SOcalTrail's 2011 Trail Edition Beast Build Thread

SOcalTRAIL · May 21, 2012

SOcalTrail's 2011 Trail Edition Build Thread

September 2012 T4ROTM Winner - Thanks for all the support!

Here is my constantly evolving 2011 Toyota 4Runner Trail Edition build. Some was inspired by the work of others, the rest was my imagination combined with trial and error. Hope everyone enjoys this, if there are any questions, feel free to post on this thread.

Background:

Me:
I help run a small precision aerospace fabrication shop down here in San Diego so I have 15+ years with the company and experience with metal fab, machining, welding, forming, design etc. I'm lucky enough that I have full access to the shop whenever I need, makes it very handy for projects like this! This project started a week after I bought the truck and is still going... working on it on the weekends and after work.... lots of time involved.

My Rig:
She is a fully loaded mag grey 2011 Trail Edition, purchased on Aug 18, 2011. I saw it parked on a pedestal in the middle of the dealership parking lot when I was driving by one day. The coincidence was that I had the EXACT same truck on order with another dealership for over 2 months!! The dealership I bought the truck from just got it in that day, I as the first to look at it and snatched it up ASAP.

I have been so busy for the last few months that my original plan was to start off my build thread and add to it as I progressed. Once I got things rolling and got busy, I got behind and just decided to do it all at the end.

My goal:
Have fun!!!! That is all. To say that I have always loved 4Runners is an understatement. My dad had a 1st Gen T4R back when I was growing up and we had tons of fun in that truck. I had a couple Tacoma's but always sold em after a year or so simply because I just "wasn't feeling it".... the truck bed was used to haul surfboards and it seems like whenever you own a truck, you always get that call form friends and neighbors to help move ****...
the ultimate goal for this truck was to build something that was comfortable to drive every day, across country through any condition, and off road through any condition we might have here in North America. You will notice through the build that I swapped components and went a complete different direction a couple times. This was a result of running those products for a short time, seeing how they suited my needs and deciding that they were not what I was looking for.

I will do my best to outline all the details but if you have questions as to more specific details on a item, product or part, feel free to PM me!

Current modification list:

Lighting~~~
Full 5K LED interior Conversion (v-leds.com)
5K LED strip light for engine compartment lighting (v-leds.com)
5K LED strip lights for undercarriage rock lighting (v-leds.com)
Genuine Philips 4300K HID conversion kit for low beams
Genuine Philips HIR bulbs for hi beams
55Watt 3000K HID fog light conversion
30" Vision X Xmitter Prime Xtreme 5-Watt LED Light Bar - Rack Mounted
18" Vision X Xmitter Prime Xtreme 5-Watt LED Light Bar - Mounted Behind Grill
Two 6" Rigid SR Flood beam lights on rear of roof
Rigid Industries SR-Q2 "alley" lights mounted on Gobi rack near front.

Electrical~~~
Odyssey PC1200 auxiliary battery
IBS DBS Dual battery isolator / control
Full array of Contura switches
Independent fog light mod
Wired front 12v outlets to aux batt. for "always on usage"
Blue Sea fuse panel

Off Road Stuff~~~
Viair 450H Air compressor with 2.5 Gal. Air Tank
Air chuck outlets in engine compartment and below front bumper
Full Shrockworks Under carriage Armor
Bud Built Beefy Bump out sliders
Full recovery gear - ARB
Crescent Tool Kit
Gobi Stealth Rack
Hi-Lift Jack
Two Scