Black798's 98 limited build thread

[Taylor20]

I like what you did with the rear links. Currently I am building a beefier and adjustable set to match the stock length, but when I outgrow that you have given me the idea of using my lower links up top extended to the frame and then build another lower set.

If I am ever out west, I hope to wheel with you. I could probably learn a few things.

 

[Yellowg]

looking good man

 

[Black798]

Counter Measures

Its pretty well documented that with the TRD supercharger the 3.4s fuel and computer system isn't really up to snuff for running the motor properly. My truck was no exception even living at 6000 ft. I have been having the usual high gear low rpm pinging issue, mostly on the highway in 4th gear or 3rd climbing a large hill at 60ish mph.

With these issues I was flying basically blind though since I onyl had my Scangauge which is pretty limited on its ability to show how the motor was running. Watching my long term fuel trims though I was seeing at cruise they were around -12 to -14 and at lower rpms around +10. Huh thats odd, more airflow but less fuel? yeah something definitely is up. I was also noticing around 4k rpms on a hard pull power would suddenly pick up a lot.

I needed some gauges, I knew I needed a AFR gauge for tuning, boost gauge is useful as well even though the piggy back ecu could display this for me, and I figured having an oil pressure gauge wouldnt be a bad idea either as a general health check on the motor.

Then I needed to mount them and anyone whos installed extra gauges in the 3rd gen knows there arent a lot of ways to do it. With how small the cab is I wasnt a fan of a pillar pod so I decided to move my radio to the lower DIN slot and put the gauges in the upper slot. I CNC cut a bracket and then spent a ton of time trimming and test fitting, heres what I ended up with.

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And for cable routing I just brought everything through the factory boot that houses the ECM wiring harness.
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Didnt take any pictures of the install but there really wasn't much to it other than a lot of time.

With the gauges in I took the truck for a test drive and here are my findings. Oil pressure is good, ranges from 20-70 psi while driving and idls around 6 to 10psi. Seems fine to me.

Boost maxes out around 5psi, seems pretty standard for the stock pulley at this elevation.

Now the AFRs were pretty interesting. Once warmed up the ECU is targeting 14.7 AFR all the time and it does a very good job of that with the AFRS hovering around there alternating lean to rich slightly as the ECU makes little adjustments. For a NA motor this would be pretty close to perfect as far as efficiency goes. But for a boosted motor its not ideal nor is it terribly safe. Under boost while cruising I was seeing 14.7 to 15.3 AFR, couple that with 22 degrees of timing advance and thats a perfect recipe for pinging ad eventual engine damage. The good news though was that under hard acceleration as soon as the ECU goes to open loop the AFRs drop down to a healthy 12.5-11.0 and the timing also retards by 5 to 7 degrees all the way up to redline. This also corresponds to a massive power increase that throws you back in the seat. Id be interested to see how this acted without the supercharger or if the ECU would target a leaner mixture. For me though it gives a good starting point of what is safe for when the time comes to tune closed loop.

And speaking of tuning I had originally planned to go with the AEM FIC6 due to price and the flexibility it provides over the 7th injector. For me spraying the fuel through the blower and not having direct control of the stock computer and fuel distribution just doesn't do it. Unfortunately though sometime this year AEM discontinued both the FIC6 and FIC8 so I needed another solution. I ended up going with a MAPecu3. Despite being almost twice as expensive as the FIC it provides a lot of extra features. Most I wont use but it does give me the ability to advance timing along with retarding it. That is scheduled to be delivered next week so well see how the tuning goes with it, fingers crossed.

 

[Black798]

Counter Measures Pt 2

Now that I had some gauges to know what was going on with the motor it was time to tune it. First I needed to install the MAPecu3 though. I decide to install the magic box in the glove box for easy access. Cutting into the stock ecu harness is always fun but finding the wiring diagram was kinda tough since TIS no longer works. As an FYI to anyone thinking about using it I created an account, was charged the 20$, and never able to access my account, I ended up calling my credit card company and having them void the charge.

