What have you done to your Tacoma today? 1st Gen Edition

Are you swapping over the entire wiring harness from the original engine? I think you’ll need to in order to use the old style TB (good idea btw), and it will keep you from having to dork around with the auto trans plugs and all that.

 

Agreed. But not like ours. Put a lithium in there for your house battery, with a DC-DC charger.

 

Yea that's the plan. I was kinda haphazard in how I got this motor out because of a time crunch, so there's a lot of cut wires anyway lol

 

With you on the smaller lighter house battery. Trying to find a good DC to DC charge controller. A lot of these things seem like they're made for solar setups

 

My renogy one has been flawless for like 4 years now. Using it with solar but you don't have to, or they make one without the solar capability. I do love that it charges the starting battery with solar too once the house battery is full.

The redarc one is supposed to be solid, too.

 

Redarc is the gold standard, but I've been extremely happy with my Victron (which is a solar charge controller). The app is good too. I'd look into this 50A, which is apparently 98% efficient, if I were converting to lithium right now.

 

Question for you guys who've got turbos:

So I'm helping my friend swap in a junkyard motor and he plans to add a turbo sometime next year. While the motor is out of the truck, would it be wise to drill out a hole in the oil pan now for a turbo oil feed line, and plug it with a bolt or other appropriate fitting?

That way when we turbo the motor next year we don't need to drop the pan or remove the motor?

If so, what size hole and what thread pitch would be recommended based on the common fittings used for those turbo oil lines?

 

Drop the pan, drill a hole for the register on one of

$17 EVIL ENERGY Male 10AN Weld on Bung Fitting Stainless Steel 2Pcs

these and weld it onto the pan. I did mine right behind where the AC compressor ends but before the engine mount begins so there'd be a clear path straight down...

You can just put a cap on it in the meantime...

$10 EVIL ENERGY 10AN Flare Cap Block off Fitting Plug Black

https://www.amazon.com/EVIL-ENERGY-Flare-Block-Fitting/dp/B0CJ57NF3K/

 

Thank you sir! We will do exactly that

 

Try to do it above the oil level in the pan, within the 1st inch or so should do

 

This was also in their lineup and appears more appropriate for a setup devoid of solar, I'm assuming that 18a charging is more than enough charging amperage for a LiFePO4 battery. I am not doing a huge house battery as I really don't have many loads other than a few camp lights and the fridge. Seem about right?

Victron Energy Orion-Tr Smart DC to DC Charger (Bluetooth) - 12/12-Volt 30 amp 360-Watt - Battery Charger for Dual Battery Systems - Non-Isolated

https://www.amazon.com/Victron-Energy-Orion-Tr-Non-Isolated-Bluetooth/dp/B086Q8YNJZ

Edited because I found the one with bluetooth and non-isolated since that is unnecessary

 

Yeah, that one (post edit) will work just fine, and until that 50A came out, is the one I'd have gone with myself. A benefit of the 50A (which of course, you can dial down to something the battery and your alt will appreciate) is that the increased efficiency means less heat radiated off.

How big are you thinking on the house battery? 100Ah?

 

I was thinking a single 100Ah should be more than enough for how I use the truck. Really it does well for more than a day on a regular AGM as is now. Looks like most of the LiFePO4 batteries have build in BMS but I suppose that's not the same as a charge controller/isolator as they still specify 14.4+/-.02v for charging

 

I know very little about DC/DC chargers. They were not a big thing when I did my setup. Do you happen to know if it is possible to link the 2 batteries together using one of these? One of the reasons I chose an ML-ACR was to be able to do this. A self jump start was one reason for linking them. Being an auto, this is more important than it would be to you as a manual. The other reason was when doing extended winching.

 

Are you able to set a high idle for extended winching?

 

It is just a variable charge controller, it doesn't link the house battery with the starting/charging system directly really. Even if you did use a big relay to link the two systems this is where the LiFePO4 batteries fall short, they have a max discharge current. Most 100Ah batteries only will let you pull 100a of current before the battery management system kicks in and disables the output to save the battery. I've only see a couple 100Ah batteries with a discharge current above 100a and it wasn't enough to safely run a starter, you could use it to charge your starting battery but I think if that's full dead in my case I'd have to push start it. That said I'm not totally sold on the lithium setup, it is the same weight for me to put an Odyssey PC680 as my starting battery and use my current 24F as a house battery. Then I can do a regular old ML-ACR or Natl Luna setup and jump start myself no prob. Same weight savings, slightly less total capacity but my starting battery really doesn't have to do much if I can link the two systems for winching.

 

Yeah we both can put it on a toggle with the Haltech no prob. Still need a decent alt though, stock 70a won't contribute much, battery will still discharge during winching even at full production with a stock alt.

 

If you think about it, you sat in the redhead doing some of that on Poughkeepsie. No, I do not have a system in place, like a lever or a controller, to do that.

I do wonder however, if there might be a way to do that with the Haltech. Would be a question for Zane.

 

I suspected that might be the case.

Edit, even the dual ARB compressor pull enough to draw down the battery with the engine running. Realistically, a very high amp alt is needed to keep that from happening.

 

It would still help, of course the thermal cycle of the winch would eventually be the limiting factor I would guess in extreme cases.

He is ahead of you already haha the haltech was the reason I asked since you have a lot more flexibility with that.

I have the capability to set whatever idle rpm I want with the van which would be handy for winching, but generally I just use it to high idle in the winter to warm up quicker. Just seems like a handy capability.