Awesome work. Your updates are motivation for me to get back to work on mine
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- Thread starter
- #82
Tire and wheel selection time! I didn't realize car tires are so insanely cheap, maybe I would've bought tires earlier hahaha. It's like $1000 for a set of nice tires and some cheapo wheels. I can only buy two 40s for that price
I did some measuring, and then said if we have the tools we will use the tools!
After scanning the front and back wheel wells and adding a bunch of reference geometry...
I was able to do a 3D sketch and (at least in the front) cycle the suspension. The below probably makes minimal sense, but it's showing the suspension hub points at the scanned full droop, and then full bump at full left and full right turn and straight ahead. If you want to play a puzzle you can try to identify what is happening
I then modeled up a tire that I can adjust the wheel and tire dimensions and mated it to the hub points. And for reference, the driver's side with the tire still installed matches pretty well to the CAD for the clearance on this zerk with the stock tires:
From here it's easy of just modifying the wheel and tire dimensions and see what fits! Here's the stock wheel and tire, which is a 205/75r14.
Since I didn't model the individual suspension components, at the full bump position we are mainly looking at the tire to fender and inner wheel well clearance, which even on the stock tire at full bump is very close:
The stock tire would theoretically even hit the fender at full bump and turn:
Trying a 245 wide tire up front, and we have similar contact as the 205 but even happening at right turn now:
Though the 245 is still clearing the fender at straight bump:
Moving onto the rear which is a lot easier. I did not bother to flex the rear suspension since I don't imagine the axle will experience that kind of loading often enough to matter, and if it does the tire might rub the frame a little and who cares. Below is the stock setup:
Pushing to a 275 which is the only size offered for a r15 for a Nitto 555R, I think this was an 8" wide wheel with 5" of backspace. Measuring the crossmember that sticks through the frame and slightly protrudes we can measure the distance from the side wall, which is at 0.89", and we can see the tire sticks out about flush with the bedside.
As I recall the next photo is at 5.5" of backspace, so we would end up at ~0.4" of frame clearance, and sectioning it we can see the tire is now tucked in from the inboard surface of the bedside:
But we can see the bedside is a little above the tire, so looking at a side view what's it look like...
So a 275/50r15 would fit pretty well regardless of the backspacing. Probably 5" of backspace would do well, that'd give an inch or so of frame clearance, and sit about flush with the bedside. The bedside is also really flimsy and can easily be pushed out an inch if I add a brace on the inside, so that could be done to keep the tires tucked under the fenders a little bit if I want.
For the front I need to shop around for sizes. If I go to a larger wheel I'll clear the upper arm more and have more sizes available, but I feel like 15s will look better on this with the tiny tires (already a step up in size from what it has!). I can probably push the tires to 245 wide up front, but I'll have to push the backspacing out to clear the upper arm, and the tires could have contact issues at full bump, but for normal driving and turning appear to be fine. And that's 40mm (nearly 1.5") wider than the current tires, I can always run a 225 or 235 and get more clearance and still be wider up front than I am now. However front tire sizes in 15s that are performance tires (not necessarily drag radials, probably all season performance tires) don't have a lot of options and most are either too short or too tall. Additionally I need to look at how much steering scrub radius I have, which is easy to do since I have the kingpin axis drawn up, so just need to look at the trade of backspacing vs tire size vs clearance vs scrub radius change.
I also did some research about the tire diameter vs width discussion, and while larger tires do appear to have a traction increase it wasn't super conclusive. I suspect some of it is due to the increase in radius, ie lower force output at the ground due to the larger lever arm reacting the axle torque so tires would slip less regardless if the contact patch was the same. Though on that note the contact patch should also increase since the radius on the tire is larger (hertzian contact patch effectively). With all of that said, from what I read it wasn't enough of a difference to really be noticeable, so I think I will probably stick with the ~26" tire size since I don't want this to look like a gnarly drag truck with huge tall tires in the back. I'd rather have a fairly square setup, not that that will happen, but just to keep the front and rear tires similarly sized so it looks more balanced and discrete.