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I also logged all the wire connections I made into an excel spreadsheet. It doesn't have the factory ecu wire connections as that will vary from model year to model year but maybe this will help someone else trying to install this as well.
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After getting it installed and zeroing all the maps out the truck fired right up. In my case I havent needed to tune open loop but I have spent a good amount of time tuning the closed loop 02 map to manage fueling and also pulled some timing out at high boost and low rpms. I've completely eliminated the pinging even on the hottest days and really have picked up a lot of mid range torque. I've now started focusing on tuning the vacuum areas of my o2 map in closed loop to advance timing slightly and lean it out to about 15:1 afr and it has picked me up about 2 mpg which is awesome.

Even with the proper fueling I was seeing engine temps knocking the door on 200 when pulling large hills where before the supercharger I never broke 193. I decided to swap in the Stant 170 degree thermostat most use yesterday. Well see how that effects temps over the next few days. I also picked up this can of race gas octane additive. This is purely as a safety net so that if I end up somewhere and am either not able to get 91 octane or end up with a bad tank that I cant tune the ping out of it I can add this to help save the motor until I can get another tank of good fuel.

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Also picked up this guy when I ordered the ecu. URD 2.2 Pulley. I have not installed it yet as I'm actually really happy with the power on the stock pulley and I want to really nail down the tune before changing anything else.
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Unfortunately though turns out my transmission with 200k on it was not up to the task of the added power despite the transgo shift kit. Ive been noticing that first gear has really started to slip above 40% throttle and it seems to be getting progressively worse despite having fresh fluid that isnt burnt. Last Monday I called John at IPT Trans and after talking with him for the better part of an hour have decided to pull the transmission after my next trip, ship it out to him and have him go through and rebuild the whole thing. This goes a few steps beyond their valve body mod as it not only includes that, but he modifies the clutches in the torque converter, installs new HD clutches throughout the trans that will increase the holding power, and he does a fair amount of machine work to refresh things and improve upon the factory short comings. Im not looking forward to the 3k dollar bill but I feel the peace of mind of having a trans that can handle the power and abuse I put it through will be well worth it.

 

[Black798]

Been meaning to update this for a long time lol. Quite a bit has happened since I last updated this so guess ill start with the recent mods and such Ive taken care of.

First big one is the transmission, Im not sure how but it has somehow healed itself and no longer slips so I am just going to keep running it. I changed the fluid in it last week and there was no evidence of burning or a large amount of clutch material so I believe its in good shape and I somehow of may have been getting a lot of belt slippage without it losing boost or something. Very weird but Im not complaining.

Next was the power steering cooler, a while back I found my ps fluid was totally cooked after only a year and I could still physically feel when the steering was getting hot and the power assist would decrease a lot. Ended up installing one of the aluminum finned in line heat exchangers on the front diff cross member behind the skid. There was already a power steering return line here so install was super easy, it nearly doubled the fluid capacity of the system and it does see some airflow off the radiator fan. So far it has been making a huge difference in how long it takes for the steering to get how and the fluid is staying much nicer..

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Next "mod" was swapping out spark plugs. When I installed the blower I got some e3 plugs that were speced in the same temp range as the denso ik22s. My theory with them was that they were the closest to a dual ground plug I could find. Well all I can say is they suck, I was getting random rich misfires, stupid amounts of ping that I couldnt tune out no matter what I did and just not the performance I wanted. Decided to pull them and heres what I found. See all that shiny stuff on the ground strap? yeah that's aluminum melted to the electrode from all the pinging, and the back specs? those are little bits of oil that's gotten burnt into the porcelain which is also a sign of detonation problems.
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Finally got smart and swapped in some denso ik24s and have been having much better results and am getting very close to having the tune for the 2.2 pulley be 100% ping free no matter what and make plenty of power while doing it. Thats it for mods so onto the Colorado trip....

 

[Black798]

Every year I make it a point to get down to Colorado to visit family and do a little wheeling. This year I was able to make it happen the last two weeks of July and while I was down there I was able to run Holy Cross and Wheeler Lake for a second time.

Holy Cross is one of the harder trails in Colorado and for us ifs guys Id say it gets right up there on the limit of what we can do. Theres really only 4 tough obstacles but they all will kick your ass and have a lot of potential for body damage. As luck would have it the day we ran it there was rain most of the day.


After getting past the 1 way section the first obstacle is 100 yards up the trail. There was already a line when we got there and we could hear someone getting real friendly with the skinny pedal.

First obstacle is marked by the sign
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And this was where all the noise came from. Full tube buggy on 44s, we watched him work at it for 15 minutes before finally winching.
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There were a few rzrs in front of us and when the first one tried to bump it up the wall he immediately blew his trans axle giving him 3 neutrals. After getting him out of the way Justin in the red 1st gen walked right up the wall.
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I rolled up onto the wall and started off with both lockers on and after giving it two light bumps I could feel that the truck really wanted to climb and would probably of gone if I hit it a little harder but having a line of 30 jeeps behind us and not wanting to break on the first obstacle I opted to winch

We ended up winching david up as well since it started pouring rain..
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We made good time up to the next ledge and again Justin walked the first gen right up...
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I really wanted to make the far left line work but after trying for a few minutes I couldnt get the ass end to line up and follow the front how I wanted and it was getting pretty tippy. I ended up taking the right line, turtling on my gas tank and then after letting the tires warm up I made it up under my own steam.
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David followed the same line up with similar results.
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The next obstacle is only about 5 minutes up the trail and I think its what earns this trail its reputation. French creek is a pretty large creek crossing with car sized boulders that are scattered all across the exit. Big rocks, lots of water, and little traction, perfect recipe.

Justin went to take the right line and when re positioning his front diff snagged on a rock and flexed the leaf springs enough that it pulled his front driveshaft apart at the slip yoke so he had no choice but to fix it in the creek.

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After getting the driveshaft fixed he continuted on through the creek and out the other end. I was up next and took the right line as well. Id seen a few videos of [MENTION=67615]Dirtco[/MENTION] taking the same line and I could see a pretty clear path so I felt like I had a decent shot at making it despite how deep the water was.

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I ended up needing to take a few stabs at it but after getting it lined up just right I climbed right up.

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And then it happened.. I got up the big line unlocked the front and the front end went down into a hole. It didnt feel very deep so I flipped the front locker back on and started to climb over the rock. Just as the front end came up there was a loud bang and a bunch of shit went bouncing off the rocks. The passenger CV had exploded the outer cup and shot all the balls out under the truck. With only 3wd and the tires covered in water there was no way I was getting out of the creek under my own power so out came the winch. To add insult to injury due to me being dumb and listening to one of the jeep guys that tried to help spot me up the first rock I ran my passenger taillight and quarter panel into a rock pretty hard causing some pretty good body damage.

After winching out of the hole I was in because of how it broke the cv fell the rest of the way out on its own and I was able to limp the rest of the way out of the creek.

Full view of the body damage...
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By now the spotty weather had turned and we were getting dumped on again so we opted to drive untill we either hit the city or found a flat spot to swap my cv out. In the meantime I left the rear locked and locked the front as needed to get the front end up things. There was one more good ledge before the city and without all 4 wheels it as just too sloppy to get up and I needed to winch.
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About 10 minutes later we were at the city and I swapped the cv in about 20 minutes.
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Annnndddd the carnage. Notice how the inner cage that typically blows was intact but all 6 balls managed to get out and the outer cup shattered in half. Not something you see everyday but for wheeling how I do and only breaking this one axle in 8 months Ill take it.
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[Black798]

We went up and watched some buggys play on cleveland rock for a bit before we turned around and headed back down.

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The pictures really put french creek and the size of the rocks into perspective.
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Dropping back down the ledge
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And buggys doing buggy things...
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That was about it for Holy Cross. Despite wrecking my quarter panel which I was quoted 3500 to fix it was an awesome day. I havent really recided what to do about it yet since I cant replace the tail light with the sheet metal as bent as it is but Im thinking now of splicing in a different skin from another 4runner and having it painted. I guess well see.

