XR7-4.6’s disjointed build thread 2 Electric Boogaloo

[XR7-4.6]

What’s the ETA for the full exhaust?? Kinda itching to hear this bitch. Super uber jealous, cammed V8’s are just rediculous cool. Kinda wish I spent the extra cheese on a set for my bird when it got the PI heads.

It depends on a few things but soon. It actually went a lot quicker than I expected to get it all laid out and tacked together, I thought I’d need to get the straight sections bent just a tiny bit for them to line up but with the extra clearance of my crossmember and some slop in the slip joints I could take advantage of it kind of fell together.

 

[XR7-4.6]

Tying up some loose ends. First the tedious task of brake bleeding, nothing special to share here but fuck speed bleeders, fuck vacuum etc. just use the baseball bat you use to roll your fenders with and hustle



Other mostly uninteresting task was adding BACK toe compensators, but if you followed my build since the old place I had deleted them with the belief that stiffer poly bushings don’t really need them (largely because the even stiffer Delrin bushings most certainly don’t)… but seeing as how I still have some wheel hop even with poly everything and the California subframe bushing mod(lopping out 1/4” of sleeve to significantly preload the stock rubber bushings… which either someone in the club in California invented or is only feasible in rust free CA cars lol). I since have a better grasp of how the Toe Compensators truly work and feel paired with the stiffer bushings might just possibly be the cheap wheel hop solution right in front of me…



These were the guts of my stock ones I’d been running since installing poly bushings



So my rationale is this; Wheelhop in our IRS isn’t the typical vertical motion common in 4 link solid axle/trailering arm IRS suspensions. Our cars issue is forward/back motion caused by deflection in the knuckle bushings, H arm(LCA) bushings and the physical IRS mounts, and indeed everybody who has delrin/UMMV bushings in these spots has verifiably solved wheel hop…


…but I’m a cheapskate, and stubborn, so here’s my rationale* Ford was right all along, the toe compensators purpose was to eliminate toe in under acceleration(as the tires essentially try to outrun the chassis), the toe compensators are literally two ball joints per side without any NVH characteristics, they’re designed so the soft rubber LCA bushings have compliance vertically over bumps and whatnot but not allow hard acceleration to let them comply laterally to the extent of a toe-in condition, hence their name. Ford’s purpose as I’ve read wasn’t so much for wheel hop remedy but to make the handling more predictable (favoring understeer). But my thinking is stiff/stiffened bushings as well as stiffer shocks/springs I already have, plus the reintroduction of these things might just be the low budget magic combo.

 

[KevinVarnes]

Nice work. You are going to have a beautiful exhaust system when you are done. I hate exhaust work so much, but most of that is because I'm always working on rusty Michigan junk.

That is how I bleed brakes by myself (which is 99% of the time). The case for my 1/2" torque wrench is usually the perfect length. It takes time. Pump, pump, pump, insert torque wrench case, go to wheel, loosen bleeder, tighten bleeder, back to the cabin to repeat. Doing all four wheels to change brake fluid is an exercise in patience, but it always works. I've never had a ton of luck with vacuum other than to get fluid started, but I'd never trust it for a complete bleed. I've never used speed bleeders. Concept sounds great, but I've heard otherwise in practice. I'm sure a pressurized bleeding system tool would be awesome, but I'm too cheap to purchase one when my torque wrench case is free . Not sure of other makes, but a lot of later model Lexus and Toyotas use the ABS pump to supply brake power assist. On the rears you just loosen the bleed screw and the pump pushes fluid through. I was doing a '21 4Runner a couple of months ago and forgot about that. It wasn't until the end that I realized they still used the same system I had first seen on an '04 Lexus.

 

[XR7-4.6]

Nice work. You are going to have a beautiful exhaust system when you are done. I hate exhaust work so much, but most of that is because I'm always working on rusty Michigan junk.

I get it! I don’t even drive this car in winter anymore in over a decade but I sprung for 304 stainless for literally everything including the questionable Amazon stainless flux core welding wire! I can’t not do SS after what I’ve dealt with here!

I’m also not a welder in the wildest stretch of my own delusions, but my well hung pipe laying is pretty fun

That is how I bleed brakes by myself (which is 99% of the time). The case for my 1/2" torque wrench is usually the perfect length. It takes time. Pump, pump, pump, insert torque wrench case, go to wheel, loosen bleeder, tighten bleeder, back to the cabin to repeat. Doing all four wheels to change brake fluid is an exercise in patience, but it always works. I've never had a ton of luck with vacuum other than to get fluid started, but I'd never trust it for a complete bleed. I've never used speed bleeders. Concept sounds great, but I've heard otherwise in practice. I'm sure a pressurized bleeding system tool would be awesome, but I'm too cheap to purchase one when my torque wrench case is free . Not sure of other makes, but a lot of later model Lexus and Toyotas use the ABS pump to supply brake power assist. On the rears you just loosen the bleed screw and the pump pushes fluid through. I was doing a '21 4Runner a couple of months ago and forgot about that. It wasn't until the end that I realized they still used the same system I had first seen on an '04 Lexus.

I have had speed bleeders in my front cobra calipers and when I swapped them in they worked great, I bought another pair from the parts store for the rear this time around and they were just terrible, I just reused the stock ones in the end doing it the normal way. I never had any luck with gravity or vacuum ever, maybe I’m just not patient enough.