Not much Tacoma left.. 4500 koh build

Why couldn’t we be neighbors lol.
Thanks. Progress has been slow and tedious. I need to get some more tube to start the csge.

 

lol I’m already broke from all these projects

 

The way I made the frame left a decent hole where the a pillar needed to land. I took the time today and boxed that in and super happy with how it came out. Clean and simple. I added a center brace incase of a rollover so the tube isn’t landing on an empty box. Should be plenty strong and think it cleans up the corners super well.


Thinking I’ll finish the steering next to get a panhard mounted to find full bump while I wait to order shocks and hubs.

 

Looks like someone needs to learn how to weld! OMG
I think some of you guys must have started welding before you learned to walk.

 

Thanks lol. Pretty much self taught besides watching my dad some and watching some YouTube videos on high school. Like everyone else I’m biggest critic. Should have beveled the plates more and a tiny bit slower wire feed would have helped the weld lay a little flatter.

 

Going the steering arms drilled and mounted back up. Threw them in the mill and angled the head 10 degrees forward to match the angle built into the arms and get the bolt to lay flat.

Made some tie rods and got a drsglink mocked up. Pretty happy to see at full lock the tie rods are straight with the ram shaft which means I somewhat know how to read a tape measure. I’ll need to space the tie rods down but I can make spacers later. I need to get a mockup panhard in to make sure the steering box location will work. I started with the drsglink the same length as the pitman arm from the kingpin but ran into clearance issues. I’ll have to do some more checking but it should work on the same hole as the tie rod.

 

Transmission showed up. Was a gift from my parents for Christmas. My dads been a huge help just answering questions and helping when he’s here


Th350 reverse manual valve body with a 2800-3200 stall. Bottom part of the torque converter is billet.


Now to decide on an atlas ratio. Thinking a 3.0 with 5.83s or a 3.8 with 5.43s. The 3.8 will be more friendly for play wheeling which is what I’m leaning towards.

 

If you know where your motor makes its power this really helps. I use Gear Ratio Calculator to help make gearing choice decisions.

 

I’ve ran the numbers a bunch of different ways. Not really sure where the motor will make the most power as we are still building it and learning how to do that. Probably 3500-4K rpms.


I was originally between just a 3.0 and 3.8 atlas with 5.83s. A 3.0 with 5.83s is very close to 3.8 wirh 5.13s. I think a 3.0 with 5.43s or 5.83s would be the best if it was a dedicated race car but with still plans to just wheel it, I’m thinking the middle ground is 5.43s and 3.8.

atlas gears and a reseal/build kit is cheaper than regearing axles considering the front gears are 1500 bucks so I could always gear it higher later on and go to 3.0 gears. 3.8 would give me a 52:1 crawl ratio vs a 3.0 would be a 41:1. Im assuming the closer to 50:1 the better.

 

Here’s with 5.83s
3.8-55:1
3.0-44:1

 

And 5.13s
3.8-49:1
3.0-38:1

 

Axle gears obviously start affecting top speed. I have no idea what speeds I should be expecting as it’ll only be a mildly built la for now. Hoping for 400 ish hp. 5.83s really hurt the top speed and I think 5.13s are to high which is why I’m thinking 5.43s

 

I wanted the heim on the pitman arm to be centered in the arm to get a little more travel and needed that same heim to be angled down towards the knuckle similar to the genright twisted pitman arm. Cut a quick mount of 1/8 for mockup and angled it down to 10 degrees. My dad has the genright arm and he measured 17 degrees on his so I’ll end up adding more as the heim still binds towards the bottom of travel.

This arm/design is purely for mockup. The final version will be out of thicker material and tons of gussets

 

Next step now that the steering was all tacd together was to get the panhard mocked up.

I made several versions starting with the axle end on the tube but realized there wasn’t going to be enough room for two shocks so moved the mount onto the center section. The final version I ended with tonight had the frame side sticking about 3 inches off it which would put the panhard same length as the draglink.

My dad jeepster is very similar and he added a sway bar recently and had to add a big bend in the sway bar arm to clear the panhard mount so I’ll probably go back to the shorter frame side mount and just live with the panhard being about 2 inches shorter than the draglink. Shouldn’t be a big deal as the other two rigs I built were both shorter but I’ll cycle to see if there’s any bump steer.

Next I’ll make templates and cut some real mounts to get everything atleast tacd and start cycling the suspension. Probably end up cutting the upper link off and clearancing it some more too. And I need to make the spacers for the tie rods as well.

 

Hmmm…
Would you be interested in coming up with and fabricating a traction bar for a 5 lug Taco? 5 Lugs have under axle leafs springs. My 5 lug has 6 lug rear leafs that drop the rear approx 1.5”. I then added a 1.75” block to the drivers side and a 2” block on the passenger. To help w/ Taco Lean. I know you’re asking why in the heck does a truck w/ a 4 banger need a traction bar. Well my 4 banger is now an aluminum 5.3 L33. I know all about CalTracs but they hang down low. Do you think you might be interested after your project is completed?

 

Sure. Send me a pm to exchange phone numbers and we can talk

 

Played with the panhard more. Drew some stuff in cad. The frame side panhard is pretty much set and I moved the axle side some. Ended up moving it 2 inches more inboard to clear the shocks and give room for a bump stop making the panhard 2.5-3 inches shorter than the draglink but degrees are within .02 which I’m happy about. May put a small bend in the panhard to get a little more uptravel over the ram once I notch the frame.

 

I had 10ft of 2” dom left and I needed to start on the cage to do the engine cage to start figuring out shocks. I made a mockup piece to determine how much material the bender uses and started on the main hoop. It’s pretty close and should work good.

 

Few more pictures of the cage. Not sure how I like the gap. It’s 2 inches at the widest but most is 1.25-1.5 gap between the door frame. Not sure if it’s worth wasting 10 more feet to try again lol