SoCal FZJ80
Happy to be Alive!
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2006
- Threads
- 129
- Messages
- 849
- Location
- Southern California High Desert
- Website
- www.extremelandcruiser.com
It was time to finally update this thread. What started as a conversion to a Arctic Style truck has now morphed into something well beyond.
This project was purpose built for our own personal needs, and three goals were set out to achieve:
1) Use it as a test bed to design our products around
2) Be unstoppable offroad
3) Prove to the world you don't have to drive an American Domestic Pickup Truck to have your own monster truck.
Everyone said you couldn't build a cruiser this big, and that it wouldn't work. To both of those accusations I say: (fill in blank). I'm driving it.
So if this was also your dream- You can do it. Life is limitless. Don't ever give up.
To save time for any new readers, we are moving as much as possible up to the top of the thread to save you the time of scrolling all the way through to
get information and build pics. We will set up the pics in reverse, starting with the cruiser in it's current state as of 01/12/12.
We designed our new front and rear 3 link suspension kit off of the research of this vehicle. Now with equal length front and rear links this vehicle operates
exceptionally well in all off road conditions. The kit will be available in 6, 8, 10, and 12" Lift configurations and is strong enough that the rest of your truck
will die before it ever would.
In 2010 we bought this rig. The vehicle started off as a stock height 1997 Lexus LX450 that had some mild body damage to the front pass door. The previous owner had it done up late 90's chrome trim bling style. The truck has a Cameron Concepts Intercooled Eaton Supercharger kit. After stripping off all of the ugly stuff, We started off with 6" of lift and a 38" Flare Kit. We cut and re-arched all of the fenders. Going with the standard 20 year old technology that everyone still buys, We put extensions on all of the suspension perches, sway bars, and LSPV. The upper and lower control arms were lengthened. The rear axle was moved back and a longer driveshaft was put in place.
After getting all of the mods done, it was time to get the LX450 into the paint booth and give it an "Extreme Makeover". The color is speedway blue.
From there, the truck went up another 6" By making larger drop brackets for everything. The idea was to get full unobstructed articulation.
We drove the truck for a year like this, and the conclusion was that although it worked- it just wasn't enough for us. We didn't want the the truck to just work, we wanted it to feel like you could do anything with it. This meant being able to really bash it and still make it home at the end of the day. Not just roll over things, but jump right off, onto, or over them.
So we started all over, again. Now 12" of lift, and this time we went all the way. We cut off all of the original Toyota suspension and left it all in a big pile on the floor. After putting the truck up in the air, we put the axles in the positions we wanted them in. From there we started to build the new suspension to do what we needed it to do. Wonderful technology has been developed over the last few years for KOH (king of hammers) Vehicles, and for Trophy trucks running the Score series, Best in the Desert, and others. This time around we borrowed cues from these vehicles to achieve the final result. Go fast over nasty stuff. Both the front and rear arms are identical in size, shape and length. Two 1.25" Heims are located at the connecting point of each arm allowing full adjustment of castor. Not only can you fully adjust front and rear castor- you can change your coil/ride height. At the frame side is a center carrier with UNI-balls and misalignments. To correct location, the panhard bars are replaced with larger diameter arms with 1.25" heims and the frame locations are dropped. Each axle mounting location has a cradle for attachment. We added steel braided brake lines and built new driveshafts front and rear. The sway bars no longer use extensions and have hard locations direct to the control arms. It now has provisions for regular shock mounting, so you no longer need to be stuck buying cruiser specific shocks. This truck currently runs the Fox 2.0 Dual Resevoir shocks, but we may be changing to another type soon. For the steering, it now runs a dual damper system with the damper attaching at the axle side. Overall this truck performs better than it did when it only had 6" of lift, and is much more heavy duty.
Keep posted, as we will be adding our new rear rear sway away bumper and sliders soon.
This project was purpose built for our own personal needs, and three goals were set out to achieve:
1) Use it as a test bed to design our products around
2) Be unstoppable offroad
3) Prove to the world you don't have to drive an American Domestic Pickup Truck to have your own monster truck.
Everyone said you couldn't build a cruiser this big, and that it wouldn't work. To both of those accusations I say: (fill in blank). I'm driving it.
So if this was also your dream- You can do it. Life is limitless. Don't ever give up.
To save time for any new readers, we are moving as much as possible up to the top of the thread to save you the time of scrolling all the way through to
get information and build pics. We will set up the pics in reverse, starting with the cruiser in it's current state as of 01/12/12.
We designed our new front and rear 3 link suspension kit off of the research of this vehicle. Now with equal length front and rear links this vehicle operates
exceptionally well in all off road conditions. The kit will be available in 6, 8, 10, and 12" Lift configurations and is strong enough that the rest of your truck
will die before it ever would.
In 2010 we bought this rig. The vehicle started off as a stock height 1997 Lexus LX450 that had some mild body damage to the front pass door. The previous owner had it done up late 90's chrome trim bling style. The truck has a Cameron Concepts Intercooled Eaton Supercharger kit. After stripping off all of the ugly stuff, We started off with 6" of lift and a 38" Flare Kit. We cut and re-arched all of the fenders. Going with the standard 20 year old technology that everyone still buys, We put extensions on all of the suspension perches, sway bars, and LSPV. The upper and lower control arms were lengthened. The rear axle was moved back and a longer driveshaft was put in place.
After getting all of the mods done, it was time to get the LX450 into the paint booth and give it an "Extreme Makeover". The color is speedway blue.
From there, the truck went up another 6" By making larger drop brackets for everything. The idea was to get full unobstructed articulation.
We drove the truck for a year like this, and the conclusion was that although it worked- it just wasn't enough for us. We didn't want the the truck to just work, we wanted it to feel like you could do anything with it. This meant being able to really bash it and still make it home at the end of the day. Not just roll over things, but jump right off, onto, or over them.
So we started all over, again. Now 12" of lift, and this time we went all the way. We cut off all of the original Toyota suspension and left it all in a big pile on the floor. After putting the truck up in the air, we put the axles in the positions we wanted them in. From there we started to build the new suspension to do what we needed it to do. Wonderful technology has been developed over the last few years for KOH (king of hammers) Vehicles, and for Trophy trucks running the Score series, Best in the Desert, and others. This time around we borrowed cues from these vehicles to achieve the final result. Go fast over nasty stuff. Both the front and rear arms are identical in size, shape and length. Two 1.25" Heims are located at the connecting point of each arm allowing full adjustment of castor. Not only can you fully adjust front and rear castor- you can change your coil/ride height. At the frame side is a center carrier with UNI-balls and misalignments. To correct location, the panhard bars are replaced with larger diameter arms with 1.25" heims and the frame locations are dropped. Each axle mounting location has a cradle for attachment. We added steel braided brake lines and built new driveshafts front and rear. The sway bars no longer use extensions and have hard locations direct to the control arms. It now has provisions for regular shock mounting, so you no longer need to be stuck buying cruiser specific shocks. This truck currently runs the Fox 2.0 Dual Resevoir shocks, but we may be changing to another type soon. For the steering, it now runs a dual damper system with the damper attaching at the axle side. Overall this truck performs better than it did when it only had 6" of lift, and is much more heavy duty.
Keep posted, as we will be adding our new rear rear sway away bumper and sliders soon.
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?
. You can snow wheel with it most places a rock/expedition rig could never go about 6/7months a year...the dunes would be a fun place for an arctic rig to cruise around in.
. 
