KMahl 07 V8 Limited Shadow Mica Build

[kmahl]

2007 Shadow Mica 4Runner Limited V8

Last Updated:
(6/19)

Tires & Wheels
35-12.5R17 STT PRO's
17x9 MB Wheels +18 Offset / 1.5 spacer in the front

Suspension/ Lift
Icon Extended Travel Coilover
.5" Spacer on top of strut
JBA UCA'S
Icon Overland 3" rear springs
1" Body Lift
Icon Long Travel Shocks
Sway bars removed
Alpine Design tacoma body mount relocation
Total Chaos Cam Gussetrs

Exterior
RCI Sliders
RCI Full Skids
Tinted windows, 25%
Lot of bumper and fender cuts
Coastal Offroad Rear bumper with custom swing
Tacoma Front Bumoer

Interior
Weathertech floor mats
Home made Drawer System
Sound deadened everythang
Pioneer 7" GPS unit
Polk 4 channel 800w driving 6.5" Type R's in each door
Audio Pipe 3000w driving 2 American Bass 8's that are stealth installed into drawer system.
Ultra Gauge Cluster
Dual Battery set up

Trails List

Colorado

• Rim Rocker Trail
• Argentine Pass
• McClennan Mountain
• Red Cone Pass
• Slaughterhouse Gulch
• Ophir Pass
• Imogene Pass
• Engineer Pass
• Cinnamon Pass
• Bill Moore Lake
• Red Elephant Hill
• Black Bear Pass
• Poughkeepsie Gulch
• Radical Hill
• Webster Pass
• Jenny Creek - Hydrolocked motor

Utah

• Hell's Revenge
• Top of the World
• Poison Spider Mesa - CV Axle
• Golden Spike
• Gold Bar Rim
• Kane Creek
• Steel Bender
• Elephant Hill
• Fins and Things

Photo cred to Aston Hansen, --> Page Not Found • Instagram
He takes some awesome photo's!

 

[kmahl]

Adventures

Argentine Pass
Late September

Picked this thing up late August. It's the new daily over my beat up 01 Cherokee that has death wobble.... but the stealer ship kept encouraging me to take it off road, so on with the A/T's and to the top of Argentine Pass we go! It gets us up I70 a lot quicker anyways.

Ouray - Rim Rocker Trail - Moab
Early October 2016
The whole "It's not going off road thing" didn't last to long. Sold the Jeep, and decided to see what this thing was made of!

Some video of us dorks on part of Hell's Revenge-
YouTube

Ophir Pass
Animas Forkes
Rim Rocker Trail
Top of the World
Hells Revenge

Moab!
Mid February 2017

Poison Spider -1.5 times

Here's a couple videos of me doing the
Watefall YouTube
Wedgie YouTube

Torroweap Overlook Grand Canyon - Vegas - Death Valley - Sequoia National Forrest - LA - San Fran - Moab - 4500 miles
April 11th- 23rd

Ouray - Moab and things in between

 

[kmahl]

Modifications

Its a hit or miss on what I actually took pictures of. I'll get better about it

When I first got her-
This was to replace the black Cherokee lingering in the back ground. It felt like a race car with this V8 coming from the trusty but under powered 4-0

First thing was installing a Nav unit, subs, and door speakers. Because that's what every 18 year old boy wants!
I was also still under impression that this thing was gonna go no where near a dirt road. The Cherokee was nonfunctional because of the abuse I was putting it through, and I couldn't break a car the bank owns 90% of. Also got a tint done as I had once owned a Suburban, but was stolen from my very drive way. Figured the tint was insurance on the audio equipment.


Wheels and Tires!
Spent weeks debating on what rim to get. Ended up with these MB's wrapped in 265/70 Duratracs. It's just for looks...


Installed Daystars Leveling kit
Wanted to level the ride out, believe it brought the front up 2" Here she is with slightly larger tires and level kit next to stock. Again, for looks...


