2/23/2014
So the last time I posted I had decided to start looking for a 1st gen. I had bought a set of TRD off road 16's and 265/75/16 Duratracs off craigslist. So I took off my 285's and sold them to a local TacomaWorld member. Well once I threw on the 265's I knew I made a mistake. It was really hard to tell before I put them on, but they had some slight cupping that produced a loud hum at freeway speed. Really bummed me out because I liked the set up and they would have been perfect. I decided to look for some new tires and was actively searching when I found some almost new 245/75/16 Dunlops on 1st gen Tacoma wheels for REALLY cheap that I bought for my Fiance's Jeep. I planned on swapping the 245's over to her Jeep once her tires were worn out. I decided to use them for the time being since they will get me great mileage and work perfectly till I got some new tires.
Fast forward a couple of weeks and I ended up finding a super cheap 1st gen 20 minutes from my place. I was ready to buy, but common sense (my fiance...haha) talked me out of it. I was super bummed, but it was the right decision. While I had the money, the extra cost of another car on insurance, maintenance and upgrades would be too much for our income right now. My Fiance will be out of school in 6 months and after that we will have a better financial situation, so we are going to relook at things then.
So my 4runner now looks like this...not the sexiest, but my mileage jumped up 3 MPG and power was back to normal.
At that point I was super bummed out, but ended up looking for some new 285's for the time being. I was about to pull the trigger on some Cooper ATP's, but decided to wait. Well good thing I did because I found a 1st gen supercharger for sale in LA. I really wasn't planning on going that route, but the price was good and it had all the install parts besides the hoses and a few misc cheap parts. I figured this was the time since I had all my tire money already in hand, so why not. Made the deal with the guy and had a local TacomaWorld member pick it up for me since he was heading up my way.
I'll say in advance, sorry for the lack of pictures. I was in a hurry to get it installed and worked primarily at night, so pictures wouldn't have come out great.
I got the supercharger and decided to change the oil and pick up some Denso IK22's to help with the detonation issues. I had everything all ready to go and started digging in on Friday night. It was going pretty smooth and no real snags till I got to the drivers side spark plug boots. I was planning on using my wires again since they only had 15K on them, but that didn't work out. I was trying to pull them out and ripped the wires out of the boots. It was really frustrating and put a halt on my install for the most part. At that point it was 12 am and I really didn't want to mess anything else up as I was tired.
The next morning I tried to find some replacement wires, but every place I called either had cheap replacements or wanted $88 for Denso from the dealership. No way I was going to pay that, so I ended up picking up a set of Napa Belden wires. It was the best option I could find that was available at the time. The guys at Napa assured me that they work great and all of them use them on their Toyota's. I figured I might as well go with them as they have a lifetime warranty. If they act up, I will just replace them and eat the cost.
With the new wires I got back to work and worked sporadically for the rest of the day in order to finish before Sunday. Enede up taking a lot longer than I expected, but I worked really slow and that was the first time, I've dealt with drive belts and messing with the vacuum lines took a while to figure out. The 1st gen superchargers have a different hose ports than the 2nd gen and the diagrams I've seen are a bit confusing. I will be documenting my routing for the supercharger thread.
Got the supercharger on and tried to start it. Lucky me it worked perfectly right from the start! I was pumped, but I needed to make some adjustments to the throttle cable and transmission cable. I did get scared because the SC was making a lot of noise at idle. I immediately thought it needed a rebuild, but after talking with Steezemcqueen and youtube video's I decided it was normal for some superchargers to do that.
Here it is installed (better pics tomorrow)
Also a video of the noise and it running. It actually has gotten a little quieter since running the sc more. Click on the picture to view it.
So, now that I have that on, tires are going to wait. I'm going to refreshing my front end with new LBJ's and tie rods next weekend if I get the parts in time. That is much needed and I'm excited to get it done.