Better shot of the corner...
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[Dirtco]

Thanks for posting your Holy Cross pictures! I was wondering how the trail looked after the last winter we had. If you make another Colorado next year let me know, I would love to meet up if possible.

Sucks about the tail light, I think your best bet would be finding a donor and grafting in that section below the tail light housing. I would be wiling to bet you could get a tail light back in after some work with one of those welding stud guns and some "creative" body work, but it wouldn't be pretty.

 

[Fishwerks]

Might as well cut the back end of the 4runner off now that it's dented.

 

[Black798]

Thanks for posting your Holy Cross pictures! I was wondering how the trail looked after the last winter we had. If you make another Colorado next year let me know, I would love to meet up if possible.

Sucks about the tail light, I think your best bet would be finding a donor and grafting in that section below the tail light housing. I would be wiling to bet you could get a tail light back in after some work with one of those welding stud guns and some "creative" body work, but it wouldn't be pretty.

I'll for sure let you know next time I make it down there. Will probably be around the same time next year.

I agree about the tailight. Body shop wanted to cut all the way up by the rear door which is just impractical and after looking close at it the actual structure of the truck around the hatch is totally fine all the damage seems to be isolated to the outer skin. Ive been working to track down a donor truck to go cut a chunk off of but most around here are in the yard for being hit in the rear. It's not super high on the priority list since the rear axle is also bent in about 3 different ways. With your previous trail gear setup and fror full float kit was there anything that you would of changed about that setup or did it work pretty flawless? I'm looking at going a similar route if the tg housing with stock shafts and then in a year or so when I can afford to start a SAS on the front convert it to full float.

Might as well cut the back end of the 4runner off now that it's dented.

Don't tempt me with a good time.... A front sas is already in the future for this thing. I'm sick of replacing the same ball joints and other wear items like that once a year without any options for upgrades.

 

[Dirtco]

With your previous trail gear setup and fror full float kit was there anything that you would of changed about that setup or did it work pretty flawless? I'm looking at going a similar route if the tg housing with stock shafts and then in a year or so when I can afford to start a SAS on the front convert it to full float.

Honestly, you would be better off just buying a Diamond housing (if your going to stick with Toyota running gear). The full float kit is nice but it has it's issue's. First, unlike a Diamond housing the axle seal is located in the spindle adapter vs the outer edge of the center section in the housing. Even with my custom machined spindle adapters my seals have always leaked, I've replaced them so many times that I've given up on them sealing.

I also have issues with the adapter leaking oil between the axle flange. Even with a high quality silicone compound (I've tried many different brands) after a few months I get a small leak. On my new housing I welded the adapter straight to the housing for extra strength and to prevent the leak.

Other than that it is a nice kit, and much easier to work on vs the pressed on bearings. It's also strong and I have yet to break anything major (knock on wood). BUT, if I could go back in time I would probably just buy some one ton Super Duty axles and build those instead.

 

[jkeith.w]

On my new housing I welded the adapter straight to the housing for extra strength and to prevent the leak.

What's the down-side there? sounds like a great solution?

 

[Black798]

Honestly, you would be better off just buying a Diamond housing (if your going to stick with Toyota running gear). The full float kit is nice but it has it's issue's. First, unlike a Diamond housing the axle seal is located in the spindle adapter vs the outer edge of the center section in the housing. Even with my custom machined spindle adapters my seals have always leaked, I've replaced them so many times that I've given up on them sealing.

I also have issues with the adapter leaking oil between the axle flange. Even with a high quality silicone compound (I've tried many different brands) after a few months I get a small leak. On my new housing I welded the adapter straight to the housing for extra strength and to prevent the leak.

Other than that it is a nice kit, and much easier to work on vs the pressed on bearings. It's also strong and I have yet to break anything major (knock on wood). BUT, if I could go back in time I would probably just buy some one ton Super Duty axles and build those instead.

Thats interesting to hear about the FF kit issues. Good info though since not a lot of people are running them so finding any honest reviews of it is near impossible. I hear ya on the pressed bearings though, they arent hard to work on but its such a pain especially when Im burning through seals and bearings in less than a year.

I'm not so sure Ill be going with a diamond axle after the experience two guys I know have had. The most recent one called diamond 5 times to confirm the knuckle balls on his front axle would not be welded on and also to get a tracking number. When the tracking number was finally sent to him the axle was already waiting for pickup and the knuckle balls were welded on and gusseted so now were stuck figuring out how to cut and turn those since the pinion angle is way off and we cant get a response by phone call or email. There were also several spots on the housing inside that weren't fully welded like they should be which for the price I find unacceptable.

Right now since the housing is only off an 1/8th and it drives halfway decent Im just going to replace the bent shaft until I have the money and better plan for a long term solution. Well see how it drives in the snow that might change plans a bit if it is trying to send me all over the road.

After seeing this diamond housing in person though I dont see any reason I couldn't build a housing myself which could be kind of a fun project and I could build it exactly how I want. Id just need to source a few machined parts and make some good jigs to keep everything straight. The other option is a ruffstuff housing but Ive heard their center sections are massive rock anchors. Whichever route I go Ill for sure be having the full float flanges welded in. Tons would be sweet but at that point I might as well build a buggy.

 

[Black798]

After a lot of debate over the different routes I could go to fix the rear axle situation I have decided to build my own housing. I started the design a few weeks ago and am pretty much at the point where I am ready to start construction. I have already cut and bent all the pieces for the center section so I just need the tubes and truss parts. I also figured if Im going to have a fresh clean housing it makes sense to redo the rear suspension how I want now so Ill be doing that as well. The plan for that will be a cantilever setup with coilovers to get around 14 inches of travel and add a bunch of stability and tuneability.

Key features of this will be..

Land cruiser 9.5" diff (no more worrying Ill have to deal with a broken ring and pinion every time I bump my fat ass up something)

3.5" 3/8 wall axle tubes

Full backbone truss

Full float chromoly hubs and spindles

Chromoly axle shafts

Disk breaks


Quite the upgrade over stock in my opinion, it will be heavy enough to help lower the cog and keep the truck planted with plenty of strength without sacrificing all my ground clearance. Super excited to get started on this and Ill post up some updates once I have them

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[Road Bull]

After a lot of debate over the different routes I could go to fix the rear axle situation I have decided to build my own housing. I started the design a few weeks ago and am pretty much at the point where I am ready to start construction. I have already cut and bent all the pieces for the center section so I just need the tubes and truss parts. I also figured if Im going to have a fresh clean housing it makes sense to redo the rear suspension how I want now so Ill be doing that as well. The plan for that will be a cantilever setup with coilovers to get around 14 inches of travel and add a bunch of stability and tuneability.

Key features of this will be..

Land cruiser 9.5" diff (no more worrying Ill have to deal with a broken ring and pinion every time I bump my fat ass up something)

3.5" 3/8 wall axle tubes

Full backbone truss

Full float chromoly hubs and spindles

Chromoly axle shafts

Disk breaks


Quite the upgrade over stock in my opinion, it will be heavy enough to help lower the cog and keep the truck planted with plenty of strength without sacrificing all my ground clearance. Super excited to get started on this and Ill post up some updates once I have them

That sounds pretty bad ass. I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out. Necessity is the mother of invention. For the price of some of the other options, I can see how flaws and compromises would be extremely irritating. At least by building your own, you can get something custom tailored for your needs.

 

[Black798]

Ive been slowly piecing together the parts I will need for this rear axle build. So far I have everything on hand except for brake lines, brake calipers, wheel bearings and wheel seals. The only unknown I havent figured out yet is how I will be coming up with a axle shaft seal to keep oil out of the hubs but I think I have a solution for it.