"Toytec Ultimate 3" Lift"
I was tired of tinkering trying to fix the Cherokee death wobble. The runner was becoming the new camp mobile and after a couple trips to the mountains, really wanted the extra clearance so ditched the leveling kit and headed up to ToyTec and got a full suspension lift!


Sliders from RCI
The Cherokee was pretty straight when I got it, not the case any more. This thing was to pretty to slam down onto rocks and the girlfriend clipped a tree with the Jeep so I went with a set with kick outs. There also a local company out of Fort Collins. Headed on up after work finding the shop where they had left these on there door step as request for me to pick up, as I25 at 5PM they would be long gone before we got there. **After having them on for some time, they've definitely done there job. I've used the high lift on them to change tires, and slid through Moab with them. Best investment so far


33"s Baby!
Scored an awesome deal on these new Nitto Ridge Grappler tires. 285/70.


1" Body Lift
No exciting pictures for this. However the purpose of this is exciting because.....

35"s whhaaat?
The 33" were cool, but come on 35"s are cooler. I'm very indecisive. I broke even on the Nitto's so can't complain to much. Did it rub? TONS!4 Wheel parts had zero faith that these would even remotely fit. After pleading my case, they did a test fit. It was very tight. I had done a body mount chop prior, but no trimming as I only wanted to remove what was necessary. They called my bluff as they put the front driver on and it rubbed with the slightest turn of the wheel. After my "inspection" and reading over and over online about others making it fit, I said it's just plastic, lets get the other 3 on! I had to drive the vehicle out of the shop, as these things were rubbing something awful. I broke out the dykes in the parking lot and did my best to get clean cuts. I drove as straight as possible home, any turns in the road and I had other people turning heads to the awful noise of rubber meeting plastic. The fenders were hanging on partially popped off. Broke out the dremmel and grinding wheel and got it all squared away. This photo is me hiding in the Popeye's parking lot away from the store. I may of looked a fool as they probably heard me rubbing the whole 1/2 mile drive to the parking lot where i broke out the scissors to get home! I did a full write up of making these things fit. Here's a link to the thread- [url]http://www.toyota-4runner.org/4th-gen-t4rs/229832-**35s-4th-gen-fitment-guide**.html

Tepui Autana Tent
Craigslist strikes again and scored a deal on a RTT. Was quite a drive across the state to Junction, but I'm extremely happy. I mounted to directly to the factory rails. Wanted to keep it lower and didn't want to invest in some Thule bars that are gonna mount the factory rails anyways. This was also day 3 of having the 35's. I was very tempted being so close to Moab, and seeing all the princess Jeeps being trailered on 70 as Easter Jeep Safari is just beginning. I'll be there next week though!

Drawer System
Got tired of sh*t rollin around in the back

JBA UCA's & Icon Extended Travel Coilovers
The new control arms rub my tires, however according to JBA website they offer more travel then uniballs and are maintenance free as their still ball joints. The price was right, the red looks good, and their beefy.

Ultra Gauge
I got an Ultra Gauge for the holidays. I was able to have it show the correct speed at my speedo is off by 15-20%. I recently had my license suspended for having so too many speeding tickets. So I also set my Navi unit up to yell at me if I exceed the speed limit by more than 5MPH. The ultra gauge shows like 80 other things pretty cool gadget. Go Church!

Drilled and Slotted Rotors
Since I purchased the vehicle my rotors were warped and when I braked the front end would pulsate. It was extremely annoying so I finally addressed the problem. Brakes are smoooooth now! And they look pretty cool. Race-car runner!

RCI Full skid + Gas tank
Stripped and broke every possible bolt installing these. But I was long pass due and fortunate to make as long as I did with no real protection down under

Full Size Spare
Playing along with past due I finally picked up a spare that would have some use. I could only imagine limping around with the factory 30" tire. Im in the midst of renovating my drawer system so haven't found it's permanent home. I didn't realize how much real-estate a 35's would take up. Im not impressed with the tread life of the KO2's, and this STT Pro is super beefy. I'm down to 4/32nd tread on the KO2, not even a year old and about 15k on them. Not sure if it's because they are C range or what. I had two alignments done while having them on due to suspension changes...

