So yesterday I let you all know of what decision I’d come up with for my commuting vehicle: a reliable and sturdy Toyota truck of late 70’s / early 80’s vintage.
Like I mentioned, I do have a few other reasons as to why I’m sticking with this model of vehicle. Other than the already mentioned factoids, one of the main ones is this
That is an LC Engineering Stage 3 22R Stroker.
And you can read about it’s Stage 2 and Stage 5 brothers here.
The 22R is a workhorse in factory trim. I’ll run for hundreds of thousands of miles with little more than Afghani goat herder maintenance skills and an oil change every now and then.
But it also a powerhouse. With little more than some valve train tweaking, this little 102 horsepower (110 with EFI) mill wakes right on up. The Stage 3 engine in the pic is rated at 190hp/205fpt at the flywheel. They have a Stage 5 engine that is crossing the 240hp/250fpt.
Both of those sets of numbers are normally aspirated (no turbo/no supercharging) with 92 octane pumpgas (with the Stage 3 still getting 18mpg). In previous experimentations with the 22R, I’ve seen 300hp when the engine gets some forced air.
And other than a decent clutch set, the vehicle needs nothing to be able to handle the power. The manual transmissions are rock solid and the rear axle laughs at 300hp.
Why would I want to drop something like that in my commuter vehicle, you might ask?
Because I’m an American and I can.
When I get my truck, will I drop one in? That remains to be seen. I certainly don’t have the $5K laying around to buy one of LC’s mills, but its not like I haven’t put one comparable to this one together before. I’ve got a good 22R block hanging about and an excellent high compression head ready for some big valves so, all I need is to stop building rifles for a few months and let the money pool up for buying the necessary parts.
And that is what remains to be seen; whether I can pool money and not buy guns and ammo.
But if I do decide to do it, you can bet I’ll blog the hell out of it.
Different strokes. I prefer hogly V-8’s in a truck, and here’s why.
Cubic inches beats revving horsepower every day of the week, and twice on Sunday.
In an off-road type of vehicle, you need to be able to lug so as to keep traction on the wheels. The rice-grinders may be marvy little machines, built like Swiss Watches, but they don’t lug worth a damn. I drove one (a 1974 with an R-19) for 9 years, and had to lug it around both off road and in deep snow (without chains or studs, which were illegal in MI). It was a real balancing act lugging that engine to keep traction. The guys in the traditional pickemups had no such problems, the just kept their foot off the gas and their hog-engines idled them through the woods and snow.
My Dad had a Jeep, a 1965 CJ-5 with the first big engine in a Jeep, a 231 inch aluminum Buick Skylark V-6. The idiots at Willys (before chrysler) were in a horsepower race with Ford, which had just put in the 289 pony motor into their Bronco, so they rushed the V-6 into production.
Big mistake. They bought off-the-shelf engines from Buick (this engine had never been in a utility vehicle, only compact cars) and never even looked at the power range of the engine. They mated it to the same old tranny and chassis that had been powered by the flathead-4, the F-head-4 and the OHV-4, the last being 72 horsepower, a true “Iron Duke” of 152 cid.
The V-six was a screamer. That 89-inch wheelbase Jeep would do 50mph in low, 78 in second, and I never had it over 95 in third, it was too scary. I won J-Stock with it the first time I lied and told my dad I was going hunting and took it to the dragstrip.
All that performance with a two-barrel carb!
The problem was that you couldn’t lug the vehicle off the road, and had to slip the clutch a lot, or drive in low range on the transfer case, which you weren’t supposed to do unless the trail was soupy.
I’ve been jeeping around rimrock country with that rig and having to do a full-performance hillclimb to get up a 40% shale slope, wheels spinning and throwing rock EVERYWHERE, and then watched some dude in an old ’42 Military with a 38-hp flathead four lug by me, take the same route, never spin a tire, AND haul 5 guys to the top of the ridge to boot.
Revs are for wankers. If your power all comes in at under 1800rpm, you have an off-road machine, if not, carry a tow strap so somewhone who CAN lug can pull you out and tow you back to the highway for new axles or drivelines (yep, THAT happened to me in that Jeep also).
So, AK, you’ll be leaving the ricegrinder to the scum when you bug out for S.H.T.F. in your real pickup?
There is an alternative, but they are getting scarce.
Most of the mini-truck builders made a diesel model in the seventies and early 80’s. The little Isuzu was probably the best (the USAF had a few of them). Both Toyota and Datsun (before Nissan) made them also. I think Toy-auto and Datsun may actually have used the same engine, a sturdy little 4-cyl oil burner.
Home on leave in ’79, I went to the Toyota dealer and drove one. It was almost as gutsy as a new 1/2 ton SR-5 longbed with the R-20, but DID IT LUG! You couldn’t stall that thing. And it got almost 30 mpg as well. I’ve toyed with the idea of finding one in a national search, and restoring it, money no object.
The automotive world gave up on the 4-cylinder diesel engine too early. Even the poxy French made a fair one: the Peugeot 504D (normally aspirated 68-hp), and then the 505DT, turbocharged and 82-hp. I had a ’76 504D. There were a few Volvo diesels for a while, and the early ones had Peugeot engines.
Of course, the greenie-weenies hate diesels, but they are the answer for torque AND economy in light vehicles.
I keep waiting for Toyota or another Japanese manufacturer to finally offer a real full-size pickup (defined in my book as one where you can close the tailgate on a 4×8′ sheet of plywood AND have a crew cab if you want). They’ll clean up the market. Why? Reliability and quality. Sadly, in my extended family, of the last five American cars purchased or leased new, three suffered serious mechanical failures within the first two years. As far as personal experience goes, my wife had a brand-new Mercury Mountaineer (the Explorer with new livery) engine literally melt on the freeway at 2000 miles. Ford replaced the engine at no charge, and a year and a half later it happened again at 15k!
In the meantime, we’ve had personal experience in my extended family with three Toyota Camrys, two Toyota 4WD pickups, a Nissan Pathfinder, two Honda Accords, a Civic and a Lexus all performing flawlessly (with shameful maintenance from my relatives more often than not) into the 200k range. Every once in a while we have to replace a starter motor, and Toyotas always like to burn the Check Engine light from time to time for no particular reason. Other than that, zero defects from Japanese vehicles.
My uncle’s been happy with his late-model GMC pickup and Escalade. The rest of us are pretty much convinced that what’s coming out of Detroit these days is mostly crap. Sad, really.
Especially sad in that there is a wealth of information out there as to what we consumers want in our vehicles.
That list is topped by Reliability, Reliability is in second and third place as well.
Got that, Detroit?
There is a huge market for plain vehicles. Every Detroit automaker used to offer a base vehicle. In Chevys, it used to be the Biscayne, in Fords, the Custom. Same body, a really cheap interior and NO OPTIONS. They sold for 2/3 the price of the usual up-optioned model a line higher.
When did they quit doing this?
It seems that the cheapest line has been taken over by imports in every case. Up here in Stumptown, there are a zillion Kia Rios on the road. I even bought my college-graduating daughter one. Came with a 100,000 mile warranty. It’s only been in the shop for little things, such as wind-whistle harmonics. Mechanically, it’s perfect.
Kia markets the little flivvers for $8-9,000, and if you put every option they come with on one, it’s not over $10,500. It gets over 30 mpg and uses cheap tires. Chevy tries to keep up with the Aveo, but they only occasionly match the Kia in price, and having no more experience than renting one for a day, I have no clue as to how reliable they are.
Now I’m waiting for a cheap little pickup with an engine that lugs….I occasionly see a stripped Ford Ranger for around $10,000, but not often.