BlackAck's 5th Gen 4Runner thread

[Akkording]

Dude URD aFe tune maf cal I heard is one of the best of the 3 pretuned units. So far I had the stock then to went to TRD. After my Y pipe install I just stuck with the TRD tune, Gadget said I don't to change anything for the additional Y. so I'm at 15.6 mpg on 87 octane but I do drive aggressively and cruise 80 on the tollways around Houston.

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Dude URD aFe tune maf cal I heard is one of the best of the 3 pretuned units. So far I had the stock then to went to TRD. After my Y pipe install I just stuck with the TRD tune, Gadget said I don't to change anything for the additional Y. so I'm at 15.6 mpg on 87 octane but I do drive aggressively and cruise 80 on the tollways around Houston.

Yeah, the URD MAF unit is definitely on my short list of mods, I wasn't sure if it would be worth it when I bought the intake, but after reading up on it I definitely want one

 

[borfoo3]

Nice setup [MENTION=51033]97BlackAckCL[/MENTION]

I first noticed this intake yesterday when we installed it on a friend's LC200.. in his case, you could also could a front pipe that attaches to the intake box in place where the plug goes. That looked sweet.

I'm considering changing from the TRD intake to this. How is it holding so far? Can you get the front pipe for it as well?

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Nice setup [MENTION=51033]97BlackAckCL[/MENTION]

I first noticed this intake yesterday when we installed it on a friend's LC200.. in his case, you could also could a front pipe that attaches to the intake box in place where the plug goes. That looked sweet.

I'm considering changing from the TRD intake to this. How is it holding so far? Can you get the front pipe for it as well?

They don't make one for the 4Runner, I looked into trying to use the Tacoma one but it has a different tube and would not work. If they ever come out with one I definitely will buy one, but honestly I'm happy with it the way it is

 

[thechem]

do these really work?

 

[97BlackAckCL]

do these really work?

It's an intake, it helps the engine breathe better. It definitely gives a noticeable throttle response. I was happy with my K&N drop in filter, but this intake definitely made a noticeable improvement. Do I think I gained the advertised 29 HP? Hell no, but I definitely feel like it added something if only allowing the engine to breathe better. I'm very happy with it and impressed with the quality of the intake. I also paid 40% off on black friday so I'm probably happier than someone who dropped 500 bucks on it

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Busy couple days... The heat index was over 100 which didn't help, plus since I can't use my garage I was battling the rain off and on as well. But here's some before pics of the engine bay. Here's the old relays and the relay holder, this is where the sPod will be mounted replacing all of this clutter.

Here's the bundles of extra wires coiled up, all of this will be going away. This is one of the main reasons I wanted an sPod, was to clean up and simplify all this mess

And here's the positive battery terminal that has all the accessory wires running off of it.

After a lot of prep work, here is some (not all) of the wires and relays that I removed in preparation for the sPod unit, the picture doesn't do this pile justice

Another piece of this install was to swap out the old rusty (yes rust har har) Chinese 6 LED pods that I was running on the hood. I replaced them with a brand new set of side shooter LED pods

And here's the first LED pod installed

And here's a couple of side by sides of the old vs the new LED pods, I have had these sitting around for months and figured they would go in when I had to rewire everything anyway.

Another side by side, I like how these sit lower and are a bit lower profile than the last set.

And here is both pods installed, overall I love the look and I love how they offer a wider coverage of light which is one of the main reasons I bought them.

Another nice benefit of these pods was that they came with waterproof plug connectors, so I definitely wanted to use them.

And of course I had to test out my pods and wiring, this was ran just off the battery, but you can see the side shooting LEDs as well which cover way more of the side of the road.

While it was raining I also got the sPod out and mounted to the PowerTray and ready for install.

All that work was done on the third, I had hoped to work on the second and third, however with the heat index over 100 on the second I didn't do any work until the third. On the third I think I sweated through 3 shirts. GF took me out to dinner for my bday on the third, so I picked back up on the 4th, nice to have another day off. First task was to finish the wiring and splicing the 2 LED pod wires together.

