2001 Toyota Tacoma S-Runner
The Purchase
I bought my truck in March of 2001 with the intention of having a reliable vehicle with decent fuel economy to deliver pizza in and to maybe hit the occasional SPL competition. I knew I was looking for a new Tacoma. I had driven a 4 cylinder regular cab and I liked the feel. I spotted this truck while driving by the dealership. An illegal u-turn and $20,000 later I pulled out of the dealership in my new truck.
Mat vs Jake
At first I was not that interested in going fast. After driving a 4000lb 150hp SUV for a couple of years, my new truck felt like a ballistic missile. If it wasn't for the little rivalry I got going with my boss Jake and his 95 VTEC Del SOL, my truck would probably still be stock. Races with Jake were always pretty close, with me edging him out more often than not(sucka). I did get my ass handed to me by a red late model Mustang GT once. I considered doing a few mods but the usual stuff like intake and exhaust didn't seem worth the time or money. Had I not discovered the TRD supercharger, I might never have done a single performance upgrade. But an extra 70hp with no effect on the factory warranty is hard to turn down. So shortly after getting a new credit card with a $2500 limit, I got the TRD supercharger, boost gauge and air filter shipped to my front door for $2400. My first order of business, once installed, was to bait Jake (who was oblivious to my new purchase) into a race. That night I introduced him to my taillights while burning out through first and second. Then we got back to work where the other employees and I had a good laugh when the wounded warrior returned. I still had no idea how fast my truck was compared to a lot of other vehicles. I was under the impression that stock 5.0's were fast. Then one night, one of the cooks(Brandon) needed a ride home. So with Orion riding shotgun and Brandon in the back seat I ran into a newer Z28 Camaro. After a little taunting back and forth we caught a red light. I got the jump on green and kept enough of a lead through 3rd so he had to brake and merge behind me. I couldn't believe it. So we dropped off Brandon and went out to play pool. That's when I spotted a Red Mustang GT. I caught up to him at a light and damn if it wasn't the same guy who beat me when my truck was stock. One green light and a few seconds later sweet revenge was mine. Then after pool on the way to drop off Orion, we ran into a brand new Mustang GT and kicked his ass too. To this day it was one of the best nights racing I ever had. Soon after that I went to the drag strip. Due to my inexperience and serious traction issues I only managed a 15.01@92mph. But I had a great time and couldn't wait to go back. After that I was on a mission to go faster.
Headers, Exhaust and Clutch
I purchased a pair of Downey headers for $300 and found they didn't fit my model of Tacoma only after I had removed my old exhaust manifold with the trusty saws all. So with no other choice I bought and installed the TRD headers and drove to Exhaustworks for a custom, header-back, 3" mandrel exhaust with 3" high-flow catalytic converter and 3" Magnaflo muffler(poor me....literally). On my first trip to the dyno I layed down 236hp and 260tq and my 1/4 mile dropped to 14.233@95.56mph.
Centerforce Clutch
This was about the time I smoked my first clutch. The stocker sure didn't like the extra horsepower, so Orion and I installed a Centerforce dual friction. It drove like stock and held all the punishment the Supercharger ever gave it.
More Boost + More Fuel = More Power
Next I started looking for a smaller S/C pulley. I found a very helpful website called Gadgetonline. He pioneered the pulley and fuel upgrades which became my next project. I installed the Maxxautoworks pulley, a Walbro 255Lph fuel pump, the Apexi S-AFC and some 330 Supra injectors. It ran well but I did not get the increase in horsepower I expected. By this time the idea was starting to creep into my head about a possible turbo setup. With that in mind I decided to put in bigger injectors and a TT Supra Mass Air Flow sensor. I installed a used TT Supra MAF, some 550cc injectors out of a turbo RX-7 and the correct clips to wire them in from RC Engineering. Unfortunately, when I started it up it poured black smoke out of the exhaust. I could find no setting on my S-AFC to get this combo to work and assumed it was because the injectors were just to big. So I called RC Engineering and had some 440's over-nighted. I threw them in and to my dismay the same black cloud of death came pouring out of my exhaust. At this point I started to suspect it was the TT MAF causing the trouble. I tried every different MAF setting on the S-AFC but it still wouldn't work. So I bought another TT MAF in case this one was broken. Again I tried every setting and again the same result. I took the TT MAF out for good and put the stock MAF back in and I was able to tune it. While I was tuning it in, even though the injectors were supposed to be 110cc's bigger, all my settings were almost the same as they were with the 330's. So I pulled the injectors out only to find RC had sent me 300 something cc injectors instead of the 440's. I called them and they had the correct set in my hands the next day and an hour later I was at the dyno, tuning in a supercharged best 264hp and 293tq.