Last week I got a big shipment of parts all at once which is always fun and decided to lay it all out.
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What's all in this picture is the nitro 5.29 gear set and setup kit for the 9.5" 3rd, trail gear chromoly hubs and spindles, RuffStuff Full float weld on flanges, and the nitro chromoly shafts.

I opted to go with a set of cut to length chromoly shafts for the rear of an 80 series for the shafts for a couple reasons. First being cost, rcv wanted over 1300$ to make one set of shafts which for me is just unreasonable, second was serviceability in the future. Should I ever snap one of these shafts they are easy to source being an off the shelf item that takes all of 5 minutes with a grinder or chop saw to be ready to go into the truck. Im trying really hard to make this axle as strong as possible without a bunch of custom wear items that will make working on it a pain later.

With the shafts and gears sorted the next weak link with a toyota full float setup is the hub studs, these are what transmit all the rotational torque to the wheels and the stock studs are tiny at only 8mm. If those studs go you now have no drive at the wheel. ARP makes an upgrade kit but it isnt super cheap and Ive personally seen quite a few sets of arp studs fail especially in rear axle applications. The ARP studs also still retain the stock cone washers which are super annoying. Once the studs are torqued down the cone washer compress into the axle flange and to get them back out you have to beat o the hubs or the studs themselves which is both annoying and almost always causes more damage.

If Im going to have to replace a broken shaft or something I want it to be easy. My solution was to bore out the 8mm holes in the hubs and retap them for 3/8 24 grade 9 bolts.
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And these are the bolts I will be using
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This setup based off the material specs provided by the bolt manufacturer and ARP will be roughly 33% stronger than the ARP stud upgrade. Being a bolt rather than a stud will also eliminate the issue of the cone washers not releasing when you want it to. It also costs about 1/3 of the ARP upgrade. All said and done Im very confident that the weak link will either be the axle shafts themselves or the rear ujoint at the pinion. Both easy trail repair is the unlikely event it happens.

This weekend my plan is to get the axle jig itself built and ready for when the tube shows up in the next few weeks. Slowly but surely....

 

[Rockdawg84]

nice! you're gonna love having rear full float. I could feel a difference in the stability as opposed to the semifloat stock axles.

 

[Black798]

nice! you're gonna love having rear full float. I could feel a difference in the stability as opposed to the semifloat stock axles.

That will be super nice. I can't keep a set of bearings in this stock axle to save my life. 10k miles and a few wheeling trips tops before it blows out the wheel seals and flushes the grease out of the bearings. Super annoying.

Hopefully I can get this housing done before I have to replace the bearings again but it's going to be awhile since it's sent me down there rabbit hole of "if I'm starting fresh I might as well..."

 

[Black798]

Benn awhile but Ive been plugging away on the rear axle housing. Last weekend I got it all setup in the jig and almost fully welded. I still need to finish welding the backbone truss and the inside of the housing. After that Ill verify its still 100% straight, flame straighten if needed, then trim the tubes down and weld on the end flanges. Ive settled on a WMS width of 61.5" since it will still allow me to tuck a 37 inside the fender flares but maximize my width and give as much room between the frame and tire for packaging the currie swaybar I have planned.

Also started giving the SAS a good amount of thought to start gathering parts for that and I think I have finally decided on the diff Ill be using. I went back and forth a bunch between another landcruiser 9.5 up front but I think what I will be doing is buying trail gears front axle builder kit since it comes with new knuckle balls and running it with the 8.4" diff out of a tacoma rear. Its still an 8 inch ring and low pinion but the bearing caps are bridged so there is very little deflection and I have yet to actually find one thats broken. I was originally planning on the high pinion 8 inch from an 80 series but these seem to break way too easy so for the amount of money the 8.4 or lc 9.5 makes more sense.

And now some axle porn....
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with any luck I should have the axle to a point where I can dry assembly the hubs and have it be a roller by the end of the weekend.

 

[Fishwerks]

Yesssssss. Stoked to watch this happen.

You going to ship those diffs down to me when you cut the IFS off?