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POLY PERFORMANCE After Hours Build: Project Snail Tracks

236K views 459 replies 115 participants last post by  Beat95YJ 
#1 ·
Figured its about time for me to give these whole rock crawling shenanigans a try by building a vehicle of my own. Ive been into desert racing for about 5 yrs now, grew up down in LA where the nearest off-road spots to play in are wide open desert, so naturally I went the go fast route.

After attending CalPoly and being an active member in the Polygoats 4 wheeling club for 5 yrs of my illustrious college career, I decided to take a break from desert racing, and slow down a bit and build me a rock crawler. But don't worry, its gonna have a nice go fast flare to it.


So here we go;

My Dad bought this truck new in 1999, i remember picking it up with him before going to a boyscout meeting one Thursday evening. I remember how excited i was that we were finally gonna have a "truck" in the family. Oh how times have changed.

With my old man finally buying a new car, and this hoopty being my sister's transportation through college, it was either bound for craigslist, or the shop. So, off to the shop we go.

Plans include:
Toyota T-case
Toyota axles front and rear
10" 2.0 c/o's rear
12" SAW 2.5" c/o's front
Air bumps all around
37" MTRs
Skids, bumpers, hydro assist, etc.
Simple clean interior cage
sat radio, GPS, race radio.

Here's how it sits after one night's work.







Axle out, Are these worth anything?


Stock BS cut off

Nice pile of crap for the scrap bin


Lil motivation


Tomorrow, hrs and hrs of grinding and cleaning the frame.

-Rob
 
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#4 ·
Sweet, looking forward to seeing what happens here. This phrase always piques my interest

I decided to ... build me a rock crawler. But don't worry, its gonna have a nice go fast flare to it.
That said, looking forward to the execution of:
10" 2.0 c/o's rear
12" SAW 2.5" c/o's front
Air bumps all around
Build on! Nice to see a 4dr get built to instead of the usual. Your desert background and choosing to only run 10" rear shocks stirs ideas of trailing arm mounted/pre-runner style shocks, but then a 2.0" body with the lower installation ratio seems odd given the 2.5"s up front, which would presumably be mounted on the axle.

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself... More pics and details (or plans, if you're still at that stage) please :D.

What kind of belly height/uptravel/downtravel numbers are you shooting for? How much body are you keeping?
 
#6 ·
Sweet, looking forward to seeing what happens here. This phrase always piques my interest



That said, looking forward to the execution of:


Build on! Nice to see a 4dr get built to instead of the usual. Your desert background and choosing to only run 10" rear shocks stirs ideas of trailing arm mounted/pre-runner style shocks, but then a 2.0" body with the lower installation ratio seems odd given the 2.5"s up front, which would presumably be mounted on the axle.

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself... More pics and details (or plans, if you're still at that stage) please :D.

What kind of belly height/uptravel/downtravel numbers are you shooting for? How much body are you keeping?

As cool as it would be to mount the c/o on the link and add a second shock to the rear, i wanna get this thing done fairly quick and keep it very streetable. Its gonna be my DD when finished. Thus, I'm trying not to cut too much into the passenger compartment if possible.

The 2.0 on the rear will most likely be mounted off the back of the axle and angled slightly back to keep it under the floor of the vehicle and get it closer to pulling 11-12" of travel to match the front.

As for why i choose the shocks i did, they were too good a deal to pass up. 6" of uptravel, 6" down is the goal. With 2" airbumps dampening the last stage of susp. Forgot to mention, the wheelbase will be getting stretched to somewhere around 110"

No pics to show for tonight, just spent the evening grinding and cleaning up the frame more.

-Rob
 
#8 ·
nothing too exciting, more cutting and grinding. This looks to be about how far ill be able to push the rear axle back. Wheelbase is already at about 102", Frame is all cleaned up, along with the axle.





Looks like I'll be spending some extra time building a nice universal truss for toyota axles, similar to our current PPM-3115 universal truss:

Thus updates may be put off a bit till I get it drawn up and ready to prototype.

-Rob
 
#10 ·
The owner of Poly Performance is a great guy. Gave me a ride out of the rubicon even though he was pressed for time. Top notch guy for sure. Must be a great boss as well, letting you work on your own stuff there at his shop.
Two thumbs up for Poly Performance.
 
#15 ·
Waiting on parts from the laser cutter to finish up the rear susp. Not much to show. Spent a few hrs last night swaping yokes and what not to get the t-case d-shaft figured out. back to running a sammi divorced case like i had originally planned.

Cut a big hole in the floor to move the gas tank up.

Should have some decent updates this weekend if the parts come in.

-Rob
 
#29 ·
Aiite, got the truss bent up, welded and fitted. Not bad for a first gen.










Threw the axle under the vehicle and centered it up. Cut the tubing for the lowers as well. Will tack them together and finalize them tomorrow.



Rear wheel placement and ride height..


pic of the t-case installed....



More to come soon. Hoping to have the rear susp more or less finished by the end of the weekend.

-Rob
 
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