I thought all of this was cool to show off! If anyone has suggestions for tires or wheels or anything I'm all ears. Though I'll probably buy wheels and tires tomorrow. Right now thinking the Nitto 555R2 in 275/50r15 in the back, not sure about the front but something in the 225-235 wide r15 and 26" tall range. And then thinking of just some cheapo black steelies, can't get too nice on the wheels when the body looks how it does hahaha
I did some measuring, and then said if we have the tools we will use the tools!
After scanning the front and back wheel wells and adding a bunch of reference geometry...
I was able to do a 3D sketch and (at least in the front) cycle the suspension. The below probably makes minimal sense, but it's showing the suspension hub points at the scanned full droop, and then full bump at full left and full right turn and straight ahead. If you want to play a puzzle you can try to identify what is happening
I then modeled up a tire that I can adjust the wheel and tire dimensions and mated it to the hub points. And for reference, the driver's side with the tire still installed matches pretty well to the CAD for the clearance on this zerk with the stock tires:
From here it's easy of just modifying the wheel and tire dimensions and see what fits! Here's the stock wheel and tire, which is a 205/75r14.
Since I didn't model the individual suspension components, at the full bump position we are mainly looking at the tire to fender and inner wheel well clearance, which even on the stock tire at full bump is very close:
The stock tire would theoretically even hit the fender at full bump and turn:
Trying a 245 wide tire up front, and we have similar contact as the 205 but even happening at right turn now:
Though the 245 is still clearing the fender at straight bump:
Moving onto the rear which is a lot easier. I did not bother to flex the rear suspension since I don't imagine the axle will experience that kind of loading often enough to matter, and if it does the tire might rub the frame a little and who cares. Below is the stock setup:
Pushing to a 275 which is the only size offered for a r15 for a Nitto 555R, I think this was an 8" wide wheel with 5" of backspace. Measuring the crossmember that sticks through the frame and slightly protrudes we can measure the distance from the side wall, which is at 0.89", and we can see the tire sticks out about flush with the bedside.
As I recall the next photo is at 5.5" of backspace, so we would end up at ~0.4" of frame clearance, and sectioning it we can see the tire is now tucked in from the inboard surface of the bedside:
But we can see the bedside is a little above the tire, so looking at a side view what's it look like...
So a 275/50r15 would fit pretty well regardless of the backspacing. Probably 5" of backspace would do well, that'd give an inch or so of frame clearance, and sit about flush with the bedside. The bedside is also really flimsy and can easily be pushed out an inch if I add a brace on the inside, so that could be done to keep the tires tucked under the fenders a little bit if I want.
For the front I need to shop around for sizes. If I go to a larger wheel I'll clear the upper arm more and have more sizes available, but I feel like 15s will look better on this with the tiny tires (already a step up in size from what it has!). I can probably push the tires to 245 wide up front, but I'll have to push the backspacing out to clear the upper arm, and the tires could have contact issues at full bump, but for normal driving and turning appear to be fine. And that's 40mm (nearly 1.5") wider than the current tires, I can always run a 225 or 235 and get more clearance and still be wider up front than I am now. However front tire sizes in 15s that are performance tires (not necessarily drag radials, probably all season performance tires) don't have a lot of options and most are either too short or too tall. Additionally I need to look at how much steering scrub radius I have, which is easy to do since I have the kingpin axis drawn up, so just need to look at the trade of backspacing vs tire size vs clearance vs scrub radius change.
I also did some research about the tire diameter vs width discussion, and while larger tires do appear to have a traction increase it wasn't super conclusive. I suspect some of it is due to the increase in radius, ie lower force output at the ground due to the larger lever arm reacting the axle torque so tires would slip less regardless if the contact patch was the same. Though on that note the contact patch should also increase since the radius on the tire is larger (hertzian contact patch effectively). With all of that said, from what I read it wasn't enough of a difference to really be noticeable, so I think I will probably stick with the ~26" tire size since I don't want this to look like a gnarly drag truck with huge tall tires in the back. I'd rather have a fairly square setup, not that that will happen, but just to keep the front and rear tires similarly sized so it looks more balanced and discrete.
I thought all of this was cool to show off! If anyone has suggestions for tires or wheels or anything I'm all ears. Though I'll probably buy wheels and tires tomorrow. Right now thinking the Nitto 555R2 in 275/50r15 in the back, not sure about the front but something in the 225-235 wide r15 and 26" tall range. And then thinking of just some cheapo black steelies, can't get too nice on the wheels when the body looks how it does hahaha
ntsqd
technerd
Better brakes may force you into a larger wheel size. The RoT is the max rotor OD that will fit is 3" smaller than the wheel size. So a 15" wheel has a max of a 12" rotor. Which is nothing to sneeze at, but I can tell you from experience that going from a 11.75" OD rotor to a 12.75" OD rotor made a HUGE difference in how well Snowball stops. I did gain a 1/16" gain in caliper piston OD, so there was some hydraulic leverage gain as well. But OMG! The truck went from scary in a panic stop to thinks it's a Sports Car on metric 35's!
With this much power I'd be wanting something like late model 4wd Taco front calipers & rotors up front. And I'd be contemplating going Hydro-Boost to get away from needing vacuum for the brake booster.
With this much power I'd be wanting something like late model 4wd Taco front calipers & rotors up front. And I'd be contemplating going Hydro-Boost to get away from needing vacuum for the brake booster.
ntsqd
technerd
I am curious what you used for the 3D scanning. I'm on the edge of needing to do that with a project that I'm working on. Could reverse engineer it, doable but that will take a lot of time.
- Thread starter
- #86
It's already running an ibooster electric brake booster, I have them on three vehicles. As long as ignition is turned on you have full brake assist, and it'll lock up all four without even trying. No hydro or vacuum lines anywhere! With that said bigger brakes will certainly be needed at some point, but that will go hand in hand when the suspension gets completely reworked and converted to AWD. Theres enough engine braking and the brakes are already insane feeling on it, so I'm not worried for the time being. Once the suspension changes, probably go to 6 lug, different brakes, etc. Then I imagine the whole wheel and tire setup will change again.
I'll look into that, I figured nothing for 14s was really offered. With that said I'll need new wheels regardless since the current ones are only 6" wide, and at least for the rears they're recommend a 7+
It's called an Einstar and is $950. Very cool tool, takes a bit of screwing around to figure out how to use the scans effectively but generally speaking is straightforward and their software does most of the work, then just a lot of reference geometry in CAD to pull the spots you need.
Wait... You have a scanner? Files for Toyota 8" axle housing, knuckles and ifs hubs please
- Thread starter
- #88
Probably need you to provide those parts, unless a 3rd gen 4runner axle, a Tundra knuckle, and a Tundra hub work
ntsqd
technerd
I wonder, are there people out there performing this scanning service? Eventually I'll need to buy something, but right now isn't a good time for that expense.
- Thread starter
- #90
I would imagine so, and I know a lot of people and shops nowadays with scanners. I bet if you posted in a local car group or went to an off-road shop that someone would know someone with a scanner. It's the go to method for designing bumpers and automotive parts with complex geometry. An hour of labor to get some scans might be worth the cost depending on what they'd charge you.
- Thread starter
- #91
I ordered some tires and wheels. Front tires are some random Coopers meant for classic muscle cars it seems, 235/60r15 I want to say. Extremely limited tire selection for 15s, and I thought a 17 would just look dumb on the truck, so the Coopers seemed like the only tire within a range that look halfway decent and coincidentally was the size I wanted. The front tire size I currently have that's 26" tall is actually quite a bit larger than factory tires, but I didn't want to drop sizes since I want to lower the truck an inch or two (maybe...) and still have some amount of ground clearance, and lowering it with the tires would look weird. The new front tires will be over an inch wider than my current ones so hopefully look decent. For the rears I got 275/50r15 Nitto 555Rs, which are also 26" tall tires and drag radials. These will be like 3" wider than the current rear tires. I debated going to a taller tire, but after reading I didn't think it'd give much advantage and I don't want it to look like a drag car with massively tall rear tires, which is why I kept the front and rear the same diameter so from the side it'll look pretty discrete. For wheels I got some cheapo steelie 15x8s, again to keep it discrete, plus I'm sure I'll eventually change the wheels and lug pattern and these cost $50 a piece. All in with mounting and balancing I think will run $1300, and the tires should show up tomorrow and the wheels I got yesterday.
