Project: 5.y0ta (a very slow and very cheap build)

first time poster, long time lurker

Ill start with a little backround about me. Cars have always been my thing ever since i got my license. In highschool I took the automotive vo-tech classes. Then went to Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, KS where I got an associates and bachelors degree in automotive technology. Thats where I really build my first car, an 87 mr2. It was on coilovers and basically had full built 10,000 rpm, 12:1 comp, full forged, ITB'd, 4age that I put together from the bottom up, heres a few pics:

Well just about the time I sent it off to get tuned I found out I was going to have a daughter, so with a tune that barely got the car able to drive I sold it for 20th century challenge money (still not happy about that) so i could buy something more practical (that being a chipped 97 audi a4)

jump forward 2 years now and I've moved to Columbus IN with the wife and child to work for cummins running a engine dyno doing emissions testing. I finally was able to put some money together to get another project. after weeks of searching i found a partially swapped 94 2wd toyota pickup with a 85 mustang 302 and 92 T-5 and a mountain of random extra parts, the engine and trans were already mounted and that was about all that was done. picked it up for a cool $500

mad JDM grafix!

collections of parts that were included

first thing to do was pull the engine out to do basic gaskets, I was told the engine only has ~60k miles on it and from the looks of it im not gonna say its not true but you can only trust a seller so much. it does fell really good turning the engine over by and, lots of compression and everything looked good when the oil pan and valve covers were taken off. Ive decided to not do head gaskets for bearings or anything and just see how it goes, its easy enough to pull out that it wouldnt be hard to do again.

So now its been gasket'd up and has new waterpump i need to weld some bungs on the oil pan, its a moroso deep pan and the PO notched the back part of it to clear the swaybar and it doesnt have any oil drain plugs in it, ill be putting a front and rear one since it has a deep front section that could probably hold 1-1.5 courts of oil in it that wouldnt get drained with just 1 plug, will also be welding on a oil return tube for a turbo ;)

a friend of mine is into 4x4 toyota stuff and since he didnt get me a wedding present he decided to build me a toyota 8" axle with 4.10 gears and welded the spiders for me for a cheap locker. the only problem is thats its a 4wd axle so its set up from spring over, since my truck is 2wd its sring under so i will probably end up making some spring perches to weld on.

since this build is on an extremely tight budget and i have some basic fab skills i have been making a few parts as im able to, this is what i have so far, im sure there will be more to come.

here are some 2" drop blocks and leaf spring clamps (cheap way to help fight wheel hop) ive also made some spring plates that arent pictured.

I got bored at work one day and decided to make a tall shifter handle, the one the PO had was really short and in the truck it was just to short (thats what she sa... nevermind). i also had a shift boot my friends wife made for the mr2 that never got put in, so now its in the race truck.

thats were im pretty much at now with the project, once the oil pan is done the engine can go back in, run fuel lines and wire the msd box (also was free from my buddy who built me the axle) then i need to get the headers im pretty sure will fit (headman 88400) then get the driveshaft made, and you may have noticed i said i was welding in a turbo drain back fitting in the oil pan, its atleast a year or 2 out after i get it running but I plan on boosting it and would like to atleast break 300 rwhp using this guy:

size referance

hope you guys like it, let me know what you think

ermagerd I lervs it!

also forgot to add that the 4wd axle im using is 6 lug and being that the truck is 2wd it is 5 lug... so since the truck isnt super clean or anything im not worried about mismatched wheels front to back and i recently picked these up for $50 for all 4 so i can use 2 on the back

15x10's with about a 4" backspacing, 1 of the 4 doesnt match the rest but since im only using 2 i can just sell of the other 2 probably individually as spares to some off-road guys or someone. since the new axle isnt under the truck yet i have no idea how they will fit, i would like to keep the bed and camper shell on for more of a sleeper look but if they stick out to far past the bed ill just make a simple wood flat bed for it and sell the bed/shell

Best part, if it had a V6 in there before your MPG can only go up!

You should call it the "5.0yota," sounds more like Toyota!

Love it!

What kind of racing do you plan to do with it?

That'll fit in nicely at the challenge.... hint-hint-hint

mine form 10 years ago. It's going through a metamorphosis again. This time it's getting IRS!

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I would love to take it to the challenge one of these years, should be running this summer and would give me plenty of time to work the bugs out by $2015 haha we will have to see

and for racing it'll mostly just be a fun street truck, ive done autcross before in the mr2 and loved it so I would like to do that again, I would probably be in a pretty high class so I wouldnt be competitive at all but I just like the fun of it, im not much for the competition of it. I would really like to try my hand at a road course cuz it seems like it would be a blast, does anyone know of any road courses around central indiana becides Putnam?

Im diggin the truck carbon, I'm still debating on what to put in if/when the 302 lets go and im between a 351 and LS, I was leaning to the 351 for simplicity of swapping from the 302 but there have been a lot of 4.8 and 5.3 trucks at the junkyard lately

and a small update got an alternator and tensioner yesterday at the junkyard, its a 3g alt from a taurus so I can set it up as a 1 wire, will just have to trim my alt bracket some. The tensioner I got is from a ford straight 6 truck cuz it tensions the opposite way the stock one does which is what I need to route the belt for just the water pump and alt and the pulley has the right offset to line up with the other pulley, may just need to be shimmed out a little bit to be perfect

ill get some more pictures up this week, just got back from mexico with the SHMBO and came home to a sick 2 year old so been dealing with that for the past few days

small update, got my accessories set up and ready to go minus a belt, at first i though i would have to get a stock tensioner and tear it apart to make it pull the other way but i managed to find one that did what i needed off of a straight 6 ford truck, just had to drill my mount for the dowel to line up

i had to grind my alt mount some to clear the 3g alternator that i snatched off of a taurus while also at the junkyard. im happy with how the belt routing ended up.

now to get the oil pan welded up and itll be ready to go back into the truck

not sure why photobucket makes my pictures sideways even after i rotate and save them...

got my oil pan welded up and painted, after doing some research on these pans ive seen some people have problems with them leaking so we will see how it goes

also had a drain back bung welded in for if/when i add boost later

my buddy bought my headers for me since he owed me some money from a while back that i had forgot about, pretty stoked about that. these headers are a crap-shoot on how well they will fit but im pretty confident that they will work, may just need a little messaging here or there

hopefully will be dropping the engine back in by this weekend

well here is the super late update, the truck is gone

i came to the conclusion that i just didnt have the time/funds to keep this going and i hated watching it just sit, the good news is that i traded it for a new toy

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82 kz750 twin, running and ready to ride. at some point ill come back to another car project when i get a more consistent income for race car stuff, but for now this will do.