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WOW that really transformed the look. I went from those crappy old tires to some brand new ones with that aggressive looking tread and sidewall. I think tires has got to be like #1 top things that change the look of your truck. When I saw it being backed out from the shop when they were done I was smiling so hard because of how good it looked. The 2nd gen tacoma wheels and the new tires man. I loved the white lettering look too, they look cool when they are spinning! and it lets everyone know what tires I have hahaha. So Stoked!!

Lol unfortunately for some odd reason my vacuum break booster started going bad literally the day I got the tires on. Not even joking it's like when I got the tires on it started going out. I had driven it 150 miles from Temecula back home that previous weekend fine. The tech. at our friends shop noticed the faulty brake when he was backing it out of the bay and he told me that he thinks the brake booster or the master cylinder is bad. I drove it home and it was scary because It was intermittent. I would be going fine and then I would use my brake and the pedal would be rock hard and not do anything. It ended up just being the brake booster and I went back a couple days later and 200 dollars later they put in a new one for me. Phew.

So... now we know what's next. Time to go off-roading!

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First time ever off-roading. Nothing crazy just hit up maple springs up to the top of Santiago peak 5,000 feet of elevation at the top. There is lots of little side lines you can hit. I wasn't expecting to make it up a whole lot, especially stock, but I was suprised! She did really good. Flexed hard on some of those side to side whoop lines. I even jumped er' a couple of times off the water bars coming down haha. Surprisingly smooth!

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Lol I gave it a very thorough clean the day after, even cleaned out the engine bay so it was sparkly clean. A few days after I also gave the interior a very good cleaning too. Took the seats and center console out scrubbed the carpet & seats. I used simple green on the whole interior. Can't beat it, I think it's my favorite thing to clean with. It's strong, smells great, and isn't harmful to you, or the stuff your cleaning. I actually have a good friend who said supposedly he used it as mouthwash one time haha. Even after the simple green fully dries it leaves the fabric on the seats and carpet still smelling good. My friends always ask how my car smells so good. Every time I open one of my doors it just smells good inside. It's pretty subtle too so your nose gets used to it after a little but when you first step in it's nice!

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After wandering youtube a video popped up on my recommended feed and it was the ISR and deckplate mod. The video explained what both of those were. I was more interested in the ISR mod since it was explained how you could really hear the intake sound more when you did it, and I wanted that! The video I watched the guy just used some aluminum tube and kinda did a garage mechanic job well call it. It functioned like it should but didn't look great. I forgot that I actually knew about the airaid intake tube but I forgot about it. A guy I met at a truck meet had it on his supercharged 3.4 mini Tacoma and I asked again what it was and then bought one. Took about 15 minutes to get it on lol. Easy install. Then I went on a drive after that and lets just say my mpg was probably like 5 lol. It sounded so good! I was and still am extremely happy with it. It frees up so much space on that side of the engine. Also makes getting those coilpacks out super easy! My OEM intake tube was all cracked so it was 2 for 1!

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Fast forward to early June now. I started going to the junkyard to see if I could find a OEM bottlejack and the spinny guy that works for getting the jack up as well ass get your spare down. That was one of the things my truck didn't have and I know the OEM bottle jack isn't the best but I figured a jack is better than no jack, and toyota designed clever space for it under the rear seats so why not. Scoured the local junkyard one day and found one in pristine condition with the spinny guy! I was curious how much it was going to cost though I was hoping it wouldn't be like 40 bucks or something crazy. Nope. 12 bucks for the jack and the spinner. Sweet!

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Around that time I decided it was time to address the valve covers. They were obviously leaking and my truck would drop some oil on the ground over night usually. This was my first more serious job on my truck. At this time I also sprang a pretty severe coolant leak. I got home from work one time and then ate dinner went back outside to the garage to work on my bike and I noticed a massive puddle of coolant on the floor. I panicked a little. It took me a while to figure it out but the leak was due to a faulty gasket seal on the passenger and driver side front water jackets that go from the block to the intake manifold. So I had to rip everything off to get down to that so I could replace the gasket. I first tackled the valve cover job as that was easiest and also I could get it buttoned up and I would be good for that job since the water leak job was in the middle of the block. Before I decided to rip my engine apart I of course ordered all the parts associated with the job according to timmy the toolmans video on the valve cover gaskets I also ordeed the block to intake manifold gasket. I would soon be ordering more parts... LOL

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So as I did the valve cover gasket job and had everything apart I also took the time to really clean everything. Pretty much the whole top of the engine was covered in black gunk and it was nasty. The end result was so worth it though. After, you could eat off my engine! It took what felt like forever but I got acetone and cleaned my throttle body, IAC intake plenums and manifold valve covers, etc. There was a lot of oil build up from what I understand is just the normal function of the PCV system.

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Her is some pictures of what I am talking about. Definitley dirty haha

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I didn't really watch any videos on taking off the intake manifold but it looked self explanatory so I just took it off and decided to go from there. What I didn't realize is that now I can see my knock sensors. They weren't something I was planning on replacing but I really didn't want to have to take it all off next week because for some reason my knock sensors went bad all the sudden haha. I mean while I was down there... might as well. So about 300 bucks later for some OEM denso sensors and a knock harness I put new ones in. After I got it all buttoned up using a very nice amount of FIPG along with new gaskets I was done fixing the coolant leak. Then I fell in the rabbit hole again. With the whole intake plenums taken off it gives really easy access to the fuel injectors so there we go I dropped 330 bucks for a remanufactured Denso set of 6 injectors from motorwest performance. I figured the old ones were probably tired. So why not! After that it was just a matter of putting the rest of it back together. and I was done! no more leaking from the valve covers.

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After:

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Not sure if you guys can really tell from the pictures the difference but it is so clean now! Also here's a picture of what it looked like under the valve covers. It looked the same on both sides. Pretty good! No sludge build up or anything haha.

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After doing that job I felt quite accomplished with myself that I completed that all on my own. It definitley gave me more confidence to tackle the timing belt job which I would need to be doing soon in the future haha. She was running great with the new injectors and Denso spark plugs. No more coolant leaking either!

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One day while driving home from Yoshimura with a friend something strange happened with my truck and it definitley worried me. Thankfully it was an easy fix. It would happen completely randomly. I would be driving and the check engine light would come on and then It felt like I had lost so much power with the engine! It was like it only had like 20% of its power. Even full throttle it couldn't even shift to third because I wasn't going fast enough. After a little fourm searching and getting the code from a code scanner it ended up being my throttle position sensor, it was going bad. I thought it was much worse, but thankfully it was an easy fix! Only 70 bucks for a new Denso one. So what I think happens is when the TPS starts going bad it'll send some kind of incorrect or different signal to the ECU and then the ecu recognizes it and puts the truck into a full limp mode, hence the severe loss of power. I think it does the limp mode as a safeguard just in case the TPS somehow goes really bad and doesn't send signals that its doing WOT or something like that when your not, basically haywire.

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Later in July I decided I wanted a new grill. I liked the OEM one but it was cracked and broken all over and one of the tabs where it sits in the headlight housing was broken off so it would sit hanging down on the passenger side more and I noticed it. So I bought a TRD style grill to replace it. I wanted something with a little flare and I liked the style of it and the gunmetal colored TOYOTA. I also ordered a little red white and blue tricolor dude for my grille too, cuz merika!

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After doing the grille I didn't do really anything to it for about a month but of course I am always planning something. My 4Runner is one of the few that didn't come with the factory wind deflector thing on the rear. I always thought that it looked kinda bare and naked in the back and goofy to be honest with nothing there. Not sure if it was an option to get it or not but mine didn't have it. So I looked up stuff on the internet and came across the Jason Burtman JDM style spoiler for our trucks. I saw a few pictures of customers that got them and had them and that was it, I was getting one! Lucky for me since I didn't have the OEM deflector the install would be easier since I wouldn't have to cover any holes, I would only be making them... haha. This is one of those PONR projects, once you do the damage you hope it comes out good!