- Location
- Grand Junction, CO
After the TJ Build I swore off building up another rock crawler... I felt burned out after investing so much time and money into that vehicle, then having to sell it a short time after finishing it due to getting laid off. 
It was amazing on the trail, but hard to let go.
You may have noticed me looking for parts in the classifieds recently... :greg: It's been a few years and I've been feeling the itch to pile some parts together again. The plan here is to keep it cheap (is that even possible with a crawler??), so in that line of thinking, this will be Toyota based, with some upgrades.
I've contemplated building my own chassis from the ground up, but I'm simply not that motivated. I found a used & abused, hacked up F-Toy chassis that was in Denver.
If you're not familiar with the F-Toy, here's a basic breakdown. The chassis is built by Hendrix Motorsports and is a tube chassis that is welded onto a Toyota 4x4 frame. There are very specific class rules if you plan in competing with a F-Toy, such as keeping leaf springs, carburetor, mini-truck axles, etc. After doing some research, I found that this is F-Toy chassis #78 and the first owner did a build thread on Pirate - http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=756663
I don't plan on competing and as far as this chassis has been modified, I'm not sure it's worth trying to restore it as a class-approved F-Toy. My plans are for a light weight recreational buggy, based on the F-Toy chassis.
Here's a breakdown of what I want to do-
Engine- 22R burning propane, with a T3 turbo pushing around 10 #'s of boost
Transmission- Jeep AW4 with a 22RE Automatic bellhousing, flexplate & torque converter... bolts right up!
T-Cases- NP231 with Box4Rocks doubler/adapter, with a Dana 300.
Suspension- 4 link rear, 3 link front with panhard. FOA coilovers on all 4 corners. Also planning on 2" FOA air bumps on each corner.
Axles- Toyota Land Cruiser FJ80 front axle, stock 4.10 gears, Aussie Locker. Toyota Tacoma rear axle, stock 4.10 gears and either a spool or Aussie Locker.
Wheels & Tires- Toyota FJ Cruiser steel wheels, tires TBD... something around 37-40"?
The previous owner has cut off a lot of the original F-Toy tube work, the front end was involved in a pretty brutal endo and the spring hangers and bent up tube work were removed.... and the chassis sat in that shape for awhile, until I picked it up.
Here's how it looked when the previous owner had it. It was 4 linked in the rear, with air shocks. -
Hauling it over the mountains, back from Denver. -
It was amazing on the trail, but hard to let go.You may have noticed me looking for parts in the classifieds recently... :greg: It's been a few years and I've been feeling the itch to pile some parts together again. The plan here is to keep it cheap (is that even possible with a crawler??), so in that line of thinking, this will be Toyota based, with some upgrades.
I've contemplated building my own chassis from the ground up, but I'm simply not that motivated. I found a used & abused, hacked up F-Toy chassis that was in Denver.
If you're not familiar with the F-Toy, here's a basic breakdown. The chassis is built by Hendrix Motorsports and is a tube chassis that is welded onto a Toyota 4x4 frame. There are very specific class rules if you plan in competing with a F-Toy, such as keeping leaf springs, carburetor, mini-truck axles, etc. After doing some research, I found that this is F-Toy chassis #78 and the first owner did a build thread on Pirate - http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=756663
I don't plan on competing and as far as this chassis has been modified, I'm not sure it's worth trying to restore it as a class-approved F-Toy. My plans are for a light weight recreational buggy, based on the F-Toy chassis.
Here's a breakdown of what I want to do-
Engine- 22R burning propane, with a T3 turbo pushing around 10 #'s of boost
Transmission- Jeep AW4 with a 22RE Automatic bellhousing, flexplate & torque converter... bolts right up!
T-Cases- NP231 with Box4Rocks doubler/adapter, with a Dana 300.
Suspension- 4 link rear, 3 link front with panhard. FOA coilovers on all 4 corners. Also planning on 2" FOA air bumps on each corner.
Axles- Toyota Land Cruiser FJ80 front axle, stock 4.10 gears, Aussie Locker. Toyota Tacoma rear axle, stock 4.10 gears and either a spool or Aussie Locker.
Wheels & Tires- Toyota FJ Cruiser steel wheels, tires TBD... something around 37-40"?
The previous owner has cut off a lot of the original F-Toy tube work, the front end was involved in a pretty brutal endo and the spring hangers and bent up tube work were removed.... and the chassis sat in that shape for awhile, until I picked it up.
Here's how it looked when the previous owner had it. It was 4 linked in the rear, with air shocks. -
Hauling it over the mountains, back from Denver. -
