Tito's - Another 1st Gen 4Runner build

Been an eventful week so far, Baby Logan made her way into the world on Saturday night. We got discharged from the hospital Monday afternoon. Momma and baby are healthy and perfect which has been a big relief. Not only that but had some boxes show up at my door on Tuesday. Finally got everything put to put the 4Runner back together. All I gotta say is the turbo looks damn good on there
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Got the new camshafts installed and valves shimmed within spec. Threw the valve cover and turbo on for the last time (hopefully). Next is to drop the pan and weld the bung in for the oil return line for the turbo, feed line, piping, exhaust, and figure out a ground issue I’m having with the harness/haltech, ECU is not grounding for some reason so I’ll have to chase the wire with a multimeter but thankfully it’s getting 12vdc+. Hopefully find some time between the baby and chores to get it started this weekend
 
Shreddinlettuce said:
aftermarket ecus typically want dedicated 12v and ground to the battery, might be worth outs own 10 gage or larger ground wire
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That’s what I was thinking, I get like 2-3v from it when I do the positive and ground off of the harness plug, I’m going to end up doing a dedicated ground and positive off of my switch pro
 
you might even get feedback from the switch pro. I would go all the way to the ecu. I got 8 gage dedicated with big ring terminals and it connects directly to to the battery posts. That’s what the Holley install video says to do, and they make sure you repeat that about 5 times in the video
 
What's that saying, it comes in 3's? Little back track update, figured out the ECU issue not getting power once i finally got some sleep as my lack of sleep had me looking at the pinout backwards, When i finally figured out i was looking at it backwards i saw i was on the wrong pin and went to go check for 12V on the ecu side to find that there wasn't a pin where there was supposed to be. Looked on the backside to find this on the PNP adapter from SNP after i gave the wire a little tug.


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the 12v DC pin was not seated all the way into the connector that plugs into the haltech, once i pushed it in i actually got the ecu to turn on
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Spent the next 3 hours tuning it and pissing off my neighborhood, this sucker rips, until it didn't, discovered two issues, one i have severe death wobble, i replaced all the heim joints as they were shot but from pushing my axle forward and my alignment is off so i need to get it on a rack. Now for the 3rd issue. I'm about 99% this brand new Garrett turbo has a bad oil seal. During acceleration and decel at higher RPMS its pushing oil out the exhaust to the point its dripping out the flex joint on the down pipe. This motor is super healthy, good compression, never smoked before the turbo, and ran like a sewing machine. I'm thinking once its pushing high oil pressure its pushing out the turbo into the exhaust side and down the downpipe. I don't have high crank case pressure, i re-routed the PCV out of the intake and into a breather and plugged in the intake just incase. Soon ill pull the spark plugs and down pipe to see if its engine side or turbo side. Hopefully get that knocked out tomorrow and shoot myself in the foot before i call LCE to know 100% its not something engine related. At least it looks good being on all 4 tires again

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Turbo is pushing oil out the backside near the exhaust housing, and rings are shot. My wallet didn't hurt anyways. I knew i should of did an LS...
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Put a new starter in cause it was turning over slow. And bought a new compression tester, compression is perfect. Found an oil leak on the turbo drain fitting and got that fixed. It was hard to to tell if the smoke was coming out the exhaust or if it was under off of the downpipe. Fix that just to blow out the o ring on the dipstick and started puking out of there lol. Getting a new one tomorrow and waiting for my fitting for a turbosmart oil pressure regulator for the turbo
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Nothing too eventful has happened over the last 6 months, Mostly just been testing and experimenting with all the changes. I have about 6500 miles on the new set up and its working great now. LCE Kit is a POS I'll start with that, I have gone through multiple T3/T4 flange gaskets because the studs, or the nuts will back off the manifold no matter what i do, or what hardware i use. I ended up using some aircraft hardware that allowed me to safety wire the nuts and studs and haven't had anymore issues. IAT were through the roof so it got an intercooler which drop it drastically. The manifold is already rusting due to poor power coating peeling off. My biggest complaint of them all is the turbo... it is advertised as a Garrett turbo, that is not the case with the kit. It is 100% a cheap maxspeedingrod turbo which sucks to hear, there is no oil pressure regulation with the kit, after 3k miles it blew out the turbo seal as it was getting 75+ psi of oil pressure going through it which caused a ridiculous amount of smoke on decel after a hard pull. Replaced the seal and put a turbo smart oil pressure regulator on it, has been smooth sailing since then.

