Curtis Guise's 1995 Toyota T100

Curtis Guise · Apr 27, 2017

Back in 2003 I sold my class 7 Toyota and bought a stock 1995 2wd Toyota T100 to build as a prerunner. I wasn't racing any more because of the cost and wanted to build a truck that I could use to go film at races and other off road trips. This thread will start from the beginning of the build and show the changes that were made over the years.

The T100 how it looks today:

When it was finished in 2005:

Original build specs from 2005 with notes of the current setup:

Owner: Curtis Guise
Builder: Curtis Guise & Mark Newhan
Vehicle: 1995 Toyota T100, 2wd
Debut: Jan. 2005
Wheelbase: 121 inch
Trackwidth: 84 inch
Engine: Toyota 3.4 V6, TRD Supercharger with URD kit.
Transmission: Toyota Automatic
Brakes: Wilwood 4 piston Superlights (currently 6 piston Wilwoods)
Steering: GM saginaw box, stock T100 pump.

Front Suspension:
Style: A-arms designed by Mark Newhan
Travel: 19"
Shocks: SAW 14" x 2.0 coil-over, 14" x 2.5 by-pass (currently FOX 2.5" coil-over & bypass shocks)

Rear Suspension:
Style: 4 link
Travel: 25 inch
Shocks: SAW 16" x 2.5 coil-over, 18" x 3.0 by-pass (currently FOX shocks)

Wheels: 15x7 American Racing beadlocks
Tires: 35x12.50 Goodyear MTR's (currently 37" Goodyear MTR's)
Rear axle: 9" Stock Car Products housing and hubs, 35 spline axles. (Currently a 4" Dirt Tech housing with 40 spline axles)
Lights: Hella 4000's converted to VisionX HID (currently newer style Vision X HID's and Vision X lightbar on the bumper)
GPS: Lowrance 6500c (currently use an iPad)
Radio: Kenwood
Intercom PCI 4 link
Seats: Beard (currently MasterCraft seats)
Restraints: Crowe (currently MasterCraft)
Body: Hanneman Fiberglass hood, fenders and bedsides

Curtis Guise · Apr 27, 2017

Planning & prepping the truck for the build

December of 2002 is when I found a used 1995 2wd T100 with the 3.4 V6 and an automatic. It had just over 200k miles on it and I paid $6500. The truck was very clean, never driven off-road. I tried finding a wrecked truck but T100's were hard to come by at the time.

The early 3.4's had a head gasket recall like the 3.0 so I had that taken care of first along with having the timing belt changed.

Before buying the parts and materials I needed to figure out my goal with this truck. What type of suspension would I build, what material, what size shocks, etc. I decided I would do it right the first time and cut the frame off at the firewall and from the back of the truck. Build a 4-link rear suspension and a custom a-arm design for the front. A couple of advantages I had was this isn't a race truck and not my daily driver. So I could take my time to build it right.

Next I needed to figure out what parts, materials and additional tools I had to buy to get started. When I built the race truck I had a Lincoln SP125. I definitely wanted a better welder before I got started. I found a new Miller 175 on Ebay for $675 that came with everything but the bottle. We already had a JD squared tubing bender. I bought a cheap $40 tube notcher from Harbor Freight. Those work 100 times better than a grinder.

All of the suspension components would be built with chromolly and most of the cage out of DOM. I delivered my race truck to the buyer at the 2003 Laughlin race. After that I went to El Cajon and picked up all the materials with my trailer. I paid about $1600 for DOM, 4130 tubing and also 1/8" chromolly plate for the lower 4-link arms. This was in 2003, I know it would cost allot more for the materials now.

Then I headed up to Camburg where I picked up my shocks, air bumps, uni-balls, heims, ordered my Beard seats and my rear end. Jerry (Camburg) had always helped out with good prices on parts when I was racing and did the same when I told him about the new truck I was building.

Next I talked my good friend Josh into letting me use a section of his shop to build the truck in. A 30'x50' building is much nicer than the small garage at the house I was in at the time. I parked the truck and started tearing it apart.

First I pulled the bed off, the front fenders and the hood. ( I appologize for the lack of pictures and quality of them early on in the build )

I also stripped out the interior including the entire dash. We carefully removed the windshield and the rear glass but later found a crack down the center of the windshield. It must have got hit with something while sitting in the shop for so long.

This is the only picture I have of the rear end before welding on the gussets. I decided to go with a Speedway Engineering full foating 9" with 35 spline axles.

Curtis Guise · Apr 27, 2017

Starting the cage:

The first step was to figure out where I needed to cut the rear of the frame off. To do this I made the mounts for my lower control arms of the 4-link. Then I could cycle them up to see where they needed clearance. I ended up cutting the frame right behind the lower 4-link mounts. A cross tube was put in behind those mounts off of the frame and that is where the upper 4-link mounts are built (I will have another section about the rear suspension components). You can see how this was finished in the picture to the right.

After cutting the frame I started building the main section of the rear cage. I got an aluminum 45gal fuel tank that used to be on Mark Newhan's Chevy prerunner and it already had the lower cradle built for it. He changed to a different fuel cell before racing the Baja 1000 one year. The overall design of the rear section of my truck was inspired by Mark's Chevy.

DOM 1.75" x .120 tubing was used for the main tubes.

Next I started on the interior cage. The rear hoop was first and that would give me a place to start on the down tubes out the top of the cab. And the tube accross the middle will get tied into the rear cage where my shock mounts will be.

In the picture to the right you can see where I added the 1.5" x .120 down tubes in the interior cage.

Here is a picture after I put in the front section of the interior cage. The front a pillar down tubes go through the floor right to the stock frame. Right next to that point is where the front section of the frame gets cut off later.

The steering wheel in the picture is a Grant with a quick release that I picked up from Off-Road Warehouse. I cut the splined collar out of the stock steering wheel and welded it to the adapter for the quick release. I also had to drill and tap the steering shaft so I could bolt the adapter to it.

Here's more of the interior cage and a shot of the rear cage after I added more cross tubes. The X over the cell is 1.5"x.120 DOM. I also mounted the air bumps and put in the tubes that I will build my rear shock mounts off of.

Next up is the rear suspension...

Curtis Guise · Apr 29, 2017

Rear Suspension

Before starting the rear cage I built the rear suspension components so I could figure out where to cut the stock frame off. The lower control arms for the 4-link were built from chromolly 1/8" plate and 1-3/4" tubes that were evenly spaced the full length of the arms. I used 1-1/4" heims on each end and the threaded sleave connects to the 1-3/4" tube on the inside of the arm at each end. TIG welding was by Josh of Johnson Bicycles in Antioch, CA. The upper links are 1-1/2" x .120 4130 with 7/8" FK heims at each end.

To prevent the lower arms from twisting and destroying the shocks I replaced the lower heims in the shock mounts with custom delrin bushings that I made on the lathe. This shock mounting method and lower arm design has been used for years by Mark Newhan and Stewarts Raceworks but the design was originally conceived by Jon Nelson in 1993 while building "Arnold". Jon's arms had allot more shape to them and all the pieces were cut with a band saw. Mark's reason for building them the way his (and mine) are is to cut fabrication time and with the straight cuts you can have the pieces easily sheared to size.

The Speedway Engineering 35 spline full floating 9" (purchased through Camburg) needed gusseting and mounts for the suspension. I clamped the housing to a large piece of I beam we had laying around before welding to it.

I used 1/4" chromolly plate to make the upper shock mounts. I used a torch to heat it up enough to put the bend in the plate. The upper section above the shock mounts was made from 1/8" plate. It took allot of time to make all of the pieces fit right.

4" bump stops and a Speedway Engineering sway bar. 1-1/4" .188 wall. I turned out delrin bushings on the lathe for the sway bar and used aluminum arms from Speedway. The splines stripped out at the 1000 in November so we built custom 4130 arms. I will post pics of those once they are installed. Limit straps are from Offroad Warehouse.

Pictures of the finished rear suspension. 25" of travel.

Curtis Guise · May 12, 2017

A few more photos of the rear.

Curtis Guise · May 12, 2017

May 2004 is when I trailered the T100 down to Mark Newhan. Within a few weeks he had the front suspension and cage designed, built and finished up ready for me to pick it up.

Curtis Guise · May 12, 2017

More photos from Mark Newhan building the front suspension.

Curtis Guise · May 12, 2017

Mid June 2004 Mark was finished with the front and it was ready to be picked up. I made the trip down and towed it back to the shop so I could take it all apart, pull the engine and finish welding the front cage before paint.

Curtis Guise · May 17, 2017

By October 2004 I had taken the truck completely taken apart and had it ready to paint the cage. I used primer and gray single stage automotive paint.

Curtis Guise · May 30, 2017

Photos from the assembly after paint in October & November 2004.

Curtis Guise · Jun 7, 2017

Here are some photos from the first trip with the T100. I drove it from Northern California to San Felipe for the 2005 SCORE San Felipe 250 race by myself following my friend Mark Naugle in his prerunner. The truck did great for the first time out!

Pop Alexandra · Jun 22, 2017

Looking great! How much (time-wise) did you invest in this project?

Curtis Guise · Jun 25, 2017

Pop Alexandra said:
Looking great! How much (time-wise) did you invest in this project?

It was almost 2 years from 2003-2005 to build it. But since then it's been non stop upgrades over the years which I will be posting photos and info about soon.

Curtis Guise · Jun 27, 2017

After a few trips the Speedway Engineering aluminum sway bar arm stripped the splines out. Mark Newhan and I built a pair of new steel arms in December 2005. The new ones worked great for awhile but I eventually had some problems with them and went with a new style sway bar that mounts on the housing. More on that later.

Curtis Guise · Jun 27, 2017

Here are a few shots by Kevin Blumer from the feature he did of the truck in Barstow, CA for Off-Road Magazine. See the feature here.

Curtis Guise · Jun 27, 2017

In October 2006 we updated the front spindles and hubs. The spindles were originally built by Mark Newhan for his Chevy prerunner and modified to work on my truck after he built new ones for his. The spindles used pins and hubs from Stock Car Products (see first photo). They worked good but the diameter of the pin is pretty small. I decided to get 2.5" rear end snouts and Speedway hubs that are the same as on the rear end of my truck. I had my friend Chris machine the snouts to fit over the existing spindle and Mark Newhan welded them on.

After doing this all the parts were interchangible from front to rear. The drive plates on the front hubs would work on the rear and the spare bearings work with all four hubs.

Curtis Guise · Jun 27, 2017

November 2006 I installed urban camo on the truck. I used my own vinyl cutter with black and two shades of gray.

Curtis Guise · Aug 31, 2017

Fox Racing Shox have been long time supporters of the Dezert People Video Series. In April 2007 I changed out all four of my bump stops to 2" body by 4" travel Fox's. I installed new 3"x18" 3 tube bypass and 2.5" coil-overs in the rear of the T100. I went with piggy back shocks for a cleaner setup.

Next I swapped out the front bypasses to 2.5" Fox's and 2.5" coil overs. Later on I changed out all four of the coil sliders to the All German Motorsports sliders. Check out my review of the sliders back in 2010 on RDC.

Curtis Guise · Aug 31, 2017

(July 2009) New 40 spline rear end installed, pics and info

After a year and a half of collecting parts we finally got the rear end installed. Big thanks to Mark Newhan for all the help with this project.

What we expected to take two days turned into four after realizing the rear cage needed an X built into it. There is allot of cracking in the floor at the back of the cab and one of my small cross tubes that is for my cooler mount is cracked. And the new upper track rods for the 4-link needed new mounts so that took some extra time.

Parts list:
Dirt-Tech 4" housing.
Desert Specialties 2.5" hubs.
40 spline axles (thanks to Summers Bros for helping out with an issue on the splines. They are not SB axles)
Wilwood 6 piston calipers from ORW.
13" rotors.
Redline Shockproof gear oil.
1-1/4" heims for the upper and lower links from Rod End Supply.
New Currie 9+ nodular 9" case with Strange 40 spline spool and Motive 6.00 gears from Nate at Blitzkrieg

Unfortunately the new gears were whining so after a couple tries by one company I took it to Off Road Warehouse who got the gear setup allot better.

I went with 6.00 gears because I changed my tire size to 37". The Toyota 3.4 struggles a bit but it works.

Here are some pictures. Starting with the old rear end still in the truck.