BlackAck's 5th Gen 4Runner thread

[97BlackAckCL]

Picked up my 3rd 4Runner back in September 2017, had 2 Fourth gens previously, bought an 03 Sport in 2006 and an 08 SR5 in 2012 and loved them both, but it was time to move up to a newer model. The 2017's were going for the same price as a used 2014 so I decided to buy new. I figured it's about time to start a "build" thread even though I don't plan on lifting or doing crazy off-roading, it's a daily driver and camping vehicle for me, but it's still getting lots of mods to it.

Here's a pic that I snapped at the dealer, I tried to recreate the pic from 2012 when I bought the 08 and traded in my 03.

And again, out with the old and in with the new again! My 2017 the day I got her

And a couple bone stock pics from when I first acquired her

And some interior pics

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Before I even picked her up at the dealership I was already ordering parts for it, so she didn't stay stock very long. Owned this thing less than a week, already ordered custom brackets to mount my LED bar that I removed from the 08, and I also ordered a OCD console organizer, as well as an armrest storage organizer, the console in this thing is huge, so this will help keeping things nice and orderly.

Within a month the modding had begun, since the air filters are different I couldn't transfer my last K&N to this truck I had to bite the bullet and buy a new one.

Truck only had 1000 miles on it so the factory one is still brand new, put that away for if/when I ever trade this guy in.

Nice and shiny engine bay, it's weird working on a brand new truck, all the bolts are shiny and silver. It's officially not a brand new truck anymore, because I lost a clip lol

Threw in my SilverStar Ultra high beam bulbs from my old truck while I was at it.

While I was working on the truck more goodies were arriving.

Well I got the door panel off, and was all set to install my 6x9's from my last truck in the doors, only to find out that they changed the screw holes and the adapter bracket that I've had for 2 4Runners will not work on this truck.

So since it was a nice day and I wanted to get something done I went to work swapping out all of the halogen bulbs with high power bright white SMD led bulbs from FyreFlys

I got the dome, all 4 doors, and license plates switched out

I tried to get a shot of the dome, but I don't think it was dark enough

I love how bright these things are, the license plate LED's are SUPER freaking bright! I also replaced the reverse light bulbs, but hard to get a picture with your vehicle in reverse on the hill even with the parking brake on, but they're the same bulbs as these

Also, since I lost a clip the other day when I was putting in the high beam bulbs and I said the truck "wasn't new anymore" since I lost the clip, I had to rectify that...

Here's a couple better pics of the LED bulbs, I was only doing small mods since winter was approaching

Rear tailgate

Dome and map lights, outside the truck

Dome and mirror with the door open, these map lights are insanely bright

A shot from the back of the 2 domes

I swapped the puddle lights in the mirrors out, and now you can actually see them at night lol. Taking the mirrors apart was nerve racking and stressful but not overly complicated, still a lot of work just to change out a damn lightbulb though!

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Before Christmas I installed my new Morimoto Elite HID headlight kit, wasn't a big fan of having to drill the dust caps, but thankfully the silicone grommets work pretty well

Before, stock halogens....

I actually threw my old H11 4300K HID bulbs in first just to test and see what they looked like

Got the right bulbs in and removed my old 4300K bulbs from when I bought my 08 back in 2012, and replaced them with new 5500K bulbs for a brighter white color. I took a couple before shots to compare, please excuse the dirty lenses, the salt around here has been ridiculous

Before

And the after, I went with the 5500K bulbs to match the LED fogs that I bought but haven't put in yet, I love the bright white coloring

Christmas present for the truck, replacing the crappy overpriced OEM rubber mats with some real floor liners. I'm a huge WeatherTech fan and had them in my last 2 4Runners, but I just was not a fan of the coverage that the WT's offer, or the reviews, so I went with the Huskies

Before Driver's

New :fro:

Before Passenger

After

Also installed the rear Husky floor liner, it's amazing how much thicker and better coverage this mat has compared to the OEM Toyota one

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Finally got a nice spring day and was able to get my door speakers all replaced. The speakers that I took out of my old truck had rusty contacts so I splurged and bought all new speakers for the front and rear doors as well as the back hatch.

Of course I had to get a before of the crappy paper cone speakers with no magnets

And since I had to buy all new TacoTunes adapters since the ones from my 4th gen didn't fit, I finally had all the right pieces to install

All ready to go in the doors!

And installed!

Before of the rears

Getting ready to mount

And installed!

I was able to get all 4 doors replaced before the sun and temperature started dropping, so I got 4 of the 8 crappy stock speakers replaced so far.

After having to order more adapters from TacoTunes because the ones I had from my 08 wouldn't fit the new speakers for the rear hatch I finally got them swapped out, current count is 6 of 8 replaced.

Here's a before of the crappy paper cone garbage

And all mounted up and ready to go

I go to a lot of concerts and do a lot of tailgating, so these will definitely get some good use, had to flip around a bit to get the holes lined up, no biggie

And got them both installed, took about 10 minutes once I had the right brackets lol

 

[97BlackAckCL]

LED's! Oh My!

Finally got a nice day to rip the bumper off my nice new truck, it was nerve racking but I definitely took my time and made sure every bolt and clip was removed correctly and that nothing got broken.

A little before of the unmolested front end

And off we go!

Put it on a blankie for safe keeping

And voila! It took me a while to get the brackets mounted and widened for the larger screws, but I got everything mocked up and mounted

This is the same 32" light bar that I removed from my 08

Not sure what these holes are tapped for, but I'll take it! Rago relay holder installed

Since I had the bumper off I also had to install my Black Morimoto XB LED fog lights as well

Testing the wiring out, these suckers are bright as hell

Fished the switch wiring and got the light bar all wired up!

And now time for the new switch

And here is the light bar hidden behind the factory grille, bumper wasn't bolted yet, just checking fitment

And all bolted up! You can see the new black LED fog lights as compared to the stock reflector housings

All back together

And boom!

I didn't actually get a pic with the LED fogs on because I blew the fog light fuse when testing the wires, so I have to pop that out today and replace it, but overall I'm super happy to have these pieces all installed and mounted to the truck. It's definitely feeling more and more like my truck, especially after getting my LED bar back in the grille where it belongs!

And I got the fog light fuse replaced (the wires touched while I was testing the wiring direction) so I got these bad boys fired up you can see that they match the HID's perfectly

And some night time shots, you can see the nice fog light cutoff (gf was not impressed...)

And the fogs at night

And this is the headlights, fog lights and LED bar, there is no breakup from the mesh of the grille, we tried it on several dark roads and couldn't tell the difference from when I had it exposed in my last truck, I'm super close to the garage door so it looks more like a spotlight than a flood, I have a mix of both

Say cheese! :dancin:

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Got a number of small projects checked off the list all at once. I had some wiring that I wanted to clean up, a new battery to install, and some LED markers for the Raptor mod that I wanted to add, as well as a TRD Intake piece. So here's a quick run down of some of the work I did. The engine bay was dirty and had some salt residue from the winter so I wanted to detail that too while I was in there. Here's a before

First mod was the TRD airflow accelerator piece from the TRD intake, I didn't really want to spend the 3-400 bucks especially since I already dropped some coin on the K&N Drop in filter which isn't compatible with the TRD (go figure). So I picked up this piece for like $10, this is one of the main components of the TRD intake and threw it on

A before of the stock intake piece

So for $10 I figured I'd throw this piece on which is designed to go into that inlet and force more air in from the fenderwell and not the engine bay, notice it even has the TRD stamp on it

So I mounted this sucker up, here you can see the difference in the air flow.

The notches don't line up between the stock air box and the TRD piece (go figure) so I threw on a hose clamp to seal it and keep it in place. This hose clamp was actually from my old dryer vent lol

After I got the intake all reassembled and cleaned up I moved on to the next project on the list, the raptor mod. I got these from another member on here and they were brand new, so I got a good deal on them and they came prewired and ready to install.

Install was pretty straight forward, just zip ties, I'm debating if I want to modify these at some point to go behind the grille to match the stealthier look of the light bar or if it's even worth the effort

Unfortunately for me the fuse box changed at some point so I had to buy a different fuse tap, but big deal I still saved a bunch on this kit and didn't have to make my own so I grabbed one on Amazon

Testing out the lights

And here they are all installed, I tapped a spare fuse so that they only come on when the key is in the ignition or the vehicle is running so they act as day time running lights, mainly because my 08 had amber corner DRL's and the 4Runner's DRL's are the highbeams, so the amber is a nice touch

My original thought was to tap the amber corners so that they came on as driving lights like others have done on here, but the fuse tap was super simple

And now time for the new battery! It had been sitting on the landing by my front door for a couple months, so I'm sure the gf was happy to see the box gone, she commented on it as soon as she got home lol, and I was happy to see it go where it belongs!

Since this is a smaller form factor I also grabbed the spacer to ensure proper height, I've dealt with this on Optimas in the past, but never had to actually buy a separate spacer... But it was only 5 bucks so whatever

And here's the battery all completed and mounted like it belongs there

And here's the money shot! After I got everything all bolted up and put back together. I could have sworn that I took an after engine bay shot all cleaned up and detailed with the new battery but apparently I didn't. I was too happy to get everything back together and get the truck moved before the gf got home.

I'm loving this truck more and more each day!

 

[12Bravo4R]

Friend of a friend just bought a new Nautical Blue 4R.

Its a very underrated color :cheers:

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Friend of a friend just bought a new Nautical Blue 4R.

Its a very underrated color :cheers:

Thanks for looking, it's definitely an awesome color, I'm really happy I decided to go with the blue, I love this color!

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Also had the tint done last month, I did 35% on the front windows and the visor across the windshield. It makes a huge difference over stock

Friday I got my Rago Molle brackets from the group buy back from the powder coater and went ahead and installed the driver's side, here's the panels fresh from the powder coater

And here's a before of the driver's side all stock and unmolested.

And since I was installing these, I grabbed some stock rubber coated D-Rings from the FJ to help fill in the stock holes

I didn't want the open holes around the bolts, so these helped fill the space around

Another neat feature about these panels is that they come with a built in bottle opener for tailgating!

Here's the panels all installed, I really like these, and can't wait to mount all my tools and supplies to these guys

I had them powder coated satin black, I think they look really good

And here it is all installed with the rear seat folded back up, no fitment issues

Quick mod yesterday, it's still super hot outside so I've been limited in how much work I can do. I've had this underhood LED kit sitting in the garage for the last couple years, I actually bought it for my last 4Runner but never installed it. It's from the group buy on here in 2015 I believe. This LED was super long so I had to follow the contours of the hood. I routed the wires down behind the hood skirt, I didn't get a good pic of the wire routing but it was very easy. I need to clean the salt stain off the hood skirt, it's bugging the crap out of me

Here's the hole that I used for the hood switch, I had to widen the plastic cover and widen the hole in the frame slightly to fit the switch in there

Here is the switch installed.

And all the wiring cleaned up.

And the final product, this thing is like day light, definitely what I was hoping for, and not bad for something I had just laying around waiting to be installed!

Engine bay shot, this thing is bright!

 

[Senorlechero]

How do you like the morimoto fogs?

 

[97BlackAckCL]

How do you like the morimoto fogs?

I love them, the cutoff line is really sharp and they're very bright as well. My favorite part about them is they look stock and have a black housing

 

[97BlackAckCL]

New updates added

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Had a nice cool afternoon yesterday so I was able to get out and do some more work on the truck, first here's a better pic of how I ran the wiring for the engine bay light behind the hood skirt since I didn't really take one the other day.

A few months back, Rago Fab had a "Garage Sale" and had some ditch light brackets along with 6 LED ditch light pods on sale for a ridiculous price, and the whole package cost less than their brackets normally, so I jumped on them. I never really thought I would be putting these on the truck, but for the price and the chance to supplement my 32" LED bar, I said wth. The brackets mount right to the hood bolts and open and close with the hood.

Here they are all installed, I think they'll compliment my black on blue theme nicely.

Getting the lights mounted was the trickiest part, once I got the brackets figured out, I went to work on the wiring.

Wanted to make it as simple and clean as I could so I used connectors, usually I'd just solder and be done with it.

I originally tried fishing the passenger side wire through the hood, but my gf wasn't home and I didn't have anyone to help me fish it out the other side, after about 20 minutes I gave up and ran it along the firewall where I plan to run my amp power wire. I was OCD and tucked it way back and ziptied it up so you can't see any of it and it's nice and stealth.

Then I connected the wires and packaged them all up nice with some heatshrink, after that i wrapped the whole thing in electrical tape and tucked the wires down and ziptied them out of sight.

Here you can see the wiring all tied up and neat, I tried to make it as clean as possible so it's out of the way.

Here's the lights all mounted up on the hood and wired up.

I'm still getting used to them being there, driving this morning with them in view was interesting, I'm debating getting a low profile bracket that would lower them a bit, but for what I paid for the whole set I am very happy with them.

And the aftermath, you can see just how many zipties I used lol, but it looks clean and stealthy in the engine bay.

I didn't get a chance to wire up the switch on the inside, I got the wires fished into the cabin but had to go to dinner with the gf, so I will finish that up this evening.

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Well, Friday I was able to get the switch wired up and all the loose ends tied up with the ditch lights. I shortened the wire so that it would tuck more easily behind the dash, then soldered the wires to the wiring harness.

And filled in the rest of the switch bank. I tried moving the wiper heater and outlet buttons over, but they would need to be trimmed and modified to fit which I wasn't a big fan of doing so I'm going with this look for now.

All wired up and working! These things are insanely bright!

I also wire tapped the illumination wire of the wiper heaters button and wired up both switches to illuminate. The top parts light up when the buttons are pushed. (not shown)

Once it got dark I snuck out and snapped a quick pic of the lights. This is just the 2 x 6 LED pods lighting up the garage door. These things are impressively bright and I defintely had some fun on dark roads over the weekend.

And I had to blind myself and snap a pic of all the lights, sucker is looking mean!

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Baby got new shoes

On the way to the tire shop....

And, Big Blue got new shoes! 17x8.5" with 265x70x17 Cooper Discoverer RTX tires. I went for stock size tires since I have a brand new stock suspension and have no intentions of lifting. I think the beefier tire really fills the wheel well, and the extra inch of wheel width really stands out as well.

Just a couple quick driveway shots since it's like 100% humidity and I'm sweating my ass off lol

Overall I'm really happy with the look

These wheels really changed the whole look of the truck

 

[Jarheadoo7]

Wow. This is awesome. Great write up and keep updating please!

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Wow. This is awesome. Great write up and keep updating please!

Thanks for looking, I will definitely keep posting updates

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Decided it was time to throw on the black out emblems to help compliment the wheels, couple before and afters. Front before

Front after

Rear Before

Rear Emblem

Half way there

And all done

Really like the satin black look of these emblems, I'm not a big chrome fan. I also did the side emblems but didn't snap a pic.

Now I need to do a real photoshoot lol

Finally got some sunny nice weather after work yesterday so I went home and swapped out the Rago ditch light brackets for the CaliLED low pro brackets. Tried to do a comparison shot but you really can't see much difference side by side because I had the brackets misaligned in the pic, but what a difference!

I did a couple comparison shots to show just how much lower they are, I'm super happy that I spent the money to get the lower brackets.

You can really see the height difference here, the pods aren't up in my frame of view now while driving which is what I wanted

And both sides complete, so much lower and tucked like I wanted, so much better! I like that they're tucked down closer to the hood now.

All installed, took less than 30 mins to swap them out and I took my time to make sure that I didn't scratch my hood.

And I snapped a couple pics of the black emblems while I was at it, sorry the truck is a little dirty. The black emblems definitely help with the aggressive look I'm going for and compliment the black LED fog lights and other black accents

Side emblems, the sun was fighting me

And the rear, looks so much better without the chrome!

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Just a small update, but Friday I bit the bullet and installed some LED high beam bulbs. I got a deal on these and one of the 4Runner guys that I follow did a review saying that they didn't flicker as DRL's so I jumped on them. I was running Sylvania Silverstar Ultras but they just couldn't keep up with the HID's and the LED pods and bar so I said F it.

The fans on these things are pretty big but after a bit of trial and error I got them to mount correctly

Here's a before of the Silverstar Ultras, I told the GF that I'd throw these in her Suby

Here's a daytime shot of the LED bulb, these things are freaking bright!

And all installed, took about 15 mins total and I wire tied everything to keep it looking clean

Haven't driven at night yet to really see how they look but they look damn good in the driveway and match the HID's pretty well

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Snapped a couple random pics, here is the LED high beams acting as DRL's

And I snapped a couple random parking lot pics at work

Truck looking sexy

And driving home last night I finally got to play with my high beams. This shot is with all the LED's on, making fricking daylight in the dark