Well, the reason everyone thinks you have the wrong vehicle is... well... because you have the wrong damn vehicle. Its your money and on an island I guess there may be no real need for 4wheel drive.

As for AAA, No I don't have it. I live in Montana where there is often no cell phone service, Can you immagine? Not being able to text your friends while driving. Anyway that means even if you had AAA it would make no difference. And your right, my wife can and has changed tires. In the dirt, in the mud, in the snow, no spare mean lots and lots of walking. Not very fun at -20*. The reason we have a landcruiser and a 4runner is because we use them for what they were designed to do; be extremely durable in rough conditions. I also have an acura tl which is enough sport for me and gets pretty good mileage.

Comparing bulding a 4runner (landcruiser lite) into a more capable offroad vehicle is not similar to taking the spare out so you can corner better. There is no better alternative for a durable suv that can be both street driven and withstand abuse of trails and daily driving on washboard dirt roads. Save for maybe a 105 series lancruiser, but unfortunately there aren't many around here. If you hadn't noticed already toyota suv's are built for longevity and durability and sacrifice HP and performance. Your taking a vehicle that was designed to trade compression and hp for the ability to run on crappy fuel in africa, that uses larger wheel bearings and drive train parts in order to be more reliable instead of small light ones to increase mileage. The list of compromises is long. That's why we question the logic in this.


Anyway taking this type of vehicle and trying to make it something it's not is a poor comparison to taking the same vehicle and increasing it's offroad capabilities is simply an extention of the design parameters. Making a race car out of a 4runner is akin to building a wheeler out of your supra. In the words of Jackie Chiles "It does not make sense".

Good luck

BTW I hear studless snow tires make great DOT approved race tires because of the soft rubber. Might think about a set.

 

Q, our words are falling on deaf ears

That's ok, I'm quite interested in your results. I'd be especially interested in a curb-weight measurement after all is said and done in your weight savings. I personally would love to lose about 500lbs from my 4Runner after I get the long travel suspension (or even now losing the weight would be nice) but for me it's a trade-off in that I need and want all of the off-road skidplates, and a full-size spare, and pretty much everything else. I have to instead be very specific in the weight that I add.

For me, I'm thinking long and hard about the exact components being used in my build-up. Tires are a big one for me, I want to make sure the tires I choose are not a heavy swamper because their weight gets you twice, once in mass and once in rotating inertia. I'll probably go for steel wheels because they're tough, but in a perfect world I'd want aluminum ones to save weight as well. As for front/rear armor, I'm seriously considering aluminum components rather than steel. As a mechanical engineer I can easily design components which are just as strong as steel without the dead weight of it. Why oh why hasn't anyone come up with aluminum sliders?

For you, I might look into replacing stock parts with aluminum ones, there might be some amount of savings to be had (although it would be pretty expensive) in frame cross-members or control arms. Just a thought anyway.

 

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You're being overly sensative on the issue, when all Ric did was pose a reasonable question. Do you have your resume in your sig? No? Then don't bash people because they can't read what's not there.

Are you seriously telling everyone that you posted a "street racing" theme in an offroad-oriented forum and didn't expect to take a little flak from it??

You should be handed a temp ban for the way that you are blatantly going out of your way to bash critics of your thread but again, what did you expect?

As far as your thread subject content goes I could care less, but it's a whole other ball of wax for me to see the rules get bent.

 

For every 100 pounds of wieght you shave you pick up just about a 1/10th of a second in the 1/4 mile. I dont kow if that matters to you, or not. but there you have it.

 

So... I'm here 'cause a post by QSVeilside was reported as harassing Ric.


I've read the thread and I see Q getting frustrated by people seconded guessing what he's doing. I _support_ his growing frustration because it IS well stated in the title of the thread, alluded to in the first post and made clear in subsequent posts that he's looking at STREET not DIRT.

Traditionally Yotatech has PRIMARILY been a place for DIRT discussions, but there's nothing in the bylaws of the forum that prevent a STREET discussion.

What I do NOT support is that Q's growing frustration has seemingly grown into taking pot-shots at people. This is NOT allowed and is generally bad Karma.

As such...

• Q... PLEASE do more than tone it down, just stop. I will not temp ban you right now, but you need to back off.
  
• Ric... I think that there's some guilt here for you to share in. His thread is clearly marked, and it reads as though you were looking to push his buttons a bit.
  
• Jet... this goes for you as well. Stop pushing his buttons.

Many thanks to the thread reporter. We can't be everywhere at once.

 

Regardless of the street/dirt differences, reudcing weight on an off-road vehicle is just as relevant as doing the same thing on a street-only one. There are off-road rigs that are carrying literally 1000lbs of extra weight between bumpers, sliders, skidplates, exocages, tools, etc.

The weight topic HAS been brought up by other people in this forum too:

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/show...r+rig+weigh%3F
https://www.yotatech.com/forums/show...r+rig+weigh%3F
- many more...

 

Agreed. Thanks Brian.

 

Youch, this looks touchy... but for what you're looking to accomplish might I recommend focusing attention on your wheels/tires? Though pricey, some magnesium wheels with lowpro tires would make about as large as a gain in the direction you're going. There's not a lot else that you can take off. With that, who wants to drive a half-gone vehicle?

 

I can understand how you can get away without having the spare tire or the tire changing tools. If you had to change out a tire, you're only a couple minutes away from home on Hawai'i

 

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Behold the new Toyota 4Runner CSL!!

 

Here's a great article about making your car/truck faster!!

http://www.sportcompactcarweb.com/fe...tance_program/

 

A page ago, Mastacox was lamenting the absence of aluminum sliders in the aftermarket. A few thoughts on aluminum vs. steel.

The concerns in slider design are primarily stiffness (deflection) and local yielding (dents). For comparison we have: 6061-T6 Aluminum (pretty good stuff) and plain carbon steel 1020 (common stuff that's used for the application, I think).

Local yielding:
yield stress for aluminum, 40ksi
yield stress for steel, 48ksi
hud's interpretation: The aluminum will dent a lot easier than the steel. If you use aluminum sliders off road, they will tend to get beat up quicker.

Stiffness:
modulus for aluminum, 10ksi
modulus for steel, 29ksi
hud's interpretation: The steel is about 3 times stiffer than the aluminum. There's a greater chance of slider-induced body damage, or in another way, if the steel deflects an inch at full load, the aluminum will deflect three inches. This is not so good.

Other points of interest:

We love aluminum because it's light, but how light is it?

Density:
aluminum: .0975 lbs/in^3
steel: .284 lbs/in^3

Notice, the steel is 2.9 times heavier. Consider also that the steel is 2.9 times stiffer. For our basic slider design, you would have to use almost 3 times as much aluminum for the same mount of steel, and the sliders would weigh exactly the same. In addition, the aluminum sliders would show more wear and tear. Aluminum is more expensive than steel. This all very much brings the suck for aluminum.

How about chromoly?
[opinion/]
How about 4340 (chromoly steel).
yield stress: 68.2 ksi ~1.4 times stronger than steel
modulus: 29.7 ksi ~ about the same[/opinion]

There might be other design considerations. Since the primary mode of loading is bending, how about I-beam sections of the frame, or thinner-wall, larger diameter chromoly tubing.

 

In line with removing weight, how about upper A-arms? Some companies offer tubular a-arm replacements that would be significantly lighter. In line with that thought, you could redesign the crossmembers and save substantial weight without too much trouble.



ps, apologies all around for reviving a thread from the dead. oh the shame...

 

In the summer I figure that I can remove almost 300lbs from my 4runner by taking off the hard top and swapping out the heavy stock full doors for a set of half doors that weigh almost nothing. Its a little more windy but a LOT more fun!

 

no shame in that good points.

 

Good points brought up with the Aluminum vs. Steel comparisons, it was really just wishful thinking on my part.

Still, I'd be interested in seeing a price for Aluminum 2090 though. It's an aerospace alloy that has a "strength to weight ratio" that is about 20% higher than carbon steel. Unfortunately, I think it's only available in sheet form.

Density: 0.094 lb/in^3
Yield Strength: 70 ksi
Modulus of Elasticity: 11.5*10^3 ksi

From MIL-HDBK-5J:

If this alloy was used in conjunction with some smart weight reduction and stress analysis, I wouldn't be surprised if it was possible to achieve a 40% weight reduction on things like sliders, especially if they were meant to be used as more of an emergency protection component than an every day all day thing.

EDIT: Attached an interesting strength-weight ratio comparison sheet I made at work. Compares some common alloys of Titanium, Aluminum, Magnesium, and Steel