3rd gen 4Runner, Racing Build

[Good Mayhem]

this video might help with windshield ideas, hes got a couple other videos on how he makes removable windshields for prerunners too.

also when will this thing get the total chaos front hoops and bypass shocks?

Thanks for sharing that vid! I like their use of the aircraft nut tabs. That's really well done.

Yeah 5Speed, I've bene eyeing TC's front hoops for bypass shocks for the past few weeks. That, and the OSR relocation kit from optoffroad. I could use that for bypasses in the rear as well.

optoffroad
total chaos

Concerning bypasses, the budget's tight right now. I want to do those so bad, but I've got to save up for that. Since I plan to race the Baja 1000 in 2023, they'd hopefully happen next spring. We're working on a sponsorship deck right now, so if y'all have any guidance or referrals, that'd be fantastic.

 

[Good Mayhem]

Update!

Windshield visors have been made! AND THEY FIT.
- I'm going to take the next few days to work on welding one to the truck, and then glueing the other to the windshield. There's painting in there somewhere, and they'll be black.

1/4" black HDPE Seaboard sheet is fitted for the top dash. This material rocks, and I plan to continue making the rest of the dashboard out of it.
Source. eplastics.com They do will-calls at their Dallas location, and they gave us a tour of their warehouse. What's super cool? They also provide cutting and multi-axis machining services at that location, so if you make a .dxf file or drawing to make specific shapes, they can do it. It's rad, and I wish we had a good supplier like that in Houston.

 

[Good Mayhem]

Update: Visor is welded in and painted!

^grinding off the old paint, galvanizing, rust, and glue

^Fitup and welding

^ Painting

 

[Good Mayhem]

Update!

Seaboard Black HDPE really is a fun material to work in the garage. If you're ever wanting to use it, it's worth it. However, if you're cutting it with a jigsaw, it's better to leave that mess outdoors.

We're driving the 4runner to Velox Offroad's grand opening. If y'all are coming too, please say hi! It's good to put names to faces.

^starting panels for the inside of the dash. My wife didn't notice it, so I thought it was a win!

 

[TexasTundra27]

Update!

Seaboard Black HDPE really is a fun material to work in the garage. If you're ever wanting to use it, it's worth it. However, if you're cutting it with a jigsaw, it's better to leave that mess outdoors.

We're driving the 4runner to Velox Offroad's grand opening. If y'all are coming too, please say hi! It's good to put names to faces.

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^starting panels for the inside of the dash. My wife didn't notice it, so I thought it was a win!

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When is their grand opening happening?

 

[Good Mayhem]

When is their grand opening happening?

It is this Saturday! Link below.

eventbrite

 

[Good Mayhem]

Velox's meet up was great! They'd give Rig and Churros a run for their money. For a first event, that was excellent.
Over 100 people showed up, about 60 rigs or so. They had room to accommodate everyone.

P.S. Their gullwing doors are super cool in person!

Then rain showed up. Torrential downpours, but hey! Double rainbow!

And there was an RTI ramp! Now that was a hoot to drive over.

I didn't get many picture with the windshield out, but it definitely got some attention. That, and I encourage people to sit in the rig and some even drove it! That was to share.

 

[Good Mayhem]

Little update!
1. Right center dash panel made
2. Relocated the four fire suppression nozzles to better places.
3. Took the cat for a ride in the race truck.
4. youtube vid

 

[Good Mayhem]

Confession time!

I hated fender trimming. After finessing the outer fender, I 9lb sledged that @#$% inner fender into submission. 5 years later, I needed to come back and do it right.

I was ashamed at what I had done. I was in denial. I was--I was---an idiot.

With 34's + long travel, it made for one heck of a fender bash. I made it work, and made one heck of a hole in the process. With 10 lbs of silicon sealant, it was water tight, but no where near structurally sound. Time to fix that.

This weekend, I geometrically shaped out leftover 1/8" thick gusset plate and welded them in, both together and the body. I'm done with that mess!! Now it's structurally sound, water tight, and thick to boot.

 

[TexasTundra27]

Confession time!

