Factoryride's Second Attempt Thread

[FactoryRide]

FACTORYRIDE’S 4RUNNER BUILD ​

I threw together a crappy build thread a while back, and never really went anywhere from there (didn’t really have a whole lot done at the time). So here goes my second attempt at making another one.

Most of the ideas from my build come from multiple members here. Haven’t been to too creative yet. So thanks to everyone!!

A little bit of background:

I have a 2011 4runner Trail Edition with KDSS and Nav. I placed the order on the truck back in April of 2011 and as I was walking out the door I was given a wait time of 6 months and possibly longer. While that sucked to hear from them I was willing to wait given that this was the truck I wanted.
I had test drove another TE identical to the one that I have now, and that was going to be the one I would buy. I had left and was going to get my finances situated to be able to put a payment down and take home with me. About 30 minutes after I had left, I got a call back from the dealership that they had sold it. This made me a little angry seeing that I had told them I was coming right back with money and was given a “we’ll hold it for ya” line. I looked around and couldn’t find any more TEs in the southeast region and felt that it was time to place my order for what I wanted.

Lucky me it showed up May 31st.

My goal for this build is to have with my truck. I came from a background of racing mountain bikes, and have very limited knowledge of it at the moment. I plan to learn as much as I can and do majority of the work myself.
Here it is the day after I brought it home.

I’m going to do my very best to put everything in order. I don’t have many write ups at the moment, but I’m working on those skills. Oh and by the way, this will be a slow and progressive build as things will always be changing. Limited budget while I’m in college is also going to slow the build down a little bit.

 

[FactoryRide]

Within the first week of having my 4runner, I already had some more money burning a hole in my pocket. So I started off with a few smaller-ish things.
I dropped of my truck with Solarworks here local to me to get some tint. I decided on Llumars Pinnacle series 15% on the front two windows and a strip of 5% across the front windshield as well. I was also getting a clear bra put on at the same time.

I also had my Weathertech floorliners for the front and rear show up that week.

I then started shopping around looking for something to mount lights to. At the time I was looking there was hardly anything available outside a full bumper or something like the Westin bulbar which I wasn’t a fan of it. That is when it seemed like Defiant come out of nowhere. I spoke to Paul a few times trying to get the light bar tab spacing figured out. I was really indecisive on what lights I wanted to do and that made it a little harder I reckon. I originally wanted to go with 2 Lightforce 240 Blitz’s and 2 LF 170 Strykers, but I decided that they would most likely be too big up front. I eventually decided on 4 Hella Rallye 1000 Black Magics, and they have been great.

A few months later I had a little more money burning a hole in pocket and decided it time to try and add a little more throat to the 4runner. After arguing back and forth with myself about a muffle I got settled on the Magnaflow 12586! When it arrived, I called up the local muffler shop to see if they could get it put on that day and was told that I could drop it off and they would try and get it on that day but no promises. Well, me being eager I decide to look around and find another shop that could do it. I found Johnson’s Muffler shop online and decided to give them a call. The guy told me to come on buy. I loaded up and left. Little did I know I was about to be going way back in the backwoods to have this muffler welded on.

The following week, my intake arrived. Installation was pretty quick and painless.

Before:

After:

 

[FactoryRide]

Next I decided to try my hand at tinting the taillights. I did this twice on the lights. The first time was wayyy to unacceptable

Before:

After:

Oh and I picked up a set of Shrockworks sliders while I was getting the taillights finished up. (No pictures of just them)

After I got the lights finished up and reinstalled, I decided I was going to be done for a while. That lasted for a day. I started looking around and figuring out what was going to be next. I really wanted to move up to 285s, so I ended up buying a Daystar spacer kit as a temporarily solution. I got it for a killer deal and free shipping from Auto Anything so I jumped on it.

I decided I wanted to save some money so I figured I would do the lift myself. I did my research and bookmarked a few threads here and gave it a go. My first attempt at putting the lift on was a no go. Everything was going smoothly until it was time to reassemble everything. I couldn’t get the sway bars to line back up. So seeing that I needed to be able to drive it the next day, I took everything off and went back to stock for the time being. Sway bars still a PITA to get back.