Drawers 2.0

Body Mount Relocation
NEW KIT: Cab Mount Relocation Kits | Tacoma World
These made by Alpine Designs and are made for Tacomas. They fit pretty close on the 4Runner but I did have to fill a 1/8 gap to make it work. I just stacked a couple beads of weld and was good to go. I mounted it as high as I could and did not reuse the factory rubber bushings just the hard poly spacers. Im not sure if this is the way to go because I can now feel more vibrations come through the floor boards, also my steering feels much tighter. I replaced the bolts with 4.5" bolts over the 9" ones that I originally had

Rear Swing

 

[markymark191]

Looks great. I would have loved to see you driving back with the 35's and no trimming haha

 

[CrimsonCountry]

Nice job tucking those 35s! I'm leaning more and more towards a 1" BL myself. Love to run 35s at some point too but would rather have the V8 for that, at least w/out new gears.

Nice drawers too. Just about to tackle that project. Never spent so much time drooling over HD drawer slides [emoji7]

 

[kmahl]

Just installed new Icon coilers due to my toytecs blowing out. I am super impressed and would 100% recommend to spend the extra money and get these bad boys. The ride off-road is night and day difference. The only down fall to these things is it rides so smooth I can now drive faster on the trail.

Also heres a time lapse of me sealing up the body mounts

 

[TheFauxFox]

Just installed new Icon coilers due to my toytecs blowing out. I am super impressed and would 100% recommend to spend the extra money and get these bad boys. The ride off-road is night and day difference. The only down fall to these things is it rides so smooth I can now drive faster on the trail.

Also heres a time lapse of me sealing up the body mounts

Thought you had Icons in a previous post? What happened to those?

 

[kmahl]

Thought you had Icons in a previous post? What happened to those?

Nope, just got them this week. If you're referring to the post above, I've been editing it as time goes on.

 

[TheFauxFox]

JBA UCA's Icon Extended Travel Coilovers
the new control arms rub my tires

This was the post. Did you take the pic off the internet of the JBAs? Congrats on the Icons anyhow

 

[kmahl]

This was the post. Did you take the pic off the internet of the JBAs? Congrats on the Icons anyhow

Oh duh, I've been editing adding to the original post so it's all not interrupted by quotes... there awesome!

 

[Whammy]

Nice build Kevin! What area of town are you in?

 

[kmahl]

Nice build Kevin! What area of town are you in?

South Denver/ Littleton area

 

[Whammy]

South Denver/ Littleton area

Cool! Same here!

 

[kmahl]

This last weekend I managed to hydrolock my engine on Jenny Creek. The fender lining was missing and I sucked up a lot of water that was flicking up from my tires. I was towed home. The motor doesn't seem to be seized as I can crank crank it by hand, but the starter is not attempting to turn at all. Not sure why.

Tonight will be this T4R's first trip to the doctor, besides an alignment.

 

[kmahl]

Pulled apart the motor, found one of the rod's bent and possible bent crank shaft. New/used motor is on its way. Got the truck into a buddies shop and was able to get a lot of the underside bolts taken apart while I had access to a lift. Flat towed the truck to another buddies garage where the motor will be coming put completely today.

 

[JBFoster]

Nice Thread!!

 

[Whammy]

kmahl, your sig link needs to be updated.

 

[kmahl]

New motor will start going in this weekend!

Time to open and a Ace card, because ill probably be replacing ever bolt due to loss

 

[kmahl]

Well some how some way I actually pulled off yanking and replacing a modern engine! Took about two weeks of getting off of work and weekends to complete. Got the engine on Ebay from New York with 120k miles (40k less then mine). Changed the plugs, timing belt and all that good stuff while I had it on the hoist.

 

[HOJeepster]

Nice build. It seems like you occur a lot of trail damage though

Those Duratracs are not the best offroad tires - weak sidewalls for sure. I had the same thing happen to mine.

See you around CO.