Thread: Tacoma frontend rebuild

very nice truck! I like the way it sounds! I might have to have you build a kit for my Tacoma one day. The one on your truck looks good!

Originally Posted by gmhracer

very nice truck! I like the way it sounds! I might have to have you build a kit for my Tacoma one day. The one on your truck looks good!

Thanks. The kit i have on the truck is way more work than most people wanna pay for as we redid the crossmembers and steering. However i do have other kits that look similar and take a lot less work to install. They use stock crossmembers so the truck wont sit as low as ours, but the same travel #'s

Originally Posted by socalmoto

Thanks. The kit i have on the truck is way more work than most people wanna pay for as we redid the crossmembers and steering. However i do have other kits that look similar and take a lot less work to install. They use stock crossmembers so the truck wont sit as low as ours, but the same travel #'s

hmmm.. alright well I will be looking for a kit and new engine cage for mine not too far into the future. We should keep in touch. and If you could maybe PM me some pics and info about one of your decent kits for my truck that would be cool also.

YEAHHHH! GMHRACER!! you can be after the pink taco to get an engine cage! (dont ask about the pink taco) next weeekend steve! its on!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f7-K0n6BuQ

hahahaha we should have had you go closer or something and get a lot more footage out there

We finally raced the truck again after 2 years. We still need to tune the rear suspension and fix a couple things, but for how completely tore up barstow was, and not being on i-beams, the truck did pretty good. We ended up getting 7th out of the 18 in our class (1400).

First lap we kept the speed low and let all the guys trying to win the race in the first lap pass us up. We still averaged 34mph but it felt so slow getting passed so often. Second lap the shocks were finally warmed up and we pushed the pace a little and ran about 35.5mph but didnt really see too many people (at least not driving on the course haha). Third lap we were flying through the course. We passed a lot of people and got good use out of our siren. Ended up pushing it too hard around mm26.5 and i stuffed the frontend into a rock and blew the belt off so i lost power steering (made the 120deg whooped out turn at mm27 REAL fun). We still ran very hard all the way to main pit to get co-driver swap, belt put back on, rear tire was leaking so it got swapped, and we got 10gal of gas. The belt was in bad shape and was a 7 rib, but now was a 4 rib so we got a spare belt and put it on. It prob took us about 20min in the pit when i was hoping it would have taken 5min to swap codriver and fuel up. But the pit crew was awesome and fixed all the crap that i caused very fast (buddy justin got a few burns from the hot ass rad and engine).

4th lap I got stuck behind a class 10 buggy in the dust right away for about 2miles. He was running fast enough that i couldnt pass him on the rougher tracks with all the dust so i held back until about mm3 and I pushed the truck way too hard to pass him when i shouldnt have. I ended up lawn darting the truck at 70-75mph. We came to a stop in about 50ft and we both thought that we were going end over end. After all the dust settled we were still upright and still ahead of the buggy so i took off to block him up out of the river bed. The belt was off so power steering was out, but i figured i could get it fixed at mm14 where we had a second pit crew. We ditched the buggy up the hill but a few miles later in college hills we began to overheat very bad and our rad fan wasnt turning on. We pulled over to inspect the damage and found that yes the rad fan was dead, and we had to change out the belt. The brand new spare was toasted more than the first, so we put the 4 rib belt back on. We were still overheating so we got 1.5gal put into the rad at mm14. It took a few minutes just to let the pressure out of the rad haha. The Sun was going down and was terrible coming over some of the hilltops so we just cruised it and finished up the lap.

Last lap we sped up a little, but it was dark and we wanted to finish so we just cruised it to the finish line without any issues. Finished the race with 2 whole ribs left on the belt haha. We ran the truck hard all day sunday at race speed for about 100miles and didnt have any issues except for some overheating issues early on which was fixed when we pulled the broken fan off the back of the rad.

The biggest problem we found was that on our front bumper theres an open section between the front and lower skidplate to get access to the steering, but its funneling gravel up into the pulleys and belts and causing the belt to jump off and tear apart. Im going to be making a new skid to cover up the lower section. Im also going to add a scoop setup to funnel more air into the rad from the grill in case our fan takes a crap, at least it will get more air forced through it so overheating wouldnt be an issue. We are also going to be getting a fan that wont keep shattering motors (second taurus fan thats takin a shit on us).

Ill get some carnage pics of the front bumper and skid plate tomorrow and look for some more pics, but heres a pic from sunday that milton got. Thanks goes out to all that helped get the truck prepped and to the finish line. And thanks to our very first sponsor Yukon gears for the new 5.29 gears. It definitely made a big difference stepping up from 4.3 to the 5.29. Made passing other people much easier and quicker.

saw you go by main several times, truck looked great. one of my favorite trucks, looks like you could drive it home after a race. why did you pull the bedsides on the last lap? (atleast i think it was you i saw with no bedsides)

One of the dzus tabs broke and the bedside was flapping a little. We put it back on after the race and drove with it sunday, but after about 80miles it did decide to come off after anthill. Not too much damage

the taco is finally getting all the little things finished up that keep costing us so much time during races. The truck is almost prepped but i dont think this truck will ever be loaded up on the trailer fully prepped. It will always be finished up on the trailer or in the des before the race haha. Last race the truck was way smoother on valving but there was a little more that could be done. We were surprised though that even when we would run the truck for hours and then through some rough terrain at race speed (on sunday) and then instantly check the top cap temp with a laser gun, all the shocks were around the same temp. Rear bypass and coilover were between 180-195 and the front co was 200 and bypass was 150. Ive gone through and revalved all the shocks, limited the rear bumps to 2.5" travel, and dropped the bump psi from 200 to 80 (dont know why i didnt drop pressure sooner). I think this will keep our rear down more and be less likely to stuff the frontend. Ive also put more valving in the front bypass and takin some out of the coilover to avg there temps a little closer. I think the front byp runs so cold though because it has all the direct airlfow.

We finally went back to a rubber carrier bearing before the last race and ALL of our vibs went away. It drives like a regular car on the street now. Im still worried about the rear slip not slipping fast enough and pulling and pushing the trans slip in and out though.

Before last race we finally got a trans temp sensor on and found out the lines to the cooler were backwards (OOOOPPPPSSSS). Truck always drove so we never thought there was an issue, but the temp got up to 230 when we test drove out at the race. We swapped the lines and without the fan off it would stay under 180 all the time and with fan on itd never go above 150 during the race. After the line swap i had to adjust the fluid level and i looked at the fluid and it was all still bright red so i dont think it got burnt too much. Also with our old 4.30 gears, our 3rd gear would top out at 75-80mph. We have cut the wire to the trans lockup since then and put in 5.29 gears . . . . now it seems like 4th gear tops out at 82mph and it wont go into 5th WTF?!!! So we are taking others advice and putting the lockup wire on a switch and well see if the next race we can push to mid 90s or even into the 100s. I know the last 4 miles of this marked course we could hit mid 90s with the 3.4 and supercharger, so i dont doubt we can hit that again or higher if the track is close to the same (maybe it wont be).

Went through and also replaced all the heims and unis that were just flopping around without liners (like ALL the steering heims haha) and I will be cleaning up stuff here and there that was tossed together in the des.


Ive also made a lower aluminum block to keep dirt and gravel out of the rad and pulleys






We have a bmw bosch motor fan in the truck now (just wired for high speed) and so well see if this fan can take our abuse. Two taurus fans took a ** ¡Ay, caramba!**** ¡Ay, caramba!**** ¡Ay, caramba!**** ¡Ay, caramba!** and somehow weve blown two tyco 75amp relays with 60 amp fuses on them. The fuses never blew, but the relays dont work anymore. Because of those issues i built a scoop in front of the rad to help force air through the rad, not around it. This way even if the fan dies again, we should be able to keep it in a normal temp range. Im also going to see if i can build an overflow that can hold a gallon of coolant so if we do get hot, we can just slow down and get the rad to suck a lot of its fluid back in (dont know if ill have this built in time).



I ended up making it a steel bash plate like i made in front of the steering box. Ive replaced the lower tube since it was destroyed at the last race (it was a 3/8 thick tube) so the new one is solid in the middle. I used the steel bash plate to tie the lower bumper into the front crossmember so nothing should move now. I only welded sections of the bash plates so they can be cut out later somewhat easily and replaced. The lower plate has vertical ribs on the topside to keep it from bending. Still gonna leave the side open for the steering and well see how it goes. I dont want a plate to cover the steering, get bent, and lock everything up.