After a little more reading up on the KDSS system I found out that if you take all 4 wheels off the ground and let em droop it would take pressure off of the KDSS. That loosened it up just enough to be able work with me a little bit. While lining the sway bars back, I used a ratchet strap to pull the bar back to the LCA and the floor jack to lift it into place. I also got a pretty good sized punch to help line up the bolt and nut together.

Here it is. Still needed to get it aligned at the time

Then there was plasti-dip!! This stuff is amazing.

My next project was to get started on my stereo. I have had 2 Powerbass 3XL 12” subs, Prefab ported box, Power Acoustik 3000D amp, Power Acoustik 10 farad cap, and a cadence wiring kit. I didn’t really want to do 2 12s but I got a deal on the two and the box. I started to make my own box.

Once I got the box built, I decided I didn’t want to carpet it and that I wanted to bedliner it. After seeing how expensive a roll on kit was going to be, I picked up a couple of cans of Rustoleum Truck Bed coating and it did pretty well. I got everything wired up, and while it was LOUD, I quickly decided I wanted to be louder. I pulled out the box and got started wiring up the prefab box with both subs. To be honest, it was a little over the top. With both of those subs, and at about half power on the amp, its db range was around 145-150 which is ridiculous.

I played around with the subs a little bit, and looking around for what I thought sounded the best. Other than that, I didn’t do much for a while. That’s when I got to looking around for wheel spacers. I didn’t have the money for new tires at the time, and decided a set of spidertrax spacers were in order.

 

[1engineer]

Dude, when I was going to college I was married (28 years strong) and had a five year old Ford Escort 5 speed I drove 126 miles daily to school and back. I put 156,000 miles on that thing during 4 1/2 years of school. I put studs on the front during the winter to make it over Deepwater mountain 2X/day. You having a 4Runner and modding it WHILE STILL IN COLLEGE is way cool in my book! Keep up the great work!

 

[FactoryRide]

Dude, when I was going to college I was married (28 years strong) and had a five year old Ford Escort 5 speed I drove 126 miles daily to school and back. I put 156,000 miles on that thing during 4 1/2 years of school. I put studs on the front during the winter to make it over Deepwater mountain 2X/day. You having a 4Runner and modding it WHILE STILL IN COLLEGE is way cool in my book! Keep up the great work!

Thanks 1E! It's not way cool on my wallet, that's for sure. haha

 

[FactoryRide]

I started picking up some of my recovery gear and bought my tickets to the 2012 Southeast Overland Rally at Crawfords Campground in North Carolina.
While I was getting all of my recovery gear, I decided I would pick up a roll of matte black vinyl, and a felt edged squeegee. The first time I saw Harper7’s truck with the vinyl I knew then that I would attempt it eventually. It looked too good not to try it out. I found the vinyl to be a little more difficult than everyone else I guess. I ended up with some wrinkles, but I really like the cut down on the glare of the hood. I’ll eventually get it painted, but for now I’ll deal with the wrinkles.

The next thing was big for me. I had wanted tires ever since I got it, but couldn’t justify it with perfectly good tires already on it. I put 20,000 on the oem tires before I decided it was time to upgrade. The stock tires were probably had another 10-15k left on them, but I decided it was time. After tons and tons of research, I thought I had decided on Cooper ATPs. I had BFG A/T KOs on my previous truck, and while they were great, I wanted to try something new. When I walked out of the tire shop, I walked out having bought 4 Hankook Dynapro MTs in a 285/70/17. For the price I could get both those and the Coopers, I decided to go the more aggressive route and have been super happy ever since.

Here are some poser pictures

 

[FactoryRide]

Once I got my tires, I decided I wanted to do something different with the wheels. I had not decided on which wheels I wanted at the time so I decided to give the wheels some plasti-dip just like the logos.

And for some more poser pictures

With big tires came BIGG rub on my body mounts. I don’t think that the rub would have been as bad had I not have had spidertrax spacers. So I attempted to remedy it myself instead of paying to have it done. I attempted my first body mount chop. Instead of chopping it off all of the way, I decided to cut out a ¾” wedge and weld back.

This thread goes a little more in depth. http://www.toyota-4runner.org/5th-gen-t4rs/125003-body-mount-chop.html
Eventually I will go back and chop it down all the way to the body mounts to accommodate larger tires, but for now this works.

