Top 3 Tacomas at Overland Expo East 2021

How's it going everyone welcome back to the Tacoma Beach Channel where as you all know, it's all about the taco today We're in Virginia for the Overland Expo East and we're gonna be showing you the top three Tacomas at the Expo All right. First on our list is Eric here with Torque Masters. How's it going, man? Having a good show. Yeah, man. It's great. This is an awesome place. This is our favorite event of the year It's East Coast baby. Everybody's hardcore and we love it. I love the East Coast man. Let's talk about this rig This thing looks insane. This is our 2018 Tacoma. We bought this to prototype the new torque locker for the 8-inch IFS Differential don't tell them just yet. I want to leave that towards the end of this build We can talk a little bit more about that. Tell me what are you guys working for the front bumper? Okay, so for this we went all all pro trail gear We partnered with them to build what we thought would be and want to be the ultimate Tacoma So we got their aluminum front bumper we buried a 9,000 pound winch in there from come up winch Nice got the wireless controller full synthetic, uh rope, of course your factor 55 fairlead We went the full aluminum IFS skid plate and transfer case skid as well We like to rock crawl. So we like to get down and party. We want to protect all the good stuff underneath Nice, that's really important man, especially that oil pan. You don't want that breaking on you What do you guys have for sliders all pro again? These are steel. They are super solid. They make a great step if you're getting up on top of the rack They bolt to the frame in like so many places It's not even funny And these are going to do a great job of protecting the truck and give you access to it as well Making sure that side panel is nicely protected dude. That suspension is looking gnarly what's going on over here? That's all pros long travel suspension These are chromoly lowers and uppers with the uniball construction give you a wider track width More travel keeps the cvs happy as well and obviously gives you so much more articulation We remove the sway bar so you'll get much better articulation. Oh, I love removing the sway bar Yeah, it's it's a little bit scary at first. But once you get the feel for it, it feels incredible. Oh, yeah What did you guys go for wheels and tires trail gear? Has their creeper beadlocks these things are massive They've been proven all over the world and all over the country in desert racing and rock crawling for years Uh, we love to air our milestone tires down to low pressure to get maximum traction And so that's what that beadlock does for us is it keeps the tire securely on the wheel and these trail gear Wheels are going to hold up a long time. They're they're solid nice man What psi do you normally like to ride on when you're going out or not? That depends So if we're primarily rock crawling, we're going to be around that six five to six psi range and you can do that And we can do that So that's crazy when we're out at like hammers and maybe we're doing more high speed and you don't want as many sidewall punctures We might hold up to like 20 16 18 somewhere in there. But again that depends on how much stuff we're carrying with us, you know, cool, man What's the miles per gallon on this truck right now? I don't know Something we don't pay. We don't pay attention to smiles per gallon. It's smiles per gallon. Cool. Cool Let's move on to the back man. Yes, you have a little toy in there What's going on with this dirt bike the long story with this one is I bought this on like a a little marketplace ad For 400 bucks the guy couldn't get it running. So i've had this for a long time We've driven it off road all over the country and a couple years ago We wanted to do it up in company colors just to make it fun And this was the perfect scenario the perfect vehicle to put it in I love that it fits with this bed rack that you guys have going on. What rack is this? That's the all pro bed rack. It's really a sweet setup It all comes modular and it's tied up in all the different points on the bed You got six points of contact and it's solid. I mean that that rooftop tent's 200 and something pounds Talking about the rooftop tent. What did you decide to go with? This is the lou cab It's the 3.0 their original product. So we actually bought this second hand and completely restored it Nice, how do you like it so far? I love it. It's awesome It's super quick to open up super quick to set up you're not spending all day putting an extra cover on it And it's all aluminum and it to me. That's the only way to go. That's awesome. And now to hold all this weight What did you go for the leaf springs? These are the trail gear overland leaf pack So it gives you a lot more heavy duty capacity Yep, but still with that double military wrap gives you a lot of flexibility They're not super stiff that they don't move nice man. And then do you have a rear bumper upgraded or still? Yep, the all pro this is their steel rear bumper And so again, it's going to protect the truck from massive rock hits It's even got a hidden trailer hitch in there. It's cool I mean, you know certain companies have the high clearance one that you have to cut into your bedside This one is nice where you don't have to do that in case you don't want to be chopping up your truck I like pretty cool option. I like it a lot and then to top it all off We got the all pro overland tailgate table. You've got your routed groove in there You can have your meat here your chicken there. That's sweet, man. Yep, and honestly, it's nicer on your kneecaps. Yeah, that is true So let's talk about torque. Uh masters. What are you guys