Also made an aluminum visor


Were gonna try out some booties on our high wear heims and see if they last longer or if the booties just hold in dirt or get chewed up


And heres our overflow now. Got rid of the monster can cause rocks from other vehicles kept putting holes in it. Id like to make this much larger though and hold about 1 gallon.

Sorry about the truck, stopped by and looked at it in the pits after the race. i was talking about how your truck was one of my favorites when you drove by on lap 2 i think. hope to see it fixed soon.

Ya the damage isnt bad at all. Im now set that i need to get the fuel gauge working because we were running second place until 5th lap at MM9 when we ran out of gas. We had pitted on the 4th lap for fuel and codriver change but only dumped in 10gallons thinking we were running around 7mpg and we were gonna get another 10 gal at end of 5th lap just to be safe. Turns out we were running at 4-4.5mpg so we definitely didnt have enough fuel. To make things worse about running out of gas is that MM9 is the furthest point from any access road and to get to us our chase truck had to drive all the way out to the dry lake bed and mob down quad tracks to find us. Took over an hour to get fuel. HUGE thanks to the MORE look out guy (think his name was randy) gave me a ride in his chevy to go meet our chase truck in the lake bed so we could bring them in to where we were. Without his help, i dont know if our truck would have found us. Also HUUUUGGGGEEEE thanks to glamiskid395 (mike). We would have had a shitty race if he didnt help us the night before the race to fix our front bypass and give us those sweet american made hose clamps to keep our carrier bearing alive. No way the cheapo chinese crap i had would have held up.

And then of course we crashed at MM39 on lap 5. It wasnt because we were pushing to make up time cause we knew we couldnt make up the time, it was just that the lugs had probably loosened up. 4 studs snapped and 2 stripped the ends of the lugs. As far as we can tell ALL the damage is only cosmetic and even though the tire came off at mid 90s to low 100s mph I think we only rolled at 10-15mph. Saw the crash area the next day and we were 120-130 yards from where the tire came off at. Truck swapped ass end twice and then we could see the rotor dragged for about 100yards. Last 50 yards we could see where the rear stepped way out to the side and i know the steering was full cranked to try and get it back, but we hit a bush and the truck rrolled over 3/4 of the way. Got help to flip it over with a spectator's truck, put on a wheel with 2 lugs after cleaning off the ends of the threads and drove it up to finish up lap 5.






When we ran out of fuel we noticed the bypass had shot oil all over the side of the truck, so that was another reason we didnt want to push the truck after getting fuel, but within 2 miles we were running back up around race speed and nothing felt bad so i dont know how long that bypass was leaking.




B

Not pushing it???? at mid 90's to low 100mph. That is pushing it in any buggy or truck if you have the horse power to do it in that section.

Love that truck though. Never really got to see it out there running. Looked great in Barstow though.

Also, Steve didn't mention that he manged to leave everything valuable at the shop, Pit radio, intercom, we didn't have a working gps. We ran the first lap with a garmin to get speed readings. We had ran the last few miles at same speed, even Friday we ran through MM39 and we were doing 98. The truck hauls the mail.

Originally Posted by sullyman

Not pushing it???? at mid 90's to low 100mph. That is pushing it in any buggy or truck if you have the horse power to do it in that section.

Love that truck though. Never really got to see it out there running. Looked great in Barstow though.

We had a lot more power to go faster, but again i wasnt pushing it. That and after about lap 2 the ecu kept making the trans shift weird and stumbled a lot. A few times on lap 3 and 4 it was so bad that i was almost to the point where i wanted to pull over, kill the battery, and let it sit for 30 seconds to erase the computer memory so it would shift fine again. It was a problem coming down through MM 37-40 because 4th tops out at 80ish so i had to get into 5th to pull faster, but if i went over 1/3 throttle it would try to downshift and try to over rev the engine and slow us down. Ill prob toss in the IPT valve body we have sitting at the shop and see if it fixes the problems. The taco 4.0 hauls ass and makes great power . . probably the reason it was burning fuel like nobodies business and running at 4mpg.

Although to be fair it is a throttle by wire, so who knows what 1/3 throttle on the pedal really is at the engine haha

Good to know I saved your weekend!

Not so good when you rolled though. Hope to see you at the next race!

Fox-1420

looks like everything held up great. i love this truck. needs to be black though. lol