2007 Tacoma 2.7L work truck

I should have done this a year ago but here goes a build thread about a 2007 Tacoma 5 lug 2.7.

Purchased: From Truly Nolen pest control for 3k with a dead alternator and 193k. Some guy side swiped me 1 week into having it (weird coincidence huh) and Progressive payment and selling rear parts to someone on CL, basically netted this whole truck to 900$.
Current mileage: 245k.
Current weight: 4200lb (forgot if it's with me in it or not, will update later lol).

Mods done:
- Gutted (partial). Dashboard still left. Will deal with that later.
- Custom air intake, mostly to just make room for a rotary screw VMAC air compressor.
- Custom coolant pipes, to make room
- Custom electric fan shroud with some 2015? Cadillac pos (got it for free) Bosch OEM fan adaptation? Will never use aftermarket fans they're all trash. This one BLOWS! lol.
- Emissions exhaust pump whatever you call it (BMW calls them SAP fans?) delete.
- Exhaust manifold trim to delete emissions junk. Light porting to smooth out flow. Deleted all reductions and ran straight 2.5" from collector (half of which was cut to make sure it's 2.5") to the rear muffler. I know it tapers down to 2.25" but the butt dyno did register a couple ponies from getting rid of all the tubing variations.
- Innovative Motorsports MTX-L wideband to replace stock burned out NTK sensor. Sensor placed further back to reduce heat damage, along with a heatsink o2 bung.
Cat delete obviously.
- Replaced my alternator 5 times (Thanks Autozone for (not limited)lifetime alternator warranty and garbage alternators).
- Had a HUGE oil leak, thought RMS/Front Crank seal, turned out just oil filter housing, fixed with OEM gaskets.
- Couple different random hitch designs. I literally just improvise and make them on the spot sometimes since I'm a TIG welder. Had to borrow parts for one for a customer's car lol.
- Aluminum flatbed. Took a while to figure out, next one will be better. Has a 200lb? generator and 550lb 30 gallon gasoline air compressor among other things.
- Minor lift kit, I think 1.5" in front and helper spring on rear? Forgot the brand it was discounted and cheap on Amazon.
- K&N cabin air filter, not that I ever use it lol!
- Magnet on oil filter, overpriced but eh. I used to waste money on K&N, Purolator Boss, Mobil 1 filters until I was enlightened to how awesome OEM Toyota filters are. That's all I run now.
- .5 qt of Valvolene ATF in every oil change. I was a huge skeptic and thought it was dumb and bobistheoilguy people saying ATF has very few detergents. But it made some noise go away in my engine and one of my friends turned his Mazda FE3 from Australia from black to sparkling clean inside with ATF so I'm a believer now.
- Heater core bypass. It's Florida, don't care enough to fix it the proper way. Plastic part on thermostat housing cracked and I lost my coolant. Fabricated my own aluminum flange/hose barb.
- New valve cover!!!!! Some previous mechanic over tightened and cracked it. I had a new gasket, but still an annoying slow oil leak. Didn't want to wait for a month and spend 190 to order the OEM (supposedly) one from Malaysia. Turns out Rock Auto recently got a replacement one from China for only 80 bucks! I was so excited. Ordered it, and leak is gone. It's not perfect but for 80 bucks I have no complaints.
- Pulse width modulated Chinesium circuit to drive the fan. Super efficient. Blows (heh) all the other fan controllers away. Cost about 25? on Amazon. It's very efficient and doesn't heat up much. The fan I got is too strong and sucks 40 amps on full speed while sounding like a leaf blower. I run it at 80% capacity with the adjustable circuit and keeps my truck running good in FL.
- Bilstein yellow struts on all 4.
- Retrofitted LED packs into each headlight. It was done pretty ghetto and I cut the back of the entire housing off and literally just bolted the LED pack to the radiator support. But it keeps water out of them so they don't fog after use and cost me less than just one set of bulbs. Bulbs kept burning out because of the vibration of the 30 gallon compressor and harsher handling from LT tires.
- Goodyear/Parker pushlock 3/8ths lines on trans/power steering and anything else I ever get my hands on. No clamps, no leaks, best hoses ever.

Abuse:
It's gone from having at least 1000 to 1500lb of equipment on it on a daily basis for on-site mobile mechanic and welding work for the past year. I've not changed any gaskets except what I listed so I'm just blown away by Toyota reliability. I've towed a few trailers with a combined weight of 4000+ lb. I've towed BMW 540is as far away as 300 miles with no issues (3800 lb car). It's the little Tacoma that could. I sometimes have more equipment and capability on my truck than many "badass" welder guys with their dually diesel trucks, and it cracks me up. Because I can still squeeze into a normal parking space and I don't have to spend 1000s on parts any time something "diesel" goes wrong. This truck has turned me into a Toyota believer lol.

What else I do:
I got 3 e39 chassis BMW 540is lol. Being a Russian I have to have my mafia looking cars. Pain in the ass they are, but fun in the end when you iron everything out. And a 2.4L DOHC 4G64 Cheevo Mitsubishi Mirage that I Frankensteined the hell out of. Mitsubishi makes (made :'( ) some incredible 4 cylinders. Those are my fun projects but as far as work and practicality goes, buying a Tacoma was the best vehicle purchase I've ever made.

Planned mods:
- Turbo. Enough said lol.
- 2000lb cheap airbags in rear. Got the parts, need to weld brackets and plumb them.
- Vmac rotary screw on board air compressor.
- Electric steering column retrofit, to replace/delete power steering an further clean up the engine bay. Already have the parts from a 2013 Kia Soul with less than 50k miles.

I'm going to update this thread. There's probably a bunch of things I'm forgetting but that's what comes to mind after a messed up day of 10mm wrenches stuck in my tires and other things. Not bad for having 3 9.5% sour monkeys (yumm). lol.

 

This is a legit work truck. I like all the custom stuff you've done. And you lay some nice welds.

 

I think this is the most work worthy truck I’ve seen in years wow

 

Thanks! I'm always trying to improve and figure out ways to get to the weld porn level. I'm starting to get the hang of purging stainless and I know I need to get thinner electrodes and thinner wire. But that's more of an OCD quest than anything. One thing that sucks is it's hard to really sit down and design every thing right away. Sometimes it's better to literally start with a blank sheet and just improvise after gaining some experience . Some of my favorite fabrication project outcomes happened that way.

 

@BassAckwards

 

Awesome, subbed for the 4 banger!!

 

Haha I was almost starting to think nobody cared about this build. I will have some updates soon though.

 

I like the dash, very Back To The Futurish

 

This is gangster as hell. I'm subbed and will be keeping track of this bad boy.

 

@Bigdaddy4760

 

More pics of the flatbed please

 

Legit.

I am blown away by the .5 quart of Valvoline ATF in every oil change. Never heard of anyone doing that before. I'll have to research that.

 

You'll do just fine. Stainless pipe and tube is a breeze when you get Into it.


Nice rig!

 

This works really well actually. Especially on older trucks. Keeps the deposits down too...

 

Nice rig! I appreciate a truck dedicated to its job. Welcome!

 

Mighty Mighty Bosstone avatar. Badass.

 

Very nice work truck, love the passenger door mod.



Subbed to watch the amazingness.

 

one of the coolest trucks / threads I've seen.

 

Thanks for the comments everyone, for some reason I wasn't getting email notifications but I'll check it more often . I've spent a few days basically deleting the whole dashboard, ripping off all the electrical tape (what a mess ugh) and trying to resolder 100s of wires to get rid of rat's nest. I'm nowhere even close to done, and I have about 10 wires which I don't even know where they were supposed to go at one point. But I did finally get the Kia Soul electric power steering fitted in.

It's so difficult to straighten out the wire harness. I should maybe just kept it in similar places/shapes where it used to be and went at it one piece at a time instead of ripping all the tape off at once and then thinking it would be an easy job to organize it all.

 

Badass