working on? Okay, so this truck Came to be because we needed a vehicle to prototype our new torque locker for the eight inch front differential for 05 and newer Tacoma 4runner and tundra and that's what this vehicle had. So this started out. Obviously, uh, it's got 36 000 miles We bought it used during covid. It's the only thing we could find and we knew we couldn't keep it stock for long and what better way to test the torque locker than You know to build it up and use it like our customers are going to use it. That's awesome So eventually you will be having a locker that you will be putting it out in the market Yeah, this is the first one in this truck now We've got about four or five prototypes that are getting ready to go out to different people to test for us And then i'd say within the next few months, you know, don't quote me on that. We should have product out for sale Awesome, eric. Thank you so much for your time, man. Hey, thanks guys. It was so much This is one sick looking tacoma. Appreciate it on to the next one All right, fellas for the second tacoma on our list. We're here with eric eric. How's it going, man? How's the show so far? Awesome. Awesome. It's been great. It's awesome to hear that. Let's talk about your truck What do you have for the front bumper? So this is an arb summit bumper Um, i've always been a big fan of arb used to work for arb back in the day I got to go to australia and see where no way. Yeah where this is made and uh I have a big appreciation for the engineering behind the front summit bar Always again really like the look i've had them on other 100 series land cruisers I love the look and 80s and stuff like that So yeah The tacoma the new summit bar That new design that came out for the new 16 and up tacomas. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it And I love that I can put the new uh worn winches and i'm sure a lot of other winches in there as well But we've got a recovery point up front the flat link You've got these access points to be able to reach the clutch Um on the worn winch through the bumper, which I love that not not a lot I don't think a lot of bumpers have that. Yeah, and that's a great recovery point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's awesome And then I you know, we throw the high lift on top Through baha designs lp9s. Uh, we've run a bunch of different lights and stuff like that. We really love these lights with the kind of the side shooters but also that the fact that it's like a dual beam and then you know in the mountains like on curvy roads we can't You run a spot you run them all on and run the spot. You'll get like a bright light just through the trees so Nice to run the flood when you really need it and then full on 100 When you're really flying down the road need all that light down the road. So cool, man What about your winch? Honestly, i've had this winch for a really long time. It's just a Probably one of the original vr8s winches. That's the one I have. Yeah, I probably should have something a little bit bigger I always say that but I in a bunch of different situations, man That's actually ended up working out awesome for me. And so fingers crossed. Uh, I think knock on wood Work out for us. So one thing I want to point out about this bumper I believe it's one of the only bumpers that has been crash tested, right? Our arb has actually put it through a crash test when we were working at arb They showed us a bunch of really cool videos and and actually would actually simulate these crash tests with these bumpers So they would say You know Hey let's let's simulate an 80 pound animal looks like a punching bag and it would show the damage to the front of the vehicle based off of the Engineering and information they have on these vehicles and their bumpers and all that stuff And it was incredible because we could see how much Of an impact this bumper could take before you had damage to the vehicle or whatnot So as far as like engineering and all that stuff and the stamp sections of the bumper I don't think there's a lot of other companies out there that can do what arb does when it comes to these You know front ends. That's sweet, man. Let's get over here to the engine bay. What's going on? The coolest thing under the hood is the magnuson supercharger. Let me ask you this and I want you to be 100 honest with me What are your thoughts on it? If you hate it, let me know. No, it's a game changer You know i've had this tacoma. It's a 17 I've had it for like four years right over four years now And I didn't have it regeared and I didn't have it with with a supercharger and I still loved it I like still loved driving my truck and stuff Even though it was really slow and had to dog it and pulling a trailer I was like, you know have you know, really really have to hammer down on it the supercharger Really? Like if I was even looking for a full size like a tundra or something like that to pull our car You know, we have a track car pull different trailers I wouldn't be looking for one at this point and I wasn't looking at tundra But that's how much more power combined with this is regeared 2 to 529. So with the gears and the supercharger perfect combination It's awesome this past weekend, man We trailered a car down to savannah a little wrx on a trailer 5500 pounds And in fifth gear all the way from the mountains down to georgia. I was like at 2800 rpms In this truck where it couldn't even drive itself at 70 miles an hour in fifth gear if it had to without a trailer So this is a total game changer, man I'm, super happy with it and with the snorkel you get some awesome intake noises with it, man You get a ton of intake noise out of the snorkel you get that little bit of supercharged line That's an awesome setup. Yeah, it's pretty good So I actually have the same setup 529s with this magnuson and you can overtake cars now, you know going uphill love that I know it's an expensive upgrade But if you're going to keep your tacoma for a long time or if you love it drivability the value you get out of it Every time you drive the car that it feels that good and that fast I would do it in a heartbeat man. It's awesome. That's awesome to hear that I see you have an air b air compressor here. This is a single one, right? And then you have a dual battery setup. Yeah, tell me about that. I've got an off-grid engineering dual battery system It's a side-by-side because i've got a trd sport when I went and bought this car They didn't have any off roads on the lot I needed a truck really bad And I and I always thought this color would look really good with all the black and all the black wheels and all that stuff So I was like forget it. I'll probably put lockers in it Anyway down the road so I did When you when you upgrade eventually when we upgrade it to a dual battery from off-grid engineering matt carter over there Does a great job with this stuff the sports because of where the abs is located can't do a split dual battery system So you got to do side by side here With a blue c ml acr and then I have a remote inside so that I can I leave it automatically right now the batteries are connected Or I can force disconnect them if I need to or leave it automatic So the way it works, yeah as soon as my fridge or whatever draws down below This second battery below 12.7 automatically disconnect the batteries for me, which is cool And then i've got the single high performance which is just fine for I feel like this truck with 33 inch tires And we do have front and rear arb lockers too, which is nice So they see the solenoids and the pump up kit and all that kind of stuff right there So really easy and the single has been working just fine That's awesome to hear that. Yeah, that's sweet, man. Let's move on to the back. Show me what you got back here sliders Uh, it's from a company from north carolina. Uh, so not too far from us called lfd off-road It's a dom with a kick out and a top plate I also have one of their skid plates underneath because we we will the truck, you know At least once or twice a month like customer trail rides or just messing around camping or whatever nice So that's what we went with there and something we sell a lot at the store now for suspension I know we didn't talk about that much. What are you rocking for suspension running bp-51s from old man emu? I'm running dominson's upper control arms up front. Yeah bp-51s. I love again for a little bit from that background at arb That internal bypass technology that they put in them where you can control the compression rebound through those dials Is a game changer it really is I can make the truck drive really soft like you'd want it almost like that trophy truck feel where you feel that softness suspension But on the road for how much daily driving this truck sees that's like terrible So it's nice to like firm it right back up have it drive like a regular truck And then for us two that are going to keep these trucks for a long time That hard anodized like body that they use for the bps looks better than any other suspension system. I've ever seen incredible Yeah, like even after like snow and salt and all that stuff for a few years. It looks really good they got a great warranty on stuff not that i've had issues with this or whatever, but uh, There's just this I think is got to be one of the best out there nice man And then for leaf springs, obviously you need to go with the heavy duty Because of the amount of weight that you have here in the back Yeah, we're running about probably on average between the canopy and the 10 and all that kind of stuff probably about 500 to 600 pounds We have a 600 constant pounds leaf spring from arb. Honestly, that's our go-to spring That's like 95 or more of the springs that we do at the office. It's great At handling the weight that you see here or even the canopy camper next to it on the gladiator and these other trucks We do a lot of that as well. And yeah, it's a nice nice system It works well with the rest of arb stuff. Cool, man. Now tell me about this. What do you have here? So yeah, this is uh, this is an alu cab canopy The canopy is our most probably our number one as far as canopy and tent setups These are great because they're lockable. This isn't a tread plate finish, but most often they're like usually in like a smooth black finish They have light standard third tail light and then you can throw a bunch of accessories on the other side I've got like a recovery cover with all my stuff nice inside. You got a aluminum table with hydraulic legs that kick out You got the arb fridge, uh, dometic hardwire kit and then honestly I leave it empty because for work I throw wheels and tires in there all the time to move stuff around and And for you know for different events that we do I actually still use it for work So it's kind of like a a double duty type thing, you know, so awesome. Eric, dude Thank you so much for your time. I love your build. I love this Tacoma I love the color you went with and everything you've done to it. Yeah. Thanks, man. Thank you so much I appreciate you man fellas on to the next one For the last build we're here with chris third gen Tacoma. How's it going man? How's the show? Excellent having a great time Thank you. Yeah, it's so cool out here. Isn't it? It is the vibe is so awesome You guys i'm i'm honored to be a part of this. Thank you. Let's make it happen, man What do you have for the front bumper? So for