I got the Summit wastegate in and got to work integrating that into the turbo housing. I started with milling out a pocket on the exhaust housing.
Then fit up a 1.75" tube and welded it on.
If this doesn't bypass enough air I don't know what will! This is looking down into the exhaust manifold, so the air will want to flow out the wastegate more than it'll want to go anywhere else.
I also welded the wastegate port inside the turbo (that I spent all the time machining out before) and sealed up the wastegate hinge location.
With the hood closed the wastegate still clears by an inch or two also.
Next up was the wastegate dump. Initially I was going to have it dump into the fender well, but after watching some videos and hearing how loud it is I decided I didn't like that idea. It just seemed kind of hack and janky, and I'm already worried about how loud the truck is. Granted, the wastegate opening noise will only be at high throttle when it's already loud, but if I ever put a muffler on the truck or want to quiet it down more then the wastegate is just one more thing adding to the noise. I do love some good engine noise, but I don't want to draw attention and be obnoxious like a lot of exhausts are. So with that in mind I integrated the wastegate dump into the exhaust.
And it turned out pretty slick I must say!
It wasn't too bad, the biggest annoyance was now the downpipe has to come out through the front of the engine bay, so I had to spend more time beating the s*** out of the exhaust to get it to fit going forward. It wasn't too bad, but didn't go as smooth as I thought.
I already had a boost controller solenoid waiting for this, so I pulled the wiring harness apart and ran the wiring for that which was straight forward. This was my initial setup for the hose routing.
And after lots of driving and ****ing with things and talking to the tuner and more screwing around and trying tons of spring and no spring combinations on the wastegate, it was still making 20+ psi of boost and going insane!
And just to fast forward trying everything I could possibly think of, with the last thing being I had the boost line from the turbo running to the bottom of the wastegate to try and open it and nothing else connected, and with a single 6psi spring I was still making insane boost. I couldn't figure it out, and then it occurred to me maybe the turbo boost port wasn't actually doing anything and there's no real way to test that... So I moved the boost reference line from the turbo to the MAP sensor line and all of a sudden it only makes 6psi! I may have gone to all this work for no reason, the boost port on the turbo was never flowing any boost! I think the stock wastegate may have been totally fine even!
On a stock turbo there's some actuator thing that connects at the turbo boost port, and I had a plug I put in there since I wasn't (originally) actively controlling the wastegate. That plug had this nipple thing that stuck into the cavity with some O-rings, and I had removed the O-rings but it seemed like air could flow around that nipple. Well needless to say it couldn't, I think some air could flow since it wasn't seal, but not enough air to actually actuate the wastegate or at least not fast enough. This was easily solved by removing that nipple on the plug with the lathe.
And voila, after that I put in the 12psi spring setup into the wastegate and she makes 12psi! And the boost controller can ramp up boost now! I did a drive messing with the boost control in the ECU a bit, and it works great now. The boost controller is commanded open via PWM and that then directs boost to the top port on the wastegate which tries to close the valve, so if the boost controller isn't working no air is directed to the top and the springs open at 12psi with the boost going only to the bottom of the wastegate to try and lift the valve open. In the tune I now have it setup so at ~3psi the boost controller turns on and opens all the way, so the wastegate is fully closed to spool the turbo as fast as possible, and then the duty cycle decreases (ie lets the wastegate valve open) as rpm and/or boost increases to keep it tame. So at 6000rpm the wastegate is fully open, and at ~15psi the wastegate starts to open to prevent the boost from overshooting. My basic boost map so far has resulted in it staying shy of 20psi which is what we want for pump gas! After all this time, I finally have control of the boost the truck is making! And you might think with how much excess boost it seems capable of the turbo is probably slow, but it's in boost almost instantly, and even at mid throttle over 3000rpm it'll be making like 10psi and the truck usually cruises around at 2500-3000rpm to begin with, so it's actually really responsive. There's a second maybe of lag if the turbo isn't spooled up at all, but like in 1st or 2nd it hits really fast and really hard. So hard that today it was spinning tires in 4th gear!