LSD and Tires
This, combined with a TRD LSD and drag radials, led to my supercharged best 1/4 mile of 13.738@97.mph at 3100ft.
Turbo, Wastegate and Blowoff
After I realized I could not get much more out of my supercharged setup without nitrous or major engine work, I decided to turbo my truck. The first thing I did was buy the turbo, wastegate and blowoff valve. I talked to a guy named Bret, who worked at a local hot rod shop and had a reputation for turbo knowledge. I told him what I wanted to do and he had a turbo put together that would work well for me and sold me the Tial blow and wastegate. I took measurements for an intercooler and found a Spearco on Ebay that matched up pretty well.
Ryan & Eddie
Since their shop didn't have a TIG, and I wanted a stainless manifold, Bret referred me to a friend of his named Ryan. Ryan(who also has a V6 Tacoma) is a turbo guy and decided to turbo his Tacoma also. Ryan is a bad ass, he started his project after mine and finished before and in the process worked out a lot of the wrinkles of this kind of undertaking. He then agreed to do my intercooler piping and mounting and weld in a nipple on my valve cover for oil return(his idea); but since he had not done a lot of stainless welding he sent me to Eddie of Eddie's Inboard Marine to build my manifold and downpipe. I showed Eddie my truck and we went over what I wanted done. We set a date to drop off the truck and in the mean time I tracked down the stainless tubing and collector. We agreed that using the TRD header for parts would save time and labor. Eddie left the driver side of the TRD header all the way to the cross over untouched. From there Eddie built the rest from scratch. Having removed the exhaust flanges and cross over flange from the passenger side of the header, the only flanges we needed were a T4 flange and a wastegate flange. Eddie had these water cut and we we're in business. When I picked up the finished product I couldn't have been happier. It was exactly what I wanted.
From there Ryan took over. He made and routed my intercooler piping(which was quite a job)mounted my intercooler and did the oil lines.
Twin Charged
I made an intake to facilitate the MAF sensor and a 3" cone filter, ran vacuum lines to the blow off valve and wastegate and I fired it up. The settings on the S-AFC were so far off it would barely run. I adjusted it enough so it was drivable and made it to Exhaustworks to have my downpipe and exhaust connected. From there I went to the dyno. With both the turbo and the supercharger it layed down 303hp and 335ftlbs. Even though it negated having a intercooled turbo setup, I couldn't resist driving around twincharged for a couple of weeks.
Even with the boost all the way down, it had so much low end torque it was almost undrivable, but a lot of fun. I ran a 14.038@99.93mph on street tires. There was absolutely no point in first or second gear where I could floor it without losing traction. And that was with a LSD and 275's.
Tuning
After I took off my supercharger and put the intake manifold back on I noticed two things. #1, that my truck hauled ass. And #2, that it ran like shit. It ran fine at wide open throttle but idled rough and had a tendency to die after hard acceleration. I spent hours tuning it but I could not get it to run right. I could hardly keep it running enough to stage after the burnout at the drag strip. I went a couple of times but couldn't manage better than low 13's even at 16psi. The problem was with the MAF. I still had it in the stock location, which was before the turbo. It was reading the air before it was compressed and then blown-off; so it was essentially making fuel for air that wasn't there. I called Ryan and told him I was thinking about moving my MAF to after the intercooler. He didn't think it would work because MAF's can't read compressed air, but since he was having the same problems, he gave it a shot on his truck. It turned out to work really well. It idled great, wouldn't die after you let off the gas and even pulled harder on the top end. Since my MAF was different than Ryan's, I had to have a piece made to move it. The stock tube the MAF mounts in is about 2.5", but I bought some 3" aluminum tube to replace it and went to see Eddie. My idea was, by using a bigger tube, the MAF will read less air and the ECU will then call for less fuel so I don't have to take out as much with the S-AFC. So Eddie made me the piece I needed. I cut out a section of my intercooler piping to facilitate the new MAF section and had Eddie weld beads around the edge so they wouldn't pop off.