the front bumper, we have a c4 bumper I've done all the baja lights on there. I've done their new dlr light, which is their driving light, which is fantastic So mainly i'm driving with this one on during night because I really don't need these anymore because it's so bright And then we go towards, you know smittybilt winch. How do you like that winch? I absolutely love it It's saved my life many times out in moab really nice. It's bluetooth So i'm able to you know use my phone and not have to look all over my my boxes and gear To find anything cool you guys you have a skid plates for both your lower skid plates have definitely beaten me up It has saved my life for sure. This is someone that definitely is using a shark as you guys can see I mean, they're nicely banged up. You got the rust going on. Yep. That's what you're using. You're using your ride, right? Yeah, cool, man. What are you rocking for headlights? So the headlights are doing custom 54 Uh lights they did a laser honeycomb engraving, uh there for me Uh did a great job on them. I love them. Cool. What's uh, this antenna? It's a cb antenna. It's a cb It's the power. I forget the the power outage of it, but it's it's a lot more than a ugly stick is It looks nice. It's stout. I mean it is like it's a bomb proof and I have x clamps get it on amazon But these things are incredible just really durable. They don't move Once they're locked in they're bolt on there and then of course I do my gopro on top of there cool, man We got to get these for our cameras. Yeah, these things look nice and sturdy. Let's move on to the back What do you have here the safari with the cyclone? My absolute favorite is the cyclone just because how efficient it is with moving air And again, we're not using this to submerge in water The main thing is is we're in our dust roads That the cyclone is pumping that out of there and bringing in fresh air and it works absolutely awesome So that all the air comes around and it collects back here Instead of in the front. I really like it. I'm thinking of getting a snorkel myself I'm, not too convinced just yet, but it looks it works when you're doing so much and you're following crews, you know And you get so much dust kicking and that's always us. Yeah, right? Yeah, what did you go for your suspension system? So I did kings 2.5 kings on there How do you like the king setup you think it's overkill? Do you think it's overpriced for what it is? Are you king's reputation is you know, it's some of the best, you know shock system They're racing baja all the time. So they know their quality and again as much Movement that we're doing an off-road and trails and stuff like that wheels and tires. What size are these dude? Yokohama geolanders i've had them all and by far my favorite tire right now the sidewall, right? It's so grippy It's not loud, which is heaven. Yeah Man, do they hook up though? And then just the traction on them is fantastic. What size did you say? They were 33s 33s and then the wheels. I love those. All right, you can't go wrong with methods These are the new methods. I wanted to keep it clean. So went with that style. Cool. Cool, man Let's move on to the back. I see you have a lot of stuff back here What do you have for the roof rack and what's on it? So the prince you of course, I absolutely love it Um, and then it's my max tracks and then we have the zargas case It's nice about the zargas cases is the they have these clamp pins right here now So you can actually pinch it in there. Come on up. Yep. Oh, wow And it makes it so nice. I've never had to tighten these once But if I want to be able to take the uh, the cases on and off i'm able to do so real quick real quick And then I have all my you know, all my recovery gear all of it up here, too We gotta get a tacoma beast deco. I'm waiting for it. Let's go wait after this Now onto the back I see you have a camper here. Yes, you have a shower So my shower alley cab, which I highly recommend. I love it. I've seen those. They're really they're really nice What I like about this one is that it goes all the way down to the ground. Some of them have that little uh, you know, you can see through the legs kind of thing, you know, so it's like You want it all you want? Come on, man, right? I'm out in nature And then what do you have in here? So, uh my kitchen What? Dude, this is crazy. So Victron full setup Victron. We have all my lighting for my cabin lights uh Upper area I have fan systems up there. I can plug my phone in there plug everything up there my refrigerator And then my launch pad just in case we have to go fast. Dude, you have four usb ports This is beautiful man, and then I can tell all my Victron how much i'm charging and everything like that And again Victron's the best uh out there so I can see everything on my phone How much my 220 panel is kicking in it's really nice and hands-on, right? Cool, man, then I have my airbags which I have underneath their bluetooth firestone airbags. How do you like them? How does it ride? How do you ride it? So nice when i'm pulling my mission overland trailer It is really plush right and I need that i've got a lot of weight on here So balancing that airbag system out with the truck makes it really nice I can control that height and the other thing is if i'm camping on an off camber I can let the air out and be on one side or the other side and just naturally Level out the truck. So what compressor are you using to power the bag? This is this whole it's all contained self-contained right in there. Yeah. Wow. That's so cool, man Yeah, it's that little it's that little it's incredible. It's incredible I don't have the remotes in the truck right now, but I can literally do up to 100 psi