I modified them with my hand grinder until they did. The driveline spacer didn't arrive from Wheelers in time (it was backordered) so I used some 11mm machining blanks to lower it.. which seems to be working out fine, but I'll probably swap them out with the correct OME part sometime now that it's arrived and sitting on a shelf in my garage? Total time 2 hours (and I did it without the assistance of my wife, which was more difficult but less frustrating overall - it may have saved our marriage??).


Now we get to the rough part, not for you if you don't like to weld. I wanted to put on a strong ARB bumper, but also wanted a particular Warn winch that I knew was not going to fit the bumper. (I wish ARB would have designed their bumper to accommodate this very awesome Warn). Basically the ARB bumper has some vertical mounting bars inside for a variety of winches. My Warn needs horizontal mounting bars to align correctly.. so I had to weld some into the bumper, basically attaching them to and running between the preexisting vertical ones. Then I drilled out my mounting holes. Then I had to use my hand grinder to smooth it all out, and to fix some minor obstruction where the fairlead hole is.. and then painted it with a can of rustoleum. This fabrication took about 4 hours.


Now I was ready to R&R the bumper. The factory bumper is super easy to remove, and as soon as you get it off you'll see why you need a better one.. It is basically a hollow plastic cup with some frangible material (aluminum) straddled behind it. The new ARB bumper is overt 100lbs itself, and with the 70+ lbs of the winch it took some considerable effort to get it hoisted up into place and attached to the crash cans. Please note, ARB sent no spare nuts and two of theirs were bad (misthreaded) requiring me to go buy replacements at local hardware store. Now, for about $1000 you'd think they could have thrown in a couple extra nuts.. and/or had better quality control. This took about 2 hours.

BTW- I decided not to mount the winch control on the bumper, but instead wired it inside the engine compartment up by the DS firewall. This has the advantage that it's almost impossible for anyone to mess with your winch (and if you are not a frequent user of the winch it works out great). You do have to pop the hood every time you want to use it. This took about 3 hours (the supplied cables from Warn were not long enough, so took time to make new longer ones).


Next, I mounted the KC HiD lights. Very easy to do. They mount to the bumper fine, but the cable coming off them has a huge plug on it that won't fit through the bumper pre-drilled holes.. so I had to run the lighting cables in through the grill (which I was bummed about having to do but really, this cable is non-removable and the plug looks pretty proprietary so I didn't want to cut it off and re-cable it). Also, KC doesn't provide any real mounts for the light ballasts.. right now mine are zip tied inside my engine compartment, one on each side of my radiator. This weekend I'll fabricate some metal mounts for them. Plan to make them attach inside the engine compartment to the vehicle wheel wells using existing factory holes. Also, since the HID lights only draw 35 watts I was able to simply connect them up to the wiring from the factory driving lights.. and they use that factory switch and wiring harness. Total time 1 hour.

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Some pictures below. I should have taken more but my whole body was very very dirty and sweaty (go figure I'd do this all while we had record high temps.. and my truck won't fit into my garage so had to do this in my driveway in the hot sun) Anyway, that's my excuse. I do have some pics of the welding I did on it and so on.. those are on my disposable (real film) camera and I'll post them when I finish the role and get developed.

 

Some more pictures. Looking in at the rear suspension. The special place where I mounted the Warn controller. The HiD light ballast zip tied to my radiator (that's temporary I assure you).

 

Most guys get the mod bug an add a little here and then do a little more over time but it seems like the Mod bug slapped you hard and silly.

So whats on next weeks agenda?

 

It's a curse I guess? I just had this vision for what I wanted in my truck.. and was never sure of the particulars.. thankfully Chris4x4 helped me out big time and gave me some strait advise on the shocks and suspension choices and some recommendations... of-course I couldn't stop there could I

Well, I do want to do two more mods here pretty soon:
1) Change locking rear dif behavior so it can be locked while in 2WD, $WD high
2) Change driving light behavior (now actually my HiD KCs) to be able to turn them on and off independently of the low/high beams.

FYI, I do have my heart set on one more mod. The TRD Turbo. But that'll have to wait until fall as I'll be driving my truck all over the Southwest this summer.

 

wow! When people say if you are going to lift, lift right... you definitely listened! Great looking truck bud

 

Nice looking truck almost the exact setup that i've done for suspension...

Nice and clean too

 

awesome tacoma,man!!! very well done!

 

Nice job man!

 

looks awsome great job

 

Ahhh yes, you are correct Chris4x4. I stand corrected. And a supercharger is all the much better

 

Hot damn.

 

just got my arb and warn xd 9000. I like the under the hood mount of solenoid, but wish there was a way to put the controller plug in the bumper. Has that been done? I have not taken the cover off the solenoid yet so this might be a dumb question. It just seems like this should be possible and it would keep me from having to raise the hood while using the winch.

 

I really enjoyed reading your build thread. Looks like it was a lot of work but well worth it! Congrats!