Once i got it running smooth i started turning the boost up and really getting to the power levels i wanted to be at. That was short lived once the clutch started slipping so back down the boost went. Ended up putting a stage 3 clutch and heavy duty flywheel in it. While i was in there i found out one of the transfer case housings was cracked. replaced all the housings and no more leaks. Clutch is now a on and off switch, took getting used to and multiple stalls lol. It also got a new paint job, i was left unsupervised for too long.


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With the clutch hooking up great again boost went back up. Been running 25 psi the last 2k miles and its a scary snot rocket. Got 2step and rolling anti lag set up for no other reason than i had the ability to lol. After about 5 times of using it the muffler exploded, doing the math my exhaust wasn't big enough so it has a full 3" exhaust now. Also had the drain line rattle loose off the turbo, that was a nice scare going down the highway.
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Took it on its first true wheeling trip last weekend at my buddies property in western NC, this thing is a riot, No issues with not having enough power to grab any gear i want esspecially with the 2 step. Only issue was on the last obstacle when i cracked the ears off the steering box and lost 90% of steering capabilities. Limped it off the trail and threw a new one on and been rolling on ever since. Ill try to upload some videos of the weekend here in a bit.
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4LowandSlow said:
Took it on its first true wheeling trip last weekend at my buddies property in western NC, this thing is a riot, No issues with not having enough power to grab any gear i want esspecially with the 2 step. Only issue was on the last obstacle when i cracked the ears off the steering box and lost 90% of steering capabilities. Limped it off the trail and threw a new one on and been rolling on ever since. Ill try to upload some videos of the weekend here in a bit.
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Where yall riding? I’m WNC local!
 
Kickdeez said:
I thought I saw this thing listed for sale a while back. I could have been mistaken. Either way, glad to see you’re still plugging along on it. This is a cool build.
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I did have it listed for sale for a bit, then i snapped out of the mid divorce crisis and back to reality that its probably the only thing that will get me through it lol.
 
frankenyoter said:
Where yall riding? I’m WNC local!
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Lenoir, My buddy has about 400 acres out there that we've been carving some trails into. We got about 4 good trails cut and ran a few times, gives GER vibes for sure.
 
4LowandSlow said:
I did have it listed for sale for a bit, then i snapped out of the mid divorce crisis and back to reality that its probably the only thing that will get me through it lol.
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Damn. Hate to hear that brother. Been there too. Keep your head on your shoulders. It gets better with time. Holler if you need to vent or chat or wheel or whatever.
 
4LowandSlow said:
I did have it listed for sale for a bit, then i snapped out of the mid divorce crisis and back to reality that its probably the only thing that will get me through it lol.
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Kickdeez said:
Damn. Hate to hear that brother. Been there too. Keep your head on your shoulders. It gets better with time. Holler if you need to vent or chat or wheel or whatever.
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I’ll echo kickdeez on that man. Don’t hesitate to reach out. I’ve been down that road too.
 
I appreciate it guys, I truly do. I defiantly will take you guys up on that, My goal this year is to do as much wheeling as i can as I've been slacking the last 2 years. I got 75 days of leave from work that i need to burn over the next year, wheeling is on the top of the list of things to do.

Smooth sailing till it wasn't, Was on my way home from work the other day and barley got into the throttle and went to shift into 3rd to hear the most gosh awful noise I've ever heard a truck. Was 100% sure i lost a rod out the block, thankfully it was just me loosing 2nd gear. it still drove so i kept on trucking to kroger, went inside and came back out and made it about 400 yards from the parking spot for it to transform into a automatic and every gear was park lol. Brought it up with me up to NC last night for a 4 day weekend so i could swap out the transmission. Got it apart this morning to investigate the carnage. I'm genuinely impressed with myself on this one, time to hang it on the wall in the shop lol.
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still perplexed as to how it made it into the shop under its own power. just glad i didn't have top push.
 
4LowandSlow said:
I appreciate it guys, I truly do. I defiantly will take you guys up on that, My goal this year is to do as much wheeling as i can as I've been slacking the last 2 years. I got 75 days of leave from work that i need to burn over the next year, wheeling is on the top of the list of things to do.

Smooth sailing till it wasn't, Was on my way home from work the other day and barley got into the throttle and went to shift into 3rd to hear the most gosh awful noise I've ever heard a truck. Was 100% sure i lost a rod out the block, thankfully it was just me loosing 2nd gear. it still drove so i kept on trucking to kroger, went inside and came back out and made it about 400 yards from the parking spot for it to transform into a automatic and every gear was park lol. Brought it up with me up to NC last night for a 4 day weekend so i could swap out the transmission. Got it apart this morning to investigate the carnage. I'm genuinely impressed with myself on this one, time to hang it on the wall in the shop lol.
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W56?
 
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