In order to get the PowerTray installed and get all my wires routed correctly I had to remove the battery to have more room to work with.

I also had to remove the fuse box lid in order to get more room to bolt down the PowerTray. Here it is, first time inside the car. The nice thing about this solution is it's an alternative to drilling and mounting to the lid of the fuse box and a nice clean solution using the empty space where I had all the relays and wires.

I was able to get the PowerTray mounted and bolted in with all 3 bolts including the lower support leg

Since I had the fuse box uncovered I had to close the hood and wait out the rain storms again... You can see all the water on the hood cowling. I actually toweled off the hood and fenders before opening the hood in order to not drip water on the fuse box or engine bay.

After I got all the bolts tightened, which was not easy with my big ass hands, I started cutting and fishing all the wires through to the sPod unit. It was a lot of frustrating work up to this point, but then I started to see the benefit that I expected with the nice clean install and wire management. Here I fished the wires for the LED bar and LED pods up into the sPod, I had an extra 3 ft of slack or so on each wire that was then cut down.

I also will be using the 1 and 2 switches with the ignition control, so I cut my amber raptor light wire coming from the cabin and spliced it in for the ignition control. Here you can see the 2 LED wires all cut to length and installed to their switch positions, and the Cat5 cable installed as well.

And here's the unit all buttoned up for the time being. We had to go to my soon to be in-laws house for dinner so I had to wrap up for the night at this point.

When we got home, I cleaned up more wiring in the dash and reinstalled the battery. I didn't take any pics since it was dark and getting late, but I will post more pics once I get more things wrapped up. So close, but I'm already really happy with the progress. Looking forward to adding more accessories to this thing as well. It was a long hot 2 days, but I'm excited to have so much progress

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Got another little performance mod installed since I had the battery unhooked. I got a URD MAF Calibrator which helps recalibrate the MAF sensor for aftermarket intakes and exhausts.

I got the plug and play version which comes prewired for the MAF sensor and the spark plug coil

I finally found a good use for the engine cover divots, they hold my round LED pod perfectly

As for mounting, I went ahead and ziptied it the rear engine bay wire bundle.

The second wire plugs into the middle cylinder ignition coil, I had trouble finding it at first because this big ass emissions sensor is over top of the middle coil.

Here's a look where the wires are run, I had already unplugged the MAF sensor wire and ignition coil wire.

Here's a better look at the ignition coil wire

Here you can see that it's labeled and pre-tuned for my AFE Magnum GT Intake

And here's the wires all plugged in and tied down.

Better look at the tied up wires, I made it as clean as I possibly could. Overall impressions so far are very good, it seems to have smoothed out the idle and the shifts. I only took 2 short drives so far, so I'm excited to see how it drives this week.

And here's the other side of the engine bay all buttoned up and clean.

I'm really happy with the look of the PowerTray and the sPod. I had been trying to buy the smaller sPod unit for about 6 months, but it's been out of stock, the manufacturer couldn't tell me when it would even be back in stock, but I'm plenty happy with the larger sPod unit. I think it looks great and really cleans up the wires and mess.

Here's the engine bay all cleaned up with everything tied up and buttoned down. Looking clean and tidy!

More pics to come, I've been fighting the rain all day :whyme:

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Since I had the dash torn out and have been adding new mods like crazy, I figured why not another one? I picked up a ScanGauge to better track my MPG's and various metrics better with all the changes I've been making.

I got a 3D Printed mount made so it mounted very nicely.

Plug and play and fired right up, super simple mod.

Next up was mounting the HD switch panel. I initially went with some 3M double sided tape, will probably upgrade to some stronger tape down the road.

I had plans to build a custom bracket through the dash panel, however the screws that are on the back of the panel aren't long enough to reach through the switch tunnels.

The cat 5 cable was way longer than I needed so I tied that up back behind the dash and out of the way of the BCM and remote start units.

I ran the wire out of the switch ports, and ready for install.

And here's the switch pad all mounted up temporarily at least.

And here's my cabin upgrades together, looking nice and clean

So you know I had to fire this thing up and see how it works. These 2 buttons are wired for my light bar and LED pods, ironically the same positions I had as my stock switches.

