aemravan's build thread - project TacoRunner

[aemravan]

Well.. here goes nothing I guess... I spent some time yesterday using some bondoglass body filler over the foam for the central flare piece. The foam was too imperfect and squishy to try to wrap over, so I figured why not try bondo glass. It also gave me an opportunity to even out some flat spots and build in a rough hard edge all around.



I made the decision to use carbon fiber (since I have a ton of material left over from other projects) instead of fiberglass in hopes that it will give me a smoother, closer to finish surface once it is hardened. Fiberglass is great and cheap and fairly quick to work with, but it leaves a super rough surface to have to sand through and even out and I'm really tired of sanding.. lol.



I have the piece coated in epoxy resin now and allowing it to dry to a tack so that I can easily lay over the carbon material and allow it to cure over night. The plan after this is to just do a single epoxy layer for build-up and then start doing final shaping/finish with body filler. I want ot keep the amount of body filler to a minimum in case I band these against a tree.. I want the cracking to be to a minimum and the carbon fiber and foam beneath can be quite forgiving when it comes to flexing and not breaking. If this goes well I should be in good shape to finish out the other two pieces and then start building out the other side and hope like hell I can get them looking close

 

[aemravan]

I decided that I’m skipping the fiber glass/carbon fiber layer and letting the bondo glass filler do the work.. it hardened super hard and I think will be just fine as is. This is going to save me literally days of work with laying fiber glass and sanding it down.

The door piece is drying and looking promising. The quarter trim is already into the first layer of body filler. Definitely a lot of work to do to get it perfectly flat and straight, but coming along decently quick. If things keeping going at this rate I may have the drivers side ready for paint in just a few days.. need to go and get more body filler, this is definitely a lot of surface areas and filling to do.

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[aemravan]

Slow and steady wins the race. Very slow.. but very steady. Got the flares hard mounted to the rig today and started with the body work. There’s a lot more left to do.. a lot of sanding and filling and sanding again..

These came out different than I envisioned.. not the hard line, steep kick out like the fronts.. but.. it is amazing how close to stock these look shape wise. Other than being almost 2 inches wider the general shape is pretty much identical to the factory flares. What do you guys think ?

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[aemravan]

Found out that the small sanding block I have is too small to properly block a panel this size. Keep developing areas of recess because the 4 inch block follows the contour too easily. Have a 12 inch block on order with some 100 grit paper for tomorrow. It should hopefully let me get the transition between the pieces nice and flat. This project is definitely not for everyone and is borderline outside my grasp of ability. But it’s coming along pretty good.

I’ve thought about how I could replicate these once they are complete and just don’t know if it will be possible or not.. At least not very affordable. I would have to create multiple molds, which would be very large. And then figure out a way to have these attach to the factory flares. Because I’m using expanding foam directly to the factory flare there is no back to these that can be easily adhered to the factory piece and it would still be an involved project to mold the wider flares to the factory ones. Long story short.. even if it was something I could tackle I would price myself out of being able to make another set for someone because it would have to be financially reasonable for me to undertake, which would most likely make it unreasonably expensive for someone to buy lol


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[awhitney1]

Hey man, ever thought about giving this thing a tune? I just got a new tune for my v8 over the weekend, more torque and possibly better mpgs

 

[aemravan]

Hey man, ever thought about giving this thing a tune? I just got a new tune for my v8 over the weekend, more torque and possibly better mpgs

What are you using to get it tuned ? Ive never said no to lord torque before lol


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[awhitney1]

Using this tuner here: VFTuner Tuning Kit
– VF Tuner

Contacted Yotawerx tuning on facebook to work with him on getting the tune file for the 06-09 v8 4runners.

What are you using to get it tuned ? Ive never said no to lord torque before lol


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[4RunnerAquasport]

Nothing listed on VFs site for any models prior to 06'. Tundra or LCs either. I guess they focused on VVT-i models.

 

[awhitney1]

Right, only for the 06-09 models for now, but i'm sure they'll add support for the 03-05.

Nothing listed on VFs site for any models prior to 06'. Tundra or LCs either. I guess they focused on VVT-i models.

 

[4RunnerAquasport]

Right, only for the 06-09 models for now, but i'm sure they'll add support for the 03-05.

It makes sense from their standpoint as far as test models/potential sales being more plentiful in the later model years.

 

[aemravan]

yea I got a little excited about that haha. I agree, it looks like a lot of the torque is more than likely a function of tuning the VVTi curves.. not that I need to be spending any more money at all on this thing.. Maybe down the road when the exhaust cracks I can get me some nice long tube DT headers and make this thing sound even better.

