I picked up a 96 Tacoma that needed a little love recently and i was planning on returning it back to stock and selling after I cleaned it up a bit. And little did i know it had these bad boys on it. Needless to say they weren't leaving my house unless it was on my Runner. So I swapped my bilstien tundra coilovers for these Dirt-logic ones. I honestly didn't expect this much difference in ride quality but the old coilovers rode like a tank. So the difference is quite noticeable and I'm very happy with them at the moment. I know understand the lure of such high dollar coilovers as kings and icons. The rear needs some love now tho gonna have to find some good shocks for that.





I also finally added my stainless steel brake lines while I was down there.



Then I pulled my headliner to replace the sunroof with a spare i had so it would open again. Well once i completed that, I sound deadened and insulated the roof from the sunroof opening to the rear door frame. I can feel a massive difference in the temps inside the car. Parked with the rear window cracked in the sun the car stays at least 10 degrees cooler and driving with A/C now feels like the car has actually cooled down rather than the A/C just cranking away.

I picked up an OEM trans cooler off a Tundra while I was checking out a junkyard. I figure if its enough to cool a V8 truck its enough to cool mine, plus it says Toyota which is always better. I modified it a bit to fir where I liked used some existing holes and moved one of the rubber isolation so it was mounted as similarly to the factory setup as possible.
Here's how it turned out.











Then I decided I wanted some LED DRL/Running lights for my rig since I moved the turn signals to the corner light and ditched front running lights all together. There are 9 bolt beam LED's sunk into the bumper filler piece. On my first design I used 6 white for the running light and 3 amber for a turn signal. They looked really bad ass and functioned great until a few started flickering. I assumed at a price of roughly $1 per light they weren't the highest quality so i tore them back apart and tested them all the ones that flickered continued to do so and those that didn't stayed solid, so I tested more and replaced those that were blinking with new ones I thought would not. Well the whole passenger side functions perfectly but some of the drivers side still blink after being tested. They do get pretty hot so if someone has some advice on where to get better quality LED's that aren't terribly expensive or what to try with wiring id appreciate it, I'd like mine to work properly and I've got my dads to set up the same but I know he wont be happy if they don't work properly.

So I added a different reservoir that would take up a little less space in the engine bay and moved it to the other side, with that I reused the old overflow tank as a washer fluid reservoir and stuffed it in front of the air box. All I had to do was drill two holes in the plastic which was surprisingly fast and then I silicone the rubber seals in to ensure no leaks. I also plugged up the holes in the cap with some hot glue, I didn't think they'd be an issue but I didn't wanna do it twice.


I also built a panhard drop, its flat welded to the truck and its run through the original bolts. Happy with the result, the drop was about 3.25 inches but it wasn't super exact, I just got it as flat as possible.





Also discovered I'm semi-prewired for a locker while I was installing my stand alone harness...

It was decided I needed new tires for the snow this year, so I sold my old wheels and tires off CL and went with these, Bronze Level 8 MK6 wheels 16x8 with -10 offset and a set of 315/75 cooper STT Pros. I absolutely love the look of the bronze on black but gears are the next purchase, very necessary at this point. I also bought some knock off ARB 9" led lights from amazon with a rigid harness, They got wired up and tabs welded onto the stinger to mount them upside down, I'm very happy with the front end of the truck now. The rear needs some attention at this point. Here's some pics I took on and off of campus for the hell of it one afternoon.

Your 4runner looks good. I love those wheels on a black runner and those tires are badarse. I put Cooper ST Maxx on mine because the STT pros had not came out yet. Why did you change grilles?

Nice. I just finished doing my floor a few weeks ago which made quite a difference in noise. I've done the entire floor, hatch and doors at this point. I was planning on doing the roof as well. I haven't seen many people who have done the roof. Did you notice any difference in noise?

Check out Oznium for quality USA made in house LED products. Their bolt Leds are real nice. I've been using them in a similar fashion as drls without issue for years.

Oh, love the bronze on black. I had the same bronze wheels on my Black Tundra.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

A combination of things, I was getting stuff painted so I wanted it to match, I was going to have to cut the statoshi grille the PO made up a bit to fit a winch where the newer style still looked good with the cuts I made, and I sold it to a friend who needed a replacement after a fender bender.


Honestly there wasn't really much of a difference in noise coming from the roof, I don't see that as much of a source for noise since I don't even have a roof rack up there to make any noise.

I would have loved to do the rest of the truck but didn't really have time this go around, I'll probably get it all done after winter but I'm not really sure.

Nice truck. I like those little Led in the pillars. I've been planning to do it but haven't pulled the trigger.

At 160k I'm shocked you needed new u joints and rebalanced drive shaft. What made you get all that? Bad vibration ?

I to was curious about the snorkel and the rain lol. But I can't think how rain doesn't get inside the snorkel when driving. But then again what happens if you go fast over a deep puddle? I doubt ARB didn't think of this. But I would of probably done the same, turn the head backwards lol

It's been a little too long since I've been on here. I did my first retrofit and now I've got the bug... I just want to retrofit all the things! Love em tho. Here's pics of the process and the final result.

Loving this build!