I hated fender trimming. After finessing the outer fender, I 9lb sledged that @#$% inner fender into submission. 5 years later, I needed to come back and do it right.

I was ashamed at what I had done. I was in denial. I was--I was---an idiot.

With 34's + long travel, it made for one heck of a fender bash. I made it work, and made one heck of a hole in the process. With 10 lbs of silicon sealant, it was water tight, but no where near structurally sound. Time to fix that.

This weekend, I geometrically shaped out leftover 1/8" thick gusset plate and welded them in, both together and the body. I'm done with that mess!! Now it's structurally sound, water tight, and thick to boot.


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Nicely done, reminds me that I need to do this on my Tundra for the 37s... not looking forward to it...

 

[Good Mayhem]

Nicely done, reminds me that I need to do this on my Tundra for the 37s... not looking forward to it...

Me neither! Time for the right side!

By the way, a 2" die grinder shaves off two or three days of work on each side. I just found out while working with the right side plates.

^coated and testdrove.

^welded in place.

^fitup was tedious--ended up needing to make a plate to bridge the two big sections. Similar to the left side.

^did some welding to join the sheets after the photo was taken.

^^removing the passenger side heat mat/sound deadener.

 

[Good Mayhem]

Weird update!

I got my hands on a cool camera this weekend, so here's the 4runner in thermal!

What's really cool is how much heat is not radiating from the exhaust pipe to the fuel cell. I worked really hard to make sure they have ample clearance, and the footage provides more warm and fuzzies.

It was a reminder that the transmission tunnel is hot, and the exhaust under the passenger is hotter. I wish there was a good race-car solution to improving the heat shields underneath, but most heat sheeting out there isn't durable enough for offroad, or super costly. Any ideas?

 

[TexasTundra27]

This guy has a company wrap his drift car headers and hot side of his turbo kit in a type of heat shield. Fast forward to 15:45 to see him unbox them and talk about it. He hasn't raced with it yet, but if it will hold up to a drift car, might be worth a shot on a race truck.

 

[Good Mayhem]

This guy has a company wrap his drift car headers and hot side of his turbo kit in a type of heat shield. Fast forward to 15:45 to see him unbox them and talk about it. He hasn't raced with it yet, but if it will hold up to a drift car, might be worth a shot on a race truck.

Thanks for the idea! I'll research that more and learn that heat shield.

In the meantime, let's extend the roll cage to the front! Most of the research I've done shows that I'll need to reinforce the strut towers to the roll cage, so that's the reason why the engine cage is going in. Welding this in is a doozy! 5 out of 11 tubes have been fit up so far. Both shock towers have reinforcing plates that will be gusseted to the cage. The two front tubes have notches cut and welded so the UCA bolt can be removed. The last four are going to be a pain, since they connect through the body right below the windshield, leaving the firewall intact from it's top seam downward.

 

[Good Mayhem]

Update!

Welding of the engine cage is done! Out of all the things that could go wrong with tight access welding and high risk of damage, I poked the radiator with a pair of pliers while removing a zip tie. Sooo that had to get swapped out. Otherwise, it was a pretty smooth install!

 

[Good Mayhem]

Okay, tedious items update!

• Rear firewall made and installed. 1/16" thick Aluminum.
• Rewired the foglight wiring to power the main lightbar.
• Installed PCIRace Radio's raceair kit.
• Also made storage pins to keep the ends of the hose out of the way.

 

[Good Mayhem]

Fun update!

Rear fenders cut (again), and kudos to Miklos for inspiring me to update the solidworks model again with the more recent updates, including the visor and dash cover upfront. I just learned how to use the deform tool today, so that's was fun.

 

[Good Mayhem]

BIG UPDATE
1. Adventure to KOH (seeing a buddy race: #680). Toyota brought Ivan Stewart's mid engine tundra!

2. 4runner


My wife and I went to King of the Hammers for the last two days of racing, and WOW was than an event. We flew out to Vegas, drove a jeep ~650 miles to drive out there and back, and saw the Every Man's Challenge and the Race of Kings. Incredible. Just wow.