After that, I took a little bit a time off to wait for a few things to come in the mail. While waiting I went up to the Southeast Overland Rally to meet some new people, learn some new things, and to do a little bit of trail riding.

 

[FactoryRide]

I had a great time up at the Overland Rally and am looking forward to next year.

After I got back from the Overland Rally, I really started thinking about the rig. Trying to figure out the direction I wanted to go next with it. I really wanted to be able to be able to camp with it on a whim. Not have to go home and grab my gear. I started looking into storage solutions. Originally I started to think I wanted a more permanent solution, but after the rally I decided to change my mind and figure out something that would be easily removable and modular. So I keep thinking. I’ll come back to this later.

Back in July, I started speaking with RiDE here about a Gobi. Trying to get a few questions out about them, and decided what I wanted. I place my order with him for a Gobi Stealth modified to accommodate a Rigid SR40 (will be added eventually), and ladder. I’ll tell everyone the wait SUCKSS when you are impatient. I was told 8-10 weeks because of the mounting for the SR40. On week 10 it showed up. I was away at school and got sent a picture of it, and that was the worst thing they could do because I was already ready to get home and get it installed. Not like I could skip anyways, but to add to it I had a huge test that week and it made it difficult to study for haha.

All buttoned up

The rack is awesome! The quality of this rack makes it well worth the wait. Thanks again RiDE for selling these!!

Once I got my rack, MeBe4running decided he was going to be selling his Gobi to get another so I took the opportunity and bought his High-lift mounts off of him. Thanks Ollie!!

 

[FactoryRide]

Not a whole lot recently. The last three weeks have consisted of a huge Engineering Graphics 2 final project and studying for my other classes. Here are a few pictures from my last time out riding around up North Ga.

Got some more changes coming up very soon! Light bar and lights will be coming off tomorrow if weather permits, and some other things will be in the mail before too long.

 

[mikey's2010SR5]

I see the rack has mounts for the Rigid, so when is that coming?

Think the GOBI is next on my list, that is once I order my light bar so I can have the mounts welded on.

 

[FactoryRide]

I see the rack has mounts for the Rigid, so when is that coming?

Think the GOBI is next on my list, that is once I order my light bar so I can have the mounts welded on.

I'm not exactly sure when it'll happen. My list goes as following
1. Budbuilt hidden winch mount with Engo 10000s
2. Suspension (most likely Toytec Ultimate or Icon stage 1) with some kind of UCAs
3. Rigid SR40

These will hopefully all happen sometime by the end of the summer or so. The winch mount and winch should be getting ordered by the end of the year.

 

[Hellamatic]

Looking sharp! Any cooling issues with the lights blocking the grille?

 

[b_w.]

Nice looking truck! I just picked up my SR5 on the weekend. Research has begun and I know the bank account is going to hate me!

 

[RiDE]

Very nice! The truck looks awesome with the rack. Just wait till you get the Rigid up on there. Really happy to know you like the rack! I Love my Gobi Stealth!

Mikey-Better take advantage of this Gobi deal I have going right now. It ends January 1st. Right now the racks are $1289 shipped, with ladder and 1 more accessory. Price go up to $1500 with no accessories in January.

 

[FactoryRide]

Looking sharp! Any cooling issues with the lights blocking the grille?

Thanks man! No issue at all. That was something I made sure of right what I got it was to make sure it wasn't running hot. All is good.

Nice looking truck! I just picked up my SR5 on the weekend. Research has begun and I know the bank account is going to hate me!

Thanks man. Enjoy your rig! I love mine. My bank account knows how yours is about to feel haha. Have fun with it though.

 

[MeBe4running]

Nice Thread!

Now you'll have to change your avatar as it simply no longer applies!

 

[FactoryRide]

Now you'll have to change your avatar as it simply no longer applies!

Yeah I guess that picture is a little outdated. haha

 

[ladywolf]

whats up with the blue tape or whatever it was i saw in the last pic?

 

[Okki]

whats up with the blue tape or whatever it was i saw in the last pic?

+1???

 

[MeBe4running]

Yeah I guess that picture is a little outdated. haha

whoops... I meant your name here on the forum. Its ironic seeming its no longer "factory" :cowboy: