I got a new truck!

I'm not a stranger to the site as I already have a 1976 Hilux that's in the section for those trucks... http://www.toyotaminis.com/forum/build-up-project-threads-21/76-hilux-fishin-truck-16292/ However, as a student I do not have the time needed to invest in that truck, so there will be a 1976 Hilux in the For Sale section soon...

After much consideration, I decided I needed a utility/project truck with a little more emphasis on utility, i.e., one I can drive all the time.

Enter: The Hilux Jelly Roll Spaceship

It's a 1989 Hilux extended cab with the 3VZE motor. White outside, blue inside, and it came with a sweet fiberglass canopy. It has plenty of road wear... rock chips on the hood and windshield, a handful of dings along the driver side, fading paint or peeling clearcoat here and there... but it's mine and it runs great! I'm calling it the Jelly Roll Spaceship because 1) something with the suspension makes it ride super sloppy and bouncy kind of like driving a motor boat at half throttle, and 2) between the extended cab and the canopy, the thing really does look and feel like a spaceship!

My current plans for it are to make it much more comfortable for camping and road driving. I'm particularly interested in tips on tuning the 3VZE for both better gas mileage and more power. I've already ordered new retrofit headlights, speakers and a stereo, so here we go!...

 

Awesome!! What are your plans?

 

Well, to start things off I'm going to upgrade the headlights and stereo system. I just got 6" x 7" H4 conversion housings with H4 bulbs in from Summit Racing today. I'm hoping to install them this weekend, but it looks like I may need an adapter harness...

I already ordered a Pioneer HU and some 4-inch speakers for the lower dash locations. I'm planning to install that stuff next week. I'm currently trying to figure out some sort of super-low-pro subwoofer solution. Suggestions welcome! I don't want an even remotely big sub box taking up cargo or passenger space, so it may be a difficult request..

After that stuff, I want to up both the power and MPG while still keeping the truck reasonably quiet and civil. I also really want to tweek the supsension. I would like the truck to ride a little higher so that I can put on slightly more gravel-road-ready tires while improving ground clearance. I plan to do a lot of camping in this spaceship. Any tips/lessons/tricks anyone might have on this stuff are welcome!!

 

You should not need a harness adapter for H4 bulbs. they should be PnP.
For a low pro sub, look at one of the all in one amp/sub units. I know kenwood, pioneer, boss, and a few others make them. They wont be the hardest hitting things out there, but they will add some bass.
I dont want to burst your bubble but, lifting it with bigger and more aggressive tires for dirt, will take away MPG and HP. There isn't a whole lot that can be done with the 3vz to increase MPG and HP even if the truck was left stock.

 

You can stuff a small sub under the back seat. Opposite side of where the jack is. Guna take some fab work unless you wana rip the jack out and put a sub in there.

 

Thanks for the tips. You were right about the bulbs being plug and play - I did the swap today (pics coming in a few days). However, one of the bulbs is incredibly dim!! It's on for sure, but about as much light as a single candle (!). I tried switching bulbs and its not the bulbs - it's something with the wiring. Any ideas?

I saw those subs on Crutchfield. They look pretty good for what I need: I don't want to shake the truck so hard it rattles, I just want enough low frequency that bassy music doesn't sound like ****.

About the 3VZ lacking easy mods: I kind of figured that would be the case, but I'm interested in hearing what people have done to get the modest gains. Things like intake mods, exhaust mods, etc. I'm not looking for 30 hp, I just want to squeeze every last bit I can out of it. I get 20 MPG right now. And as far as the lift/bigger tires go: I realize that too, that's the case when you put bigger tires on anything. However, I am willing to give up a small bit of those precious MPGs in exchange for 2-3 inches of ground clearance for all the hauling down dirt/gravel forest roads that I do.

Thanks for your input! Anyone else out there want to spill their two cents?

 

Ya, I was thinking you could tuck one in back there in one of the compartments pretty easy. I did a little searching and found some pics of that. It does look like a fair bit of fab work is involved... I think I'll be looking into one of those amp/sub all-in-one units for simplicity and the ability to just tuck it (or them) under the seats. I really like the tool storage underneath the back seat, too.

 

Some fiberglass work should do the trick

 

For the lights, first thing I would do is check the voltage at the socket and work my way back. If no issue is found or its not worth the hassle of checking, then I would order or make an upgraded harness to pull power from the battery.
Over on yotatech, they have people who do mods to the 3vz with claimed good results. Just go search around on there. Things that come to mind are the ISR mod, cat back exhaust, flamethrower fuel injectors, somebody was making new cams at one point. Its all going to depend on how much you want to spend.

What are the plans for the suspension?

 

Thanks for the tip about checking yotatech... I'll dig around there to see if I can find some goodies.

For the suspension, ideally, I would suspension (not body) lift front and back about two inches, jump up tire size an inch or two and add some A/T tires, and replace the rear dampers with Bilsteins. When I lift the rear, I would like to stiffen it up just a tad as well, since I have the canopy on there and intend to haul around plenty of heavy stuff. I really just want a few extra inches for hauling down fire roads and the like. Right now I can barely turn off of pavement onto a dirtroad without scraping. How does that sound?

 

Its not a bad plan and if all you want is about 2'' of lift, shoot for 4". You will be happier that you did once you use it and it settles.
You will have to piece together your own setup because no company makes a specific lift kit for these trucks anymore. Fabtech lift spindles if you can find them are good for 4'' of lift or some downey or fabtech upper control arms will allow for more torsion bar cranking along with low profile bump stops. You can also crank up the stock torsions for like 3'' of lift but it will ride like crap and will have very little up travel, and might not align properly. You can also pick up a set of balljoint spacers from SDORI then there is the body lift. (I ran a 2'' at one point for tire clearance and had no issues with it)
The rear is a bit harder because you cant do blocks. You can try just an aftermarket add a leaf or maybe piecing together a new spring pack from the junk yard and get some lift and added weight carrying capacity. Buy or make some longer shackles. Downey used to make some heavy duty bastards that were 3'' longer and gave 1.5'' lift. They worked good when I had them
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v516/RobertM82/94 Tyota Pickup/shackle.jpg Some people are also doing the chevy 64'' swap. Which is like a cheap long travel leaf setup but I don't know how much they can carry.

I can tell you that going fast in dirt is a fun, addictive, and an expensive hobby. I started out the same way with just lifting my truck a few inches, and I am now on my 2nd long travel front end (plus the pieced together lifts I did before) and my 3rd leaf spring setup.
Started like this
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v516/RobertM82/94 Tyota Pickup/pickup1.jpg
Then to this
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v516/RobertM82/94 Tyota Pickup/pickup7.jpg
And is now like this
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v516/RobertM82/94 Tyota Pickup/IMG_20140815_152117_163.jpg

 

can you do me a favor and take a picture under the front of your truck. because im trying to look for a v6 aluminum radiator and i want to know if the v6 2wd truck has those brackets that holds the lower control arm in place. thanks

 

Sure man. I'll take a snap when I get home from work today and get it up on here as soon as I can.

 

Oh man I would get in so much trouble with that last setup. That thing looks like it would be a blast in the desert, or even just the dunes. The big flared fenders really let you know the lift isn't just for looking cool on the interstate.

Thanks a lot for all of the info. And you're probably right, I should just shoot for around 4 inches total lift. I've been scraping driveway transitions almost everyday recently - just in the tail, but I know I would scrape in front if I went anywhere I really want to go. I definitely don't want to end up with something that rides like crap just for the sake of the lift... i.e. I would like those 3-4 inches to be quality suspension lift that does not involve ruining the sag of the truck.

The middle pic of your truck looks pretty much like what I'm going for. What were the mods at that point in your truck's evolution? And what size tires are those? I checked out the SDORI site and the ball joint spacers look like a good place to start. I figured some kind of add-a-leaf kit and some longer shackles for the rear would be a good place to start. Also, what do you use for dampers (not on the pre-runner build, but on the mid-height setup)? Do you think the standard Bilstein upgrade (like these) would still be the proper length once you extend the shackles and add a leaf?

Thanks for your expertise!!

 

If my memory is right, that pic was cranked up torsions, ball joint spacers, and low pro bumps in the front. the rear was the stock rear leafs with the overloads taken out but an add a leaf put in its place with downey lift shackles and 2'' 4crawler.com body lift. The tires were 235/75-15 yokohama geolander ats and crager soft 8 wheels. I loved those tires and if they made them in 33x10.50, I would run them now.
For shocks, the bilsteins should work. The front just needs stock length because you're not going to be changing the mounting points the rear though, I think I ran shocks for a t100 and they worked pretty well.

 

Nice. I thought I detected some body lift in there. I'm a total noob when it comes to lifted vehicles, so please bare with me, but how did you make the bump stops lower profile? And did you have to remove the sway bar when you added the ball joint spacers and cranked up the torsions? Looks like it may hit the discs if you do it. But on that note it seems like the thing would handle like crap with some wicked body roll on the road if you took the sway bar out...

Also, have you (or anyone else!) seen anyone set up their rig with the fabtech kit? I found it here and also here.

 

The low pro bumps I bought at like autozone. They just bolt in place of the stock upper control arm rubber ones and allow for a little more suspension travel without the arms ridding on the stock one at ride hight. something like this Energy Suspension/2 pcs. 11/16 in. H x 1 5/8 in. dia. black performance polyurethane low profile button style universal bump stop 9.9121G at AutoZone.com
Im not 100% sure but I dont think I had to remove the sway bar with the spacers but I'm pretty sure I did to get it a better ride though. It got a lot smoother when I took it off but yes, it had a good amount of roll then but I knew it wasnt a sports car so I had fun with it.
I ran the fabtech arms on my truck for a few months before I got the first long travel kit and they worked ok. They didnt do a whole lot for lift, as you have to crank the torsions for that (same with the BJ spacers) but what they do is allow for the alignment to be a lot easier to set in spec and for the ball joint to have better angles and not bind.
The add a leafs seem just like the ones I ran from downey. I had no issues with them. Having said all that, I dont think I would pay $600+ for that kit. I bought my first long travel kit (a used fabtech ivan dan kit) for $600. For that much money you can probably piece together a better lift and shocks.

 

Sorry this took so long (3 months!)...

 

So, apparently I forgot how to use the forum. Links to what you were asking for are above...

 

So, after a super long period of just trying to keep up with life, and hence not posting about the truck on this site... I'm going to summarize some fixes and stuff. Starting with the headlight issue. First, here's a some pics of why I needed to replace them in the first place...

Lazy eye:
<a href='http://postimg.org/image/yfz95yad1/' target='_blank'><img src='http://s10.postimg.org/yfz95yad1/IMG_7129.jpg' border='0' alt="IMG 7129" /></a>

New tech: "hydro-lights":
<a href='http://postimg.org/image/nofno7k1t/' target='_blank'><img src='http://s24.postimg.org/nofno7k1t/IMG_7134.jpg' border='0' alt="IMG 7134" /></a>

These are the aluminum-backed, glass-lens H4 housings I landed from Summit. I was actually really impressed with the quality:
<a href='http://postimg.org/image/f7cbyiseh/' target='_blank'><img src='http://s4.postimg.org/f7cbyiseh/IMG_7115.jpg' border='0' alt="IMG 7115" /></a>

And then after installing them, I discovered the dim light/voltage problem:
<a href='http://postimg.org/image/z8xfzsakr/' target='_blank'><img src='http://s9.postimg.org/z8xfzsakr/IMG_7133.jpg' border='0' alt="IMG 7133" /></a>

I did just as Robert m suggested above and checked the voltage at the socket... barely more than a volt on the dim side. So, I decided to get a new in-line high-voltage relay/wiring harness to fix this, and any other voltage-sucking problems I might have had... I got the Putco harness, quality looked great, only one problem: the female socket of the harness that recieves on/off information from the combination switch is only on the side of the truck with the poor voltage! And to top it off, you can't flip it because the direct battery leads of the harness are on that side... My solution was a bike ride to the local hardware store. 18 feet of 10 gauge stranded wire, a handful of butt-splices, and some electrical tape all run from the side with strong headlight voltage over (with the loom in front of the radiator) to the relays.. and Voila. Way brighter headlights FTW. Somehow I never snapped a pic of the new lights looking good, but just look at the last image above and imagine them really bright. There you go.

Edit: Here's a look at all the kit it took to fix the lights, including the Putco harness (yellow):
<a href='http://postimg.org/image/5xvndpgr3/' target='_blank'><img src='http://s3.postimg.org/5xvndpgr3/IMG_7233.jpg' border='0' alt="IMG 7233" /></a>