So I have been lurking for far too long and its time to start posting!

The truck: 1988 SR5 4Runner, V6 5 speed. Its got all the bells and whistles even if half of them don't work anymore.

I bought her for $800 about a year and a half ago and its been quite the adventure. When I bought the truck it didn't always start, it blew smoke all over the place and the rear window went out with a 54" flat screen stuck in the back (I had to hang perilously over my clients TV Mission Impossible style while I took the tail gate apart with my leatherman and hotwired the motor with an extension cord I had laying around).

So I started with whats most important, the engine. I knew for a fact I didn't want anything to do with another 3.0. Thus began the hunt for the 3.4. Originally I wanted a plain stock 3.4 but after hunting for close to two months I found one in the classifieds here, but it wasn't stock. It came with a 1st gen TRD supercharger (the grey one), bigger injectors, thorley headers, ported and polished rebuilt heads, and a URD piggyback computer. I started the swap and thanks to yotatechs vast coverage of the subject it went fairly well. Once I started the swap I made a decision that I wouldn't place a budget on the truck, if there was a better option or something that I wanted for it that I would just save up longer and buy it then. I couldn't be any happier with that decision.

Current mods, fixes and other add-on's:
-Supercharged 3.4 5VZ-FE
-URD piggy back computer
-URD 2.1" supercharger pully
-Thorley Headers
-K&N intake
-Walbro 255 fuel pump
-Full custom 2.5" exhaust, high flow cat, performance muffler
-New flywheel
-Competition Clutch stage 4 racing clutch
-Autometer Elite Series AFR gauge, vacuum/boost gauge, EGT gauge
-Derale electric fan
-12Volt Guy rear window kit
-Gutted all the carpet and Duplicolor bed lined entire interior
-Ammo box center console
-2" body lift (had to to fit the engine but I will be removing it when I get my fiberglass kit from Toyotafiberglass)
-17" Yuma black rock wheels
-285-75-R17 goodyear kevlars

I spent the better part of the weekend redoing a lot of electrical in the engine bay and adding a blue sea systems fuse block to get rid of all those inline fuses I picked up along the way.

How she sits today.


I'll get some pics of the fuse block and cleaned up engine bay tomorrow.

The short list of plans
-rebuild my manual locking hubs off my old truck and install them
-ZUK mod untill I get some deavers for it
-Install the VIAIR super duty kit sitting in my shop right now
-Aquamist HFS-6 water meth injection kit
-Toyota fiberglass 3" flared fenders and quarter panels, hood and hood scoop, visor, tailgate skin, and door skins
-CBI front and rear bumpers (although I'm having trouble getting a handle on these guys for their kits, anybody know another company that makes good plate bumpers with a tire swing out?)

 

Well I took her out for the first 4 wheeling trip since I've owned her, went up to sourgrass up near Angels Camp. Had fun but on the way home I got in a wreck going down the freeway and rolled the truck at 65 MPH









Its totally ruined, the only thing that held the frame together was my trail gear motor mounts.

We slid on the passenger side of the truck for 200 feet across all four lanes and then rolled one last time. Me, my girl and my dog are all fine. I have 5 staples in the back of my head but other than that everybody is ok.

So that pretty much ends the build thread but if anybody has a lead on a first gen body and or frame that has or had a v6 in it somewhere in Cali please let me know

 

You parting it out? I need some front end parts.



Just kidding! HOLY SIHT!!! Good thing you lived.

 

Yeah me too! The engine/supercharger lived, transmission cracked in half! Most of the stuff I put into it came out ok so I'm on the hunt for a 4runner to drop it all back in to.

 

Looked like a nice runner. Glad to see you are ok. Never seen a rim ripped like that. You were fortunate. Hope you have better luck with your next build. Cant be any worse then what you just went thru.

 

Yeah we were driving in the fast lane on the freeway late Sunday night in San Jose and we hit a dark grey stopped car with no lights on and no reflectors left on it. I tried to dodge to the right but I didn't see the thing until it was in the wash of our headlights. So most of the damage was from hitting a stationary object at 65 MPH. We launched off the rear right corner of the car and came down on the passenger side, slid for 200 feet and then flipped one last time and landed on all 3 tires. Everybody says we should all be dead (especially the pup who was just sitting in the back seat) much less getting away with a few stitches. Now Im just going through all the insurance calls and whatnot. Still waiting on the police report to figure out what all happened

 

I'm mostly just sad to see one less 1st gen on the road.

 

Sad sad story man. Glad to hear no one was seriously hurt. Finding another one shouldn't be to hard but it sucks that you have to, best of luck.

 

It is to bad to see one more off of the road, but if you can keep it for parts, strip everything you can off of it and it will pay for itself several times over. I have used parts I never thought I would of needed. Even plastic clips, screws, nuts and bolts...

I had to scrap a runner that was nearly rusted in to two pieces and a wrecked pickup cab. Absolutely nothing that was still good went to scrap. Something that were bad were used to fix other parts or to see how it went together.

 

Wow. You guys are incredibly lucky. Maybe in this case it's a good thing you were lifted, and that these trucks don't have a crumple zone. Any lower, and it would have seriously sucked. Cannibalize, and rebuild! Toyota's will eat their own, if they need new parts badly enough!

'89 22RE 4x4 longbed DLX
Sent from my LG-P505 using YotaTech

 

Was just reading through your first post admiring all the nice work and that charged 3.4. Then saw the next post and my jaw dropped even more.. Glad you're okay man.