in these bags Which makes it like a rock solid but right now i'm running at 50 Cool, and now did you i'm assuming you also have to change the leaf springs. I did the icons They're they're heavy duty icons, which I have to do again Just because the amount of weight that I have up on top and and down low cool, man Let's move on to the back. All right, man. What do you have here? I see you have the deck system Yes, I want to get your honest opinion on it Okay, you know a lot of people freak out because it does take up your entire bed sure what are your thoughts I use it Right. I'm really organized. It's dirty right now. It's all moab dirt back here. So it's normally not this dirty I have it really compartmentalized with everything I need to have Um, I think the downfall with that is it's heavy, right? Yeah So all my cooking gear all my it makes the truck heavier. It makes it heavier. There's no doubt about it Now, let me ask you this if I take that deck system away from you, where are you putting that's my problem, right? So then then you have to go back to the cases and then what happens with your refrigerator, right? So I think for what we're using it for it. It's it's great. It's it does everything and normally i'll have two Zargis cases in here that are over there that fit perfectly in here And then i've got enough room for my fly fishing gear and all that kind of stuff That's cool. You do fly fishing a lot of fly fishing. That's awesome, man I need to do that when they have oh my god, and then of course, I love the mountain hatch, you know cutting board This is super sweet. It's awesome. I love this so I can run because of my victron I can run all my power back here. I can oh, dude, i'm gonna have to copy you on this setup, man I just have one little one. No. Yeah, so it's the craftsman so I can pull that off. It's with a magnet Yeah, genius. I love that. It's fantastic. This is super cool. I'm gonna have to copy on that these two dude What do you have, uh for your high clearance rear cbi, which I absolutely love this is this bumper has gone through Uh the whole entire test for sure. Oh, man. I see you you use your truck, dude It's huge, right? Yeah, and that's what it's you got to rock it If you're building an overland rig, you got to go take it out You got it and you got to plan and what you you know, people always ask me like where do I start? What's what's the thing and i'm like? What's the most important thing of you? Where do you want to go and how do you want to get there? And and so I think to me it's like I build from the bottom up every time right? And that's where I think, you know cbis bumpers are the best in the market. Their quality is outstanding So that's why I use it. What's this from? Where is it? The camper the toppers alley cab again all aluminum. It's lightweight. It's incredible Uh bomb proof, especially for trees. We go through a lot of trees so i'd never have to worry about it Um, the upper area is netting which is great and it doesn't connect to the tent, right? It does not no no Okay, that's another alu cab the one that just pops, right? This is their this is a four years old I think some of their stuff is some of the best on the market. We were out in las vegas two weeks ago overlooking some bluffs and a windstorm came up at 50 miles an hour and I had this up and the wind was so strong The truck was going back and forth and the tent was open and it had no problem Like I thought I was gonna be blown off of there. Yeah, but the durability of it was fantastic And it's i've heard that same story from a few people incredible incredible I mean again, it goes back to I've my friend had to put his down and sleep in the back Of his truck because he was worried that his is gonna blow away and it's like no i'm not have to worry That's crazy, man. So well chris. Yeah, if you have to recommend something to the viewers, you know that it just starting out You know, it gets a little bit overwhelming. There's a lot of products out there There's a lot of things you can do to your rig. What would you recommend? again, I my Biggest thing is bottom up right if you're gonna go camping We did the old school. We camped on the ground is how I learned right? Yeah, that's how I started too. Right and then we get into these big rigs. So, you know shock systems and uh your You know How tall you get a 2.5 or you want a three and then your tires and you work up from there? And then you got your base and you're starting correctly nice and sturdy right and built it, right? So with this, you know, that's exactly how we did that and and now it's like we're done it's it's ready to go Awesome, man. Everybody says they're done, but it's not true Thank you so much, yeah, I really enjoyed it pleasure to meet you Yeah, and you guys can check us out at tacoma overlanders on instagram And also we have a web page a very small web page, but we just do this for fun You know, this this is about community and man do I love these people, you know, everyone is here together We work together. We talk about this stuff together. And I think that's what makes this such an awesome community It gives me goosebumps because it's so cool, right? That's so awesome, man, dude Make sure to go check them out. Those were the top three tacomas here at overland expo east I want to know what you guys thought which one do you think is the best one? Make sure to leave it in the comment section down below. We are going to be traveling all year round next year Make sure to come check us out. We're going to have our booth fully set up for y'all You guys enjoy this video make sure to smash that like button If you haven't already subscribed make sure to do so and i'll see you guys in the next video