And you might be thinking wow that's a lot of power for that little truck. And it was.
I let my neighbor drive it, bad idea in retrospect, or I should've been more firm about not pushing it very hard. At 80mph in 3rd gear, I think maybe the 3-4 shift, the yoke sheared off the diff.
And that was pretty terrifying since first it slammed all over, then got spit out, and we're hauling ass in a little truck with no ABS. But everything ended up fine. I think when he shifted it shock loaded it and sheared it off, since obviously the truck had been fine prior to that and I had given it lots of full throttle beforehand but it was always a pretty slow shift and at not on the power letting the clutch out. You can only go so far and so fast in this thing before slowing down, so I had never tried to really haul ass--it's not built for speed but for accelerating!
Luckily we weren't far from town, so my wife came and towed us back.
I've probably mentioned it before, but a larger axle has been a plan for a long time. I don't have any misconception about what a Toyota 8" can handle, I just didn't expect it to die so fast. I just wanted to drive it a bit with boost before going to the next stage of the build!
With that said, my plan is to just swap another carrier in or regear this one. I think even with the fatty tires it can handle the power as long as it's "gentle" (at least relative to today). Like get into gear, then give it power, don't try and slam through the gears at 7000rpm. I will eventually do a Ford 9" probably since there's lots of support and gear ratios, but that will involve finding or narrowing a housing, may as well link it then, it just snowballs fast and I haven't even completed the engine phase of the build so one thing at a time. This truck is meant to be fun, not eternally being worked on. And once I get another 8" diff, it's just fixing the driveshaft and a coolant leak, so probably end of the week she'll be back together.
The driveshaft beat up a lot of things, but the only real carnage from it was the coolant hardline got hit and that cracked a weld which is why all the coolant was on the ground. I think the engine was fine, it was turned off pretty soon after we pulled over.
The hardline should be connected to the bracket up at the top of the tube. Somehow the outside of the hardline got hit.
This section of exhaust will probably have to get spliced out. It looks fine from the wrapping, but there's probably an inch deep sharp dent under it. The tube got absolutely crunched, to the point of being bad enough to need replacing I think.
And then the driveshaft!
The ends and yokes all appear relatively fine. I'm hoping I can give the driveshaft shop the two halves and they can salvage everything and just retube it. Hell they could even cut it down and sleeve over it since only the centered is messed up.
And that wraps up the past couple days! Tomorrow should get the tires and wheels mounted, and hopefully drop off the driveshaft. Need to find an 8" diff but apparently my neighbor knows a guy selling one or two for $250, maybe they're even geared better than my diff. I think I should have it running again in a couple days, hell maybe I can meet with the tuner again before the end of the week! At a minimum the engine is running absolutely fantastic and stoked to get the boost under control finally. The rear end exploding is a shame, but should be a relatively cheap and easy fix all things considered, and time to keep an eye out for a 9"!
I got the Summit wastegate in and got to work integrating that into the turbo housing. I started with milling out a pocket on the exhaust housing.
Then fit up a 1.75" tube and welded it on.
If this doesn't bypass enough air I don't know what will! This is looking down into the exhaust manifold, so the air will want to flow out the wastegate more than it'll want to go anywhere else.
I also welded the wastegate port inside the turbo (that I spent all the time machining out before) and sealed up the wastegate hinge location.
With the hood closed the wastegate still clears by an inch or two also.
Next up was the wastegate dump. Initially I was going to have it dump into the fender well, but after watching some videos and hearing how loud it is I decided I didn't like that idea. It just seemed kind of hack and janky, and I'm already worried about how loud the truck is. Granted, the wastegate opening noise will only be at high throttle when it's already loud, but if I ever put a muffler on the truck or want to quiet it down more then the wastegate is just one more thing adding to the noise. I do love some good engine noise, but I don't want to draw attention and be obnoxious like a lot of exhausts are. So with that in mind I integrated the wastegate dump into the exhaust.
And it turned out pretty slick I must say!
It wasn't too bad, the biggest annoyance was now the downpipe has to come out through the front of the engine bay, so I had to spend more time beating the s*** out of the exhaust to get it to fit going forward. It wasn't too bad, but didn't go as smooth as I thought.
I already had a boost controller solenoid waiting for this, so I pulled the wiring harness apart and ran the wiring for that which was straight forward. This was my initial setup for the hose routing.
And after lots of driving and ****ing with things and talking to the tuner and more screwing around and trying tons of spring and no spring combinations on the wastegate, it was still making 20+ psi of boost and going insane!
And just to fast forward trying everything I could possibly think of, with the last thing being I had the boost line from the turbo running to the bottom of the wastegate to try and open it and nothing else connected, and with a single 6psi spring I was still making insane boost. I couldn't figure it out, and then it occurred to me maybe the turbo boost port wasn't actually doing anything and there's no real way to test that... So I moved the boost reference line from the turbo to the MAP sensor line and all of a sudden it only makes 6psi! I may have gone to all this work for no reason, the boost port on the turbo was never flowing any boost! I think the stock wastegate may have been totally fine even!
On a stock turbo there's some actuator thing that connects at the turbo boost port, and I had a plug I put in there since I wasn't (originally) actively controlling the wastegate. That plug had this nipple thing that stuck into the cavity with some O-rings, and I had removed the O-rings but it seemed like air could flow around that nipple. Well needless to say it couldn't, I think some air could flow since it wasn't seal, but not enough air to actually actuate the wastegate or at least not fast enough. This was easily solved by removing that nipple on the plug with the lathe.
And voila, after that I put in the 12psi spring setup into the wastegate and she makes 12psi! And the boost controller can ramp up boost now! I did a drive messing with the boost control in the ECU a bit, and it works great now. The boost controller is commanded open via PWM and that then directs boost to the top port on the wastegate which tries to close the valve, so if the boost controller isn't working no air is directed to the top and the springs open at 12psi with the boost going only to the bottom of the wastegate to try and lift the valve open. In the tune I now have it setup so at ~3psi the boost controller turns on and opens all the way, so the wastegate is fully closed to spool the turbo as fast as possible, and then the duty cycle decreases (ie lets the wastegate valve open) as rpm and/or boost increases to keep it tame. So at 6000rpm the wastegate is fully open, and at ~15psi the wastegate starts to open to prevent the boost from overshooting. My basic boost map so far has resulted in it staying shy of 20psi which is what we want for pump gas! After all this time, I finally have control of the boost the truck is making! And you might think with how much excess boost it seems capable of the turbo is probably slow, but it's in boost almost instantly, and even at mid throttle over 3000rpm it'll be making like 10psi and the truck usually cruises around at 2500-3000rpm to begin with, so it's actually really responsive. There's a second maybe of lag if the turbo isn't spooled up at all, but like in 1st or 2nd it hits really fast and really hard. So hard that today it was spinning tires in 4th gear!
And you might be thinking wow that's a lot of power for that little truck. And it was.
I let my neighbor drive it, bad idea in retrospect, or I should've been more firm about not pushing it very hard. At 80mph in 3rd gear, I think maybe the 3-4 shift, the yoke sheared off the diff.
And that was pretty terrifying since first it slammed all over, then got spit out, and we're hauling ass in a little truck with no ABS. But everything ended up fine. I think when he shifted it shock loaded it and sheared it off, since obviously the truck had been fine prior to that and I had given it lots of full throttle beforehand but it was always a pretty slow shift and at not on the power letting the clutch out. You can only go so far and so fast in this thing before slowing down, so I had never tried to really haul ass--it's not built for speed but for accelerating!
Luckily we weren't far from town, so my wife came and towed us back.
I've probably mentioned it before, but a larger axle has been a plan for a long time. I don't have any misconception about what a Toyota 8" can handle, I just didn't expect it to die so fast. I just wanted to drive it a bit with boost before going to the next stage of the build!
With that said, my plan is to just swap another carrier in or regear this one. I think even with the fatty tires it can handle the power as long as it's "gentle" (at least relative to today). Like get into gear, then give it power, don't try and slam through the gears at 7000rpm. I will eventually do a Ford 9" probably since there's lots of support and gear ratios, but that will involve finding or narrowing a housing, may as well link it then, it just snowballs fast and I haven't even completed the engine phase of the build so one thing at a time. This truck is meant to be fun, not eternally being worked on. And once I get another 8" diff, it's just fixing the driveshaft and a coolant leak, so probably end of the week she'll be back together.
The driveshaft beat up a lot of things, but the only real carnage from it was the coolant hardline got hit and that cracked a weld which is why all the coolant was on the ground. I think the engine was fine, it was turned off pretty soon after we pulled over.
The hardline should be connected to the bracket up at the top of the tube. Somehow the outside of the hardline got hit.
This section of exhaust will probably have to get spliced out. It looks fine from the wrapping, but there's probably an inch deep sharp dent under it. The tube got absolutely crunched, to the point of being bad enough to need replacing I think.
And then the driveshaft!
The ends and yokes all appear relatively fine. I'm hoping I can give the driveshaft shop the two halves and they can salvage everything and just retube it. Hell they could even cut it down and sleeve over it since only the centered is messed up.
And that wraps up the past couple days! Tomorrow should get the tires and wheels mounted, and hopefully drop off the driveshaft. Need to find an 8" diff but apparently my neighbor knows a guy selling one or two for $250, maybe they're even geared better than my diff. I think I should have it running again in a couple days, hell maybe I can meet with the tuner again before the end of the week! At a minimum the engine is running absolutely fantastic and stoked to get the boost under control finally. The rear end exploding is a shame, but should be a relatively cheap and easy fix all things considered, and time to keep an eye out for a 9"!
- Thread starter
- #93
I was wondering if the v6 diff was any stronger, one of my friends thought the pinion splines were the same. If the v6 is stronger that'd be great! It doesn't have to handle all the horse torques forever, but a little upgrade is better than nothing!
FJ40 axle? 9.5 inch diff.
- Thread starter
- #95
Keeping the 8" for now as a holdover, and I don't think a 9.5 will work well as a future replacement since there's not much gearing options. Ideally I need a diff around like 3.5:1, that's the only reason I was thinking a 9" since that'll give a lot of options
for example.
so be on the lookout for a 4th gen 4runner parts diff. or whatever in that era also uses the 8"
Nitro Toyota V6/TURBO/E-LOCKER 8"- Ring and Pinion - 3.58
All Nitro Gears are computer-controlled forgings, forged out of 8620 steel, fully automated turning, single pass cut, and then vacuum heat treated. The sum of these processes is the ultimate aftermark
eastcoastgearsupply.com
- Thread starter
- #97
I picked up an 4cyl 8" diff last night, which from what I can tell matches up with the one I have. I guess the 7.5" diff has an 8 bolt pattern and the 8" are 10 bolts. The good news being the truck should be back together by the end of the week and really just waiting on the driveshaft for most of it. Bad news is nothing will be upgraded. I've been looking at Ford 9" stuff and it's crazy how cheap it is compared to the offroad stuff I'm used to. A custom built housing with shafts is a $1000, a normal diff is like $600. Add in brakes and other stuff and you're in $2k for a brand new axle ready to rock. Course if I'm doing that then add in the cost of links and coilovers and really probably in the 3-4k range all in.
I am already shopping for that stuff, but still want to go ahead with fixing what I have so I can finish getting the engine tuned and have the drivetrain in a "completed" state before taking the truck under the chopping block again. Buy everything I want and have it in a pile ready to go so I can swap it over a week with minimum down time.