I put it all together and after tuning, it drives almost as well as it did stock.
Spec Clutch
By this time I had more than exceeded the limits of the Centerforce clutch. And then there was the time Orion exceeded the limits of the Centerforce clutch. He tried to do a burnout in my truck from a dead stop.....in 3rd gear. There was alot of smoke alright, it's just that the tires weren't moving. I needed to upgrade but I didn't want the harsh ride of the ACT solid hub 6puck that alot of Tacoma guys are using. I found out that SPEC Clutch made all five stages for my truck. I went with the 6puck stage 3(sprung hub)with the light weight option.
So I put in the new clutch, moved the MAF and replaced the 6psi wastegate spring with a 13.8psi spring and tuned it on the dyno. It layed down 364hp and 442ft lbs at the rear wheels. Not bad numbers and it's pretty fast to. I ran 12.942@104mph with just the 13.8 spring(no boost controller). I've beat some pretty fast cars. One night, while his dad was out of town, Jake took the old mans 320AMG and came by to get a piece of the Taco. It was a fun race but even his Dad's $50,000+ sports car can't win Jake a race. We both had a passenger and raced in front of 10 or so people. It was fairly close but I got him off the line and continued to pull him until we let off.
More Boost and Challengers from the north
My next mod was a Turbo XS boost controller that Orion gave me. I put it in and started turning up the boost. On the street I've had it as high as 20psi but I normally keep it around 16. At 17psi, I ran 12.523@110mph. I have a friend from Lake Havasu(Ruben) who brings his friends out here just so they can go out with me and race people. One time he brought out this 18 year old kid named Dave who had never been in a fast car in his life. He was nervous to say the least. It had been a pretty uneventful night so far and we were getting ready to head back when a Mustang 5.0 piped me. Right away I knew he meant business. It was running an loud exhaust that sounded burly as hell and he was sitting on ET streets. I promptly gave him a blow-off in return and we both hit it. I pulled him pretty good and he started speaking into a walkie talkie. He moved aside so the car behind him could pull up next to me. It was a f-body V8 firebird also running a loud exhaust and also sitting on ET Streets. The driver(who also had a walkie talkie) ask me if "I wanted to run?" to which I replied "lead the way". I followed him to a nice quite stretch of road and stopped at the light. The 5.0 pulled up next to me. On green I got a great launch and put a quick half a car on him and by the time I had gone through 3rd gear he was in my rear view. At the next stop light the Firebird pulled up next to me. When the light turned green I burnt out and I fell back behind his door. By the time I was shifting into 3rd I was almost even. And while I was (mis)shifting into 4th I was passing him. By the way this whole time poor little Dave is holding onto the "oh shit handle" for dear life. I also might have heard a "Hail Mary" or two. Anyway after the race we pulled over and talked to the owners of the 5.0 and Firebird. Turns out the 5.0 is supercharged and the firebird is running a 150shot. They had driven all the way out from Apache Junction to kick some ass on some Tucson cars only to get beat by a "fucking Tacoma". I later found the video they made on the internet. Although they claim they didn't use nitrous in any of the races and that the MR2 they raced had "8000hp" the video is pretty self explanatory
There are alot of things I still have to do. I still need to resolve my traction issues, just got a traction bar(we'll see how it works out). I toasted my SPEC clutch, so I'm going to stage 4. I'm replacing the S-AFC with the Split Second FTC1.1. Then I want to go for higher boost. That will most likely entail new pistons and some headwork. I still can't believe how much abuse the stock motor has taken.
So that's pretty much the way it is now. I still deliver pizza in it. And I still get into a race here and there. My truck is a constant project but it's a shitload of fun and I wouldn't have it any other way.