Edit: I don't know why I jus now thought about this.. but it looks like we have aftermarket cams available for these engines... talk about real gains across the powerband.. Not cheap, and involved as far as install.. but hey.. short of going the super charger route (which also is no cheap way of going about it) I think long term it is definitely something to think about. Doing a mild street cam on my supra really opened up the low and mid range, I imagine similar gains could be expected from this motor as well. Ultimately though, if we're talking picking up more than, say 50hp, I think it very quickly becomes more economical to throw an LS into this thing and really make some power lol (trading reliability of course )

 

[Inv4drZm]

These are the 2 best threads I have found on the subject of V8 engine performance. The second link, a guy puts a cam in his. He said it runs rough at idle but great at full throttle. I wonder if we can find a cam that works better with the stock ecu?

Stage 1 Transformation (Exhaust, Chip, Intake)

Blew up my V8, Starting Over

 

[4RunnerAquasport]

The cost per hp gains probably wouldn't be worth the squeeze, but doing an NA 2UZ project has always appealed to me.

XAT racing in Sarasota, FL supports all the UZs and I would love to get them involved in planning a build, but it's WAY outside my budget for the future.

Kelford cams and a Link ECU would be the way to go, but thats many thousands of dollars spent before the rebuild even starts.

I would bet Kelvin at Cartune NZ on YT, could shed some light on the subject of pairing a performance cam w a stock ECU. Probably the most knowledgeable UZ guy on the planet. The 4.7 2UZ was never offered over there, but the similarities are quite close, and I know he would have some good advice. He is good about answering questions too.
1uz non vvti Camshaft phasing , Align the Dots. - YouTube

 

[aemravan]

all great information and talking points.. I'm in the same boat with regards to the desire to build out the UZ platform vs going to the cookie cutter LS-swap-the-world route.

With regards to the cam, that's just the nature of it.. you can't have your cake and eat it too (without VVTi at least ) when it comes to top-end performance and lower-end drivability. With that said, depending on what cam options we have, there certainly should be a possibility to have it not idle wonky, just at the trade off for some upper-end on the hp/tq curves.

Fun fact.. the honda S2000 is probably one of the better performing, factory designed motors for what it is. A lot of people complain about how crappy it is to drive, but that is because with normal daily driving, they tend to stay way outside of the actually tuned RPM range (5-9k) where the engine really comes to life. VVTi has gained significant traction in the recent years with the plethora of aftermarket standalone ECU's and tuners who are now proficient in their tuning. With VVTi you can have the best of both worlds, or at least close to it.. for the Supra world, nobody previously wanted a VVTi platform.. now, it's hard to find a high hp build without just because of the extra tuning ability that alternating the cam timing gives.



I don't think I'll ever swap the motor out of this thing.. I'm not chasing 700hp here... but maybe way's on down the road when it needs a little freshening up I can look at doing a mild NA build with a freshened up bottom end, maybe some higher compression pistons, cleaned up head with a street port/polish and some heavier valve springs. At this point it would have to run 93 pump I would imagine... but hell.. just that alone with a combination of some DT headers and larger injectors would probably yield a healthy amount of HP and TQ without trading off much reliability.

Maybe if I hit the Lotto I can take a look at stroking the bottom end to a 5.0L and really having fun with it

 

[4RunnerAquasport]

I have no way to document other than butt dyno, but the addition of headers, Y pipe, muffler, plastic intake plenum, larger throttle body, 12 hole 270 cc injectors, and the 4:56 gears, there has been some pretty good gains in my world.
Low end torque has definitely improved, as well as the upper mid range to red line power.
Would like to bring it all together w a tune.

 

[awhitney1]

Speaking of fuel injectors, i'm looking at possibly getting these for better flow output...http://dirtydeedsindustries.com/product/fuel-injectors/

all great information and talking points.. I'm in the same boat with regards to the desire to build out the UZ platform vs going to the cookie cutter LS-swap-the-world route.

With regards to the cam, that's just the nature of it.. you can't have your cake and eat it too (without VVTi at least ) when it comes to top-end performance and lower-end drivability. With that said, depending on what cam options we have, there certainly should be a possibility to have it not idle wonky, just at the trade off for some upper-end on the hp/tq curves.

Fun fact.. the honda S2000 is probably one of the better performing, factory designed motors for what it is. A lot of people complain about how crappy it is to drive, but that is because with normal daily driving, they tend to stay way outside of the actually tuned RPM range (5-9k) where the engine really comes to life. VVTi has gained significant traction in the recent years with the plethora of aftermarket standalone ECU's and tuners who are now proficient in their tuning. With VVTi you can have the best of both worlds, or at least close to it.. for the Supra world, nobody previously wanted a VVTi platform.. now, it's hard to find a high hp build without just because of the extra tuning ability that alternating the cam timing gives.