I am already shopping for that stuff, but still want to go ahead with fixing what I have so I can finish getting the engine tuned and have the drivetrain in a "completed" state before taking the truck under the chopping block again. Buy everything I want and have it in a pile ready to go so I can swap it over a week with minimum down time.
ntsqd
technerd
If you're going to go an all new 9" I'd suggest setting it up for and using the Explorer RDB's.
- Thread starter
- #99
Too bad I can't take it for a rip since we have the meat!
I think it looks good, and lowering it an inch or two eventually will be perfect. The rear needs the rear lower fender and a bumper to cover it up a bit more, but I can't complain at all! I do plan to push the rear fenders out by an inch or so with a bracket coming off the frame, and might try to flare the fronts out a little bit too. The rear tires aren't quite as wide as I was expecting due to the wheel, and the fronts are a bit wider due to the wheels. I'm stoked though! The rears are ridiculously sticky just rolling around the shop and mounting them. Both front and rears are right around 25.5" tall, the rears just seem small in the photos from the lack of tread--which I don't understand how you get very many miles out of something where the tread depth at full tread is about the same as a normal tire when it's on the wear bars... Like if these wear down until the tire is completely smooth is fine to still run them? I don't understand!
Got the rear diff swapped out too.
New diff got welded up, and before putting it in I adjusted the side adjusters a bit since it feels AWFUL. And I went full adjustment in both directions and it didn't feel any better, so I just set it to the factory backlash spec.
Once installed... it feels EVEN WORSE. It is insanely notchy feeling, and even sounds bad just spinning. I don't know what happened to this thing. I even thought about trying to get a pattern off of it, but I said **** it I don't want to know how bad it is and I don't plan on tearing it down and setting it up properly. Hopefully some gear oil on it makes it not sound terrible, so the bet is what fails first, the pinion shearing or the gear teeth getting wiped out?!
At least it's easy to pull and everything is lightweight so not a bad job. At this point I'm just going to try and be somewhat gentle to it and cross my fingers it can live long enough for some 9" parts to show up, since how it feels has if anything accelerated my want for the new axle, and I really don't want to spend more money on this tiny axle!
I also dropped the driveshaft off to get retubed. Next up will be fixing the coolant line and the squished exhaust section!
I think it looks good, and lowering it an inch or two eventually will be perfect. The rear needs the rear lower fender and a bumper to cover it up a bit more, but I can't complain at all! I do plan to push the rear fenders out by an inch or so with a bracket coming off the frame, and might try to flare the fronts out a little bit too. The rear tires aren't quite as wide as I was expecting due to the wheel, and the fronts are a bit wider due to the wheels. I'm stoked though! The rears are ridiculously sticky just rolling around the shop and mounting them. Both front and rears are right around 25.5" tall, the rears just seem small in the photos from the lack of tread--which I don't understand how you get very many miles out of something where the tread depth at full tread is about the same as a normal tire when it's on the wear bars... Like if these wear down until the tire is completely smooth is fine to still run them? I don't understand!
Got the rear diff swapped out too.
New diff got welded up, and before putting it in I adjusted the side adjusters a bit since it feels AWFUL. And I went full adjustment in both directions and it didn't feel any better, so I just set it to the factory backlash spec.
Once installed... it feels EVEN WORSE. It is insanely notchy feeling, and even sounds bad just spinning. I don't know what happened to this thing. I even thought about trying to get a pattern off of it, but I said **** it I don't want to know how bad it is and I don't plan on tearing it down and setting it up properly. Hopefully some gear oil on it makes it not sound terrible, so the bet is what fails first, the pinion shearing or the gear teeth getting wiped out?!
At least it's easy to pull and everything is lightweight so not a bad job. At this point I'm just going to try and be somewhat gentle to it and cross my fingers it can live long enough for some 9" parts to show up, since how it feels has if anything accelerated my want for the new axle, and I really don't want to spend more money on this tiny axle!
I also dropped the driveshaft off to get retubed. Next up will be fixing the coolant line and the squished exhaust section!
- Thread starter
- #100
That's what I was leaning towards as well. So far I've just been browsing Quick Performance and they have two options for sub-$400, the Explorer setup and some generic setup with GM calipers.
