SOcalTrail's 2011 Trail Edition Beast Build Thread

[SOcalTRAIL]

I was thinking about the auxiliary tank where the spare is too when the rear bumper gets put on. I was thinking a 10 gallon would be perfect.


Keep me posted.

:hiding:

My rough dimensions are 7" tall, 15" long x 40" wide = 4200 in³ = 18.1818 gallons - the finished part is actually going to conform to the angle of the frame rails and the floor of the truck which is taller at one end than the other. My best guess taking this into account is the tank will be around 14-15 Gal, but until i get that spare tire mount cut out, I wont know for sure. Either way, it will not hang any lower than the frame rails.

 

[Jono.ful]

I started off first with Fox 2.5" reservoir Coil-overs and King 2.5 reservoir adjustable rear shocks. It was a great setup until I reeeeally pushed my truck. I needed more!!!!! Needless to say, I went a liiiiitle over board....

haha y'think? nice work man, super clean. kinda wish I had a cnc machine at my disposal

 

[joneseyyy]

Really digging your suspension setup and want to pick your brain... Regarding the omega rear shocks, can you reach the compression/rebound knobs without removing the wheels? How frequently have you messed with the settings? I currently have the old edelbrock-made icon monotube rears and am wondering how much a difference I'd see in some custom-valved piggybacks or even stepping up to Omegas in the rear to better handle my weight in back.

 

[SOcalTRAIL]

Really digging your suspension setup and want to pick your brain... Regarding the omega rear shocks, can you reach the compression/rebound knobs without removing the wheels? How frequently have you messed with the settings? I currently have the old edelbrock-made icon monotube rears and am wondering how much a difference I'd see in some custom-valved piggybacks or even stepping up to Omegas in the rear to better handle my weight in back.

Yessir, they are easily accessible. Nice knurled knobs that have detents at each setting. I played around with the "on-road" setting for a few months. I have the compression and rebound settings recorded in a little notebook I keep in the center console. For what its worth, I have it dialed so nice now for street driving that it still soaks up bumps amazingly but pretty much all but eliminated body roll, which was huge since I'm not running a front sway bar.

Every time I go off road where there may be washboard roads, sudden dips, etc. I switch my settings around. I generally leave the rebound setting where it is for the street, but loosen up the compression almost all the way for both front and rear. This is all in addition to the standard valving on the C/O's. It takes less than 2 minutes to adjust all four compression settings, as easy as turning the little know counter clockwise or clockwise the right number of "clicks". Whoops at 50mph... no problem. Rock crawling... no problem. Its a great system.

It truly is an amazing setup. I take it for granted because I drive it everyday but I hoped in my old 3rd Gen the other day which my girlfriend now drives and was blown away. To say it was a night and day difference is an understatement.

 

[SOcalTRAIL]

haha y'think? nice work man, super clean. kinda wish I had a cnc machine at my disposal

HAHA. Thank you and welcome to the forum!

 

[MeBe4running]

My rough dimensions are 7" tall, 15" long x 40" wide = 4200 in³ = 18.1818 gallons - the finished part is actually going to conform to the angle of the frame rails and the floor of the truck which is taller at one end than the other. My best guess taking this into account is the tank will be around 14-15 Gal, but until i get that spare tire mount cut out, I wont know for sure. Either way, it will not hang any lower than the frame rails.

Two questions for you....

1) Are you going to cut out the 2 spare tire loops that are welded to the rear crossmember? If so, how are you planing on going about it; cut, sand and paint?

2) I was skeptical in removing the spare mount beam/crossover in thought that it may somehow support the vehicles dynamics (i.e handling)? Do you know if it does or is it just merely a support for the spare tire hoisting mechanism?

Thanks!

I am going to be following this thread closely, jealous to say the least!

 

[SOcalTRAIL]

Two questions for you....

1) Are you going to cut out the 2 spare tire loops that are welded to the rear crossmember? If so, how are you planing on going about it; cut, sand and paint?

2) I was skeptical in removing the spare mount beam/crossover in thought that it may somehow support the vehicles dynamics (i.e handling)? Do you know if it does or is it just merely a support for the spare tire hoisting mechanism?

Thanks!

I am going to be following this thread closely, jealous to say the least!

I popped the spare out last weekend to get an idea of what I was dealing with. That crossmember that the spare bolts to doesn't appear to be structural, just a few inches to the rear of it is a massive rear crossmember that is integrated into the bumper on our trucks. The plan was to Sawzall that bad you outta there with one of those bad ass bi-metal blades. They cut through that sheet metal like a hot knife through butter. Sand it flat and give it a once over with Krylon to keep it from rusting! The plan is to basically plate the area straight across the frame rails, protecting the fuel cell I'm going to have in there as well as adding a nice smooth, flat surface to act as another skid.

Hope that answers your question! Im waiting for my sheet metal and plate to show up, hopefully Wed. so I can start getting some cardboard templates made up.

 

[MeBe4running]

I popped the spare out last weekend to get an idea of what I was dealing with. That crossmember that the spare bolts to doesn't appear to be structural, just a few inches to the rear of it is a massive rear crossmember that is integrated into the bumper on our trucks. The plan was to Sawzall that bad you outta there with one of those bad ass bi-metal blades. They cut through that sheet metal like a hot knife through butter. Sand it flat and give it a once over with Krylon to keep it from rusting! The plan is to basically plate the area straight across the frame rails, protecting the fuel cell I'm going to have in there as well as adding a nice smooth, flat surface to act as another skid.

Hope that answers your question! Im waiting for my sheet metal and plate to show up, hopefully Wed. so I can start getting some cardboard templates made up.

Sure does... though I want to see some photogrpahic evidence from the operating room :reddance:

 

[SOcalTRAIL]

Sure does... though I want to see some photogrpahic evidence from the operating room :reddance:

Hopefully this weekend. Scalpel please.

:cheers:

 

[Will733]

I really liked my truck up until I saw this thread... Thanks a lot.

 

[swansong04]

~~~Navigation Lock Out Override~~~​

The fact that Toyota took it upon themselves to lock out many of the capabilities of our factory nav systems always annoyed me. Now, not even you passenger can input a destination address, search for POI's etc. Very annoying.

In the past, Toyota and other nav. unit manufacturers made it easy for us to bypass this lock out by simply grounding out a wire that was supposed to be connected to the parking brake. Now, they have gotten smarter and the lock out feature is facilitated by the vehicle speed sensor and GPS - slightly harder to bypass.

One of our members here on the board (J.A.) makes a nifty little "black box" utilizing a 555 Timer to intercept the vehicle speed sensor (VSS) signal and outputs an artificial VSS signal that shows the car as going less the 5 km/h which is the cutoff for the nav lockout. Installation is cake - just pull the nav unit, find the G18 Grey plug, find wire #3 which is a sky blue 24 gauge wire, snip it in half - splice in the input and output to the correct locations on the black box, ground the box, and wire it to switched power. Now, not matter how fast you are going, just flip a switch and you regain all usability of your nav system so your passenger can input destinations etc.

See here for more info: Toyota 4Runner Factory Navigation Override and Unblock Bypass Module

***My passenger took the pics shown***

Here are the pics:


Traveling down freeway, nav in normal config. Locked out.

"Black Box" switched on, functionality regained.

Back of the nav unit

Black box wired up

The module itself

is there a link somewhere to "JA" i would really like to do this with mine .. it is a huge PITA to use the NAV on these 4runner's to the point where i am using my old garmin .

Gary

 

[SOcalTRAIL]

Here is the link to the module on his website:

Toyota Lexus Factory Navigation Override and Unblock Bypass Module

J.A. - Toyota 4Runner Forum - View Profile: J.A.


I feel ya on the frustration when using the nav. with the stupid lock-out feature.

 

[joneseyyy]

Yessir, they are easily accessible. Nice knurled knobs that have detents at each setting. I played around with the "on-road" setting for a few months. I have the compression and rebound settings recorded in a little notebook I keep in the center console. For what its worth, I have it dialed so nice now for street driving that it still soaks up bumps amazingly but pretty much all but eliminated body roll, which was huge since I'm not running a front sway bar.

Every time I go off road where there may be washboard roads, sudden dips, etc. I switch my settings around. I generally leave the rebound setting where it is for the street, but loosen up the compression almost all the way for both front and rear. This is all in addition to the standard valving on the C/O's. It takes less than 2 minutes to adjust all four compression settings, as easy as turning the little know counter clockwise or clockwise the right number of "clicks". Whoops at 50mph... no problem. Rock crawling... no problem. Its a great system.

It truly is an amazing setup. I take it for granted because I drive it everyday but I hoped in my old 3rd Gen the other day which my girlfriend now drives and was blown away. To say it was a night and day difference is an understatement.

Thanks for the feedback! Where did you mount the resi's in the back? Did they come with brackets like the front?

 

[deekoi]

~~~Navigation Lock Out Override~~~​

Thanks for this!! I've been looking for this for a while and came across before but didn't know if it worked for 5th gen.

:bravo:

 

[SOcalTRAIL]

Thanks for the feedback! Where did you mount the resi's in the back? Did they come with brackets like the front?

Hopefully these show it:

Icon gives you some little weld on brackets that make for a nice clean install. I installed the shocks and let the resi's lay in a nice neutral position, marked it, and welded the tabs on. Done deal!

The front reservoirs for the secondary bypass shocks were hose clamped onto the shock hoop, the resi's for the coil over had to have some custom brackets made. With all that suspension up there, things are pretty tight!

 

[joneseyyy]

Thanks so much, exactly what I was looking for.

 

[SOcalTRAIL]

~~~OFF ROAD BUMPER / TIRE CARRIER BUILD START~~~

Today I started the work on the rear bumper, I took off the rear bumper covering, unbolted all the junk that hangs off it and ruins the departure angle, and got agressive with the Sawzall. Tomorrow I will start the cutting, welding, grinding.

The design is gonna be TRICK! Very different than anything out there, very, very burly, and do a ton to increase the departure angle.

Here are the pics:

The "before" pic

A pic. look at the spare tire carrier that I cut out to make room for the aux. fuel tank.

Here it is removed.

All clear of the "junk" hanging off the bumper, 2" shorter overall and maximum possible departure angle in this form.

 

[SOcalTRAIL]

~~~New and Improved Tool Box for Gobi Rack~~~

Sooooooo.

This is how Gobi should have made their "stealth" toolboxes in the first place. I got tired of the odd size, and side opening of the Gobi Stealth box up on my rack so I decided to make my own. I made this one out of some half hard .100" Aluminum we had laying around. Gasket, gas struts, and SS latches were purchased through McMaster Carr. It turned out excellent. All I have to do tomorrow at lunch is cut the holes for the latches and pop rivet in the strike plates for me, and paint it after work. I got a sheet of .125" Polyurethane foam to line it with the keep rattles down as well. This box fits in the rear section of the Gobi rack with about a 1" gap between the box and the tubes of the Gobi, I made it 3.5" tall x 40 wide x 19.5 deep. Lots of tool / recovery gear storage.

Here she is:

 

[Antman]

Looks awesome!! Very professional, like all your work.

We need Brockeverly. (That's T4R talk for "more pictures" !!!!!)

 

[joneseyyy]

Thanks to you, Socal, I am much poorer, but soon to be richer in Omega bypass goodness... Thanks again for answering all of my questions!