While we were at KOH, my wife surprised me: It's your birthday, so go out and buy racecar parts! We agreed on a budget and went from there. PCI racing provided the lionshare of equipment that day. PRP was a far second and Bajadesigns was the icing on the cake.
1. Helmet (impact evo), neck restraint (necksgen rev ii lite), and intercom (basic comline x elite)
2. New harnesses (2" 5 point race harness)
3. SPOD (the new MOSFET controlled version)

After coming back, I got more cables from PCI to interface with the icom mobile radio I already have (HAM operator). It can broadcast in the race freq's with the right antenna. In march, we also saved up for the Garmin Baja Race nav. Getting all of this gear installed makes it all the more real.

oddball specifics.

Would you like to see photos of the tundra's Long Travel suspension? Boy, I went under the truck to get photos of that!

 

[Good Mayhem]

Bigger update!

We're racing TORE on April 22nd in Austin! If you're going to RallyReady that day, please say hi! We'll have stickers!

The 4runner passed state inspection with flying colors. The mechanics liked it so much, it was free! Still road legal.

Glass is out! The 4runner is officially glass free. Yes, the windshield is still removable. I made a new rear quarter panel out of aluminum yesterday and painted it last night. That was way easier to work with than the steel panel I made for the drybreak on the left side. The steel one is overkill.

Race nets are in! They open up from the bottom, so you can climb out of the window if necessary. Secondary door latches are required for SCORE, and the net setup made that easy. Shoutout to Hostyle Racing for a good product! It took a while, but they were worth the wait, and they were still way faster than any custom builder I've bought from. I will be adding other nets to the passenger windows, but those will be for gear stowage only and not require a SFI rating like the fronts do. Those will allow for quick access to the fire extinguishers and look cool.

Race Nav is in! The Garmin Baja Tread XL is phenomenal. I think it will singlehandedly kick Lowrance out of the racing scene. It's that good. I designed a telescoping holy-s*** handle that also mounts the nav to the roll cage. You can adjust it to a comfy position both to hold on for dearlife and push buttons at the same time.

We have a sponsor! If you need serious automation in a manufacturing environment, check out Automated Manufacturing Systems - https://www.arcspecialties.com/. The owner has raced the Baja 500 a few times and does NASA road racing. He thinks the 4runner has a decent chance of finishing the Baja 1000, so long as the team preruns and preps alot. Can't agree more.

 

[TexasTundra27]

Bigger update!

We're racing TORE on April 22nd in Austin! If you're going to RallyReady that day, please say hi! We'll have stickers!

The 4runner passed state inspection with flying colors. The mechanics liked it so much, it was free! Still road legal.

Glass is out! The 4runner is officially glass free. Yes, the windshield is still removable. I made a new rear quarter panel out of aluminum yesterday and painted it last night. That was way easier to work with than the steel panel I made for the drybreak on the left side. The steel one is overkill.

Race nets are in! They open up from the bottom, so you can climb out of the window if necessary. Secondary door latches are required for SCORE, and the net setup made that easy. Shoutout to Hostyle Racing for a good product! It took a while, but they were worth the wait, and they were still way faster than any custom builder I've bought from. I will be adding other nets to the passenger windows, but those will be for gear stowage only and not require a SFI rating like the fronts do. Those will allow for quick access to the fire extinguishers and look cool.

Race Nav is in! The Garmin Baja Tread XL is phenomenal. I think it will singlehandedly kick Lowrance out of the racing scene. It's that good. I designed a telescoping holy-s*** handle that also mounts the nav to the roll cage. You can adjust it to a comfy position both to hold on for dearlife and push buttons at the same time.

We have a sponsor! If you need serious automation in a manufacturing environment, check out Automated Manufacturing Systems - https://www.arcspecialties.com/. The owner has raced the Baja 500 a few times and does NASA road racing. He thinks the 4runner has a decent chance of finishing the Baja 1000, so long as the team preruns and preps alot. Can't agree more.



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Glad you posted about the race, I didn't know TORE existed. I'm going to try to be there with my son