I don't think I'll ever swap the motor out of this thing.. I'm not chasing 700hp here... but maybe way's on down the road when it needs a little freshening up I can look at doing a mild NA build with a freshened up bottom end, maybe some higher compression pistons, cleaned up head with a street port/polish and some heavier valve springs. At this point it would have to run 93 pump I would imagine... but hell.. just that alone with a combination of some DT headers and larger injectors would probably yield a healthy amount of HP and TQ without trading off much reliability.

Maybe if I hit the Lotto I can take a look at stroking the bottom end to a 5.0L and really having fun with it

 

[aemravan]

I have no way to document other than butt dyno, but the addition of headers, Y pipe, muffler, plastic intake plenum, larger throttle body, 12 hole 270 cc injectors, and the 4:56 gears, there has been some pretty good gains in my world.
Low end torque has definitely improved, as well as the upper mid range to red line power.
Would like to bring it all together w a tune.

yea I can only imagine man. The factory stuff is super restrictive. Just the TB you did alone would yield some good low end numbers for sure. All of this stuff for me is definitely long term, but I certainly want to do something similar, and then some, in the future

As far as a tune.. that definitely is the single largest area of improvement..

 

[aemravan]

Just got my shipping notification from both Ruff Stuff as well as the Metals Depot. I should have the heims and the DOM tubing for the DIY outer tie rods by this weekend. Excited to get this and get cutting, drilling and tapping. I need to put everything together and measure out the bolt length so I can get it on order as well.

I'm planning on cutting out some 1/4" engine mount spacers as well and seeing if I can go ahead and get the mounts replaced with the spacers in place before I even pull the original rack.

The outer tie rods should probably wait to be made until I have the original rack out and can pull exact measurements to make sure my math is correct before I go and cut the DOM tubing to short or something. But regardless, I'm hoping to have this rack in by end of the month to give myself some peace of mind. Got a camping and offroading trip planned for 2 weekends this month but the stock rack should hopefully hold up OK.


I wonder what I could sell the factory LC200 outer tie rods for... they are brand new and will never work once I straight-drill the steering knuckle.. would be a nice way to offset some cost.

 

[4RunnerAquasport]

Replacing the driver side MM could be tricky w the diff still in place. I pulled the brackets off the block to be able to get to the MM center bolt. They didn't just fall out of there, even w my diff removed.
I also put red lock tight on the 8 bolts (4 ea side) that go into the block. Dont see any reason to pull those back out for quite awhile.

Not sure of my accuracy, but I did some very rough BS measurements yesterday, the CAD numbers [MENTION=130999]Inv4drZm[/MENTION] gave us are pretty damn close. Full bump isn't bad, full droop w the +3.5 DK arms down around 12" of travel is pigeon toed as hell. Thinking about punting and just put the OEM back in.

Injured my ribs pretty good so this thing will be sitting for several more weeks. SMDH...

Hope your install goes a lot smoother.

 

[aemravan]

Replacing the driver side MM could be tricky w the diff still in place. I pulled the brackets off the block to be able to get to the MM center bolt. They didn't just fall out of there, even w my diff removed.
I also put red lock tight on the 8 bolts (4 ea side) that go into the block. Dont see any reason to pull those back out for quite awhile.

Not sure of my accuracy, but I did some very rough BS measurements yesterday, the CAD numbers [MENTION=130999]Inv4drZm[/MENTION] gave us are pretty damn close. Full bump isn't bad, full droop w the +3.5 DK arms down around 12" of travel is pigeon toed as hell. Thinking about punting and just put the OEM back in.

Injured my ribs pretty good so this thing will be sitting for several more weeks. SMDH...

Hope your install goes a lot smoother.

Damn man sorry to hear, that's never good.. hopefully the recovery goes smooth, that's never fun. I'm going to end up living with whatever bumpsteer ends up being, from the numbers, with the factory length arms I should be golden. But even down the road the only time I would see that much downtravel is while slow-speed rock crawling, in which case I don't necessarily mind if its toeing out any since that usually means I have one tire off the ground, or at least close to it and it is nearly fully offloaded.


I was looking at the engine mounts and trying to figure out whether or not the block brackets needs to come off or not.. yuck.. I may wait and do this when I'm ready to swap the rack out .. And thinking about it.. there really isn't any reason why I can't drop the diff out.. its only a few bolts and I will be working on replacing the axle anyhow when its back from RCV so I think i'll do that and make my life easier.