And with the switches on, boom, let there be light! New light pods working

The LED bar also fired right up as well!

I still have some more work with the switch panel to do, but the rain kept starting up again so I had limited time. A while back, the guy who made these 3D printed amber lights came out with a version 2.0, and I bought them as soon as they became available. He had plastidipped the screws on the front black and I never was a big fan of the look. The 2.0 version have screws in the back and look way cleaner. Here's the old version 1.0 lights before I removed them, you can see the black finish on the screws is fading and peeling.

Here's a side by side of the old v1.0 on the left and new v2.0 version on the right, both with the smoked amber lights.

Something else I've wanted to do was add waterproof quick disconnects for when I need to remove the bumper, so I've had these laying around for a while to go with the new lights.

Here's the lights all soldered up and heat shrinked, ready to go. I used the male ends because they were small enough that I could slide the backing plate over the ends and screw them together.

I chopped up my wiring harness and soldered in the new female quick connect sockets. This will hopefully be the last time I have to modify this harness.

And here's the female ends all soldered in.

I wired these into the sPod, I didn't get any pictures because it was raining and I had to hurry up and get them crimped and screwed down without getting water on the circuit board. I wasn't able to get the ignition control working so these come on when the ignition is on yet, but that will come after some more research.

Overall though, I'm very happy with the sPod and all the additions and modifications I made this past week. The URD MAF calibrator also makes a very noticeable improvement in throttle response and shifting, I'm excited to drive this thing for a few days and see how it drives under various conditions.

 

[16RedRunner]

nice!!

 

[Compromised4Runner]

Got another big mod done last week, I got the AFE Momentum Intake and TB Spacer installed.

Hey [MENTION=51033]97BlackAckCL[/MENTION]

Wondering if you could do me a solid. Can you post a top-down pick of the area just above the afe intake box? See circled area.

I've got a thread here about how the S&B intake doesn't fit on a 2018 sr5 4x2. Need to determine if the Afe momentum GT will fit or not. Tiss my backup CAI.

Thanks

EDIT: Can't embed imgur links for some reason. Here is a link to the area I am talking about. this area here - Album on Imgur

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Lots of updates from this weekend, lots of detailing work, I'm sore AF, but it was so worth it. First was a quick and easy cleaning of the engine bay. For a 2 year old car it wasn't too dirty, but didn't meet the BlackAck standards. Also the salt stain on the hood liner had been driving me crazy for a while.

Here you can see how dirty it was getting.

So I did a degreaser engine cleaner foam and scrubbed the hoses and nooks and crannys

Here is the bay all sprayed down, including the cleaned hood liner

Here's everything dried and ready to be shiny

And here's the finished product, sorry for the glare but the sun was right overhead when I took these. Here's the clean hood

And here's the engine all dressed and shiny :toocool:

Looking good!

I also detailed the interior thoroughly. I had a shit ton of dog hair that needed sucked out, and the interior trim needed some love as well. Didn't take very good befores, but here's the floor mats

Washed

And treated with some trim shine

I also spent a lot of time cleaning out the area between the second and third row seats because it's a giant dog hair trap. I put this floor mat down to hopefully help trap some of the dog hair and make it easier to clean in the future.

I did all the interior glass to get rid of dog drool marks, and wiped down and protected all of the interior plastics. Here's a finished shot of the dash.

I also vacuumed and wiped down all the leather and added some protectant to the leather, it looks brand new

The fiancee was impressed that I did the rears of the seats as well, of course I did!

I did all the door trims and leather inserts as well.

Here's a shot of the rear all cleaned up

And here's a shot of the cabin all finished. I have some salt stains that I need to address further, some interior cloth cleaner didn't get it all, need to go after it with vinegar, but it was clean enough for the time being.

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Alright, onto the main part of my 4 day weekend... One issue that I had to deal with was that I ran over cement cutting water on the highway and it not only got all down the side rocker panels of the car, but it got all over the wheel wells and all over my side steps

It was all over the place.

Here's a before

After dealing with all the cement bs, I started with washing the wheels and tires.

This pic is for Colts, RUST! :whyme:

And here's the wheels and tires all clean and shiny. :yum: The tires needed some love, there was definite oxidation, I did 3 rounds of Adam's Tire Rubber Cleaner on each wheel to get them clean.m

Wheels all done, the Ack watching me from afar...

Here's a couple befores of the car washing. I hadn't taken these flag magnets off since I put them on last July 4th, so needless to say I was expecting some ghosting. The pollen under here was crazy! Even washing and clay baring did not remove the ghosting.

Definitely ugly, not as bad as I feared though.

And since I don't plan to reinstall the flag magnets, they found a new home on my tool box.

Here you can see some of the surface scratches that I was addressing

I did 2 pre-washes, this is the first round

This is after the 2nd prewash

This is after 3 washes, and a stripping of all the wax.

Here she is all dry

And here's a before in the garage.

Let the claying begin!

 

[97BlackAckCL]

I spent late into Sunday night claying the truck top to bottom. Monday it was time for paint work. Here's a before

And here's the side by side of the polish on the hood. It's amazing how much shine and metal the paint has.

Here's an after of where the American Flag magnets were, as you can see, there is no more ghosting.

Most of you remember that some ******* keyed the passenger side of my truck, befores are a few pages back. I spent a lot of time on the passenger side getting rid of those scratches

My arms loved all this work.

The hard work paid off, the key scratch is completely gone!

No more key scratch

Another issue was that someone hit and ran my rear bumper, the scratches were pretty deep.

I did my best, not perfect, but so much better and less noticeable now.

More pics to come

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Well after nearly a week of work, I finally wrapped up the paint work on my 4Runner last night. Wednesday night I rebuffed the hood and the last bit of key scratch on the rear passenger door that I didn't get out completely. Last Night I wiped the whole truck down with an alcohol solution to remove any compound oils.

Then it was time for my first attempt at ceramic coating.

I started with the rear hatch and roof, then moved to the side of the truck. The process is pretty straight forward but VERY time consuming. After each application you have to wait 2 minutes for the product to cure before buffing it off.

Here are some final pics of the finished product. I tried to get some reflection shots, but my lighting was bad and it was late so I did my best.

The circle is just the reflection of a metal cap on the wall, not on the paint

On Wednesday I also retreated the wheels with matte finish wheel sealant.

Here's my attempt at reflection shots, like I said not great but you can see how great the finish looks

 

[Jesse1983]

and here i came expecting retro updates...

 

[97BlackAckCL]

and here i came expecting retro updates...

lol, yeah sorry. The paint and detailing was the priority this past weekend. The retros are coming, just had to go on the back burner for a bit

 

[BigCountryT4R]

Beautiful work man. It is worth the outcome that is for sure. I actually ordered about $300 bucks worth of detailing stuff from adams polishes and chemical guys including Adams new Ceramic Paint protection kit and 3 stage paint swirl remover. I still have my porter cable from when I use to detail my Acuras, so it has been a while, but going to jump in and get it protected right!

Here was the kit I got.

Adam's Ceramic Paint Coating | 9H Ceramic Paint Coating Kit - Adam's Polishes

and the 3 stage kit

Adam's Polishes Complete Polish & Pad System 5.5" | Compound & Polish


Plus, Iron remover, strip wax, some more shampoo, and interior stuff from Chemical guys.

What ceramic did you get?

 

[sfall]

And here's a nice subtle $5 mod that I threw on, it helps with the black on blue theme and looks cool. A member posted these in the what did you do today thread. Doesn't serve much other purpose other than rust protection and appearance, but for 5 bucks wth

Where do I find these?

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Finally pulled her out into the sun to get some sun pics. The sun was going down so the lighting's not the best, but still came out OK. [MENTION=2839]Akkording[/MENTION] said the pics "looked photoshopped" which was a great compliment since they obviously aren't and are just straight up camera pics.

Reflection shot :biggrin2:

You can see the rock chips on the hood, but the paint looks amazing

That gloss is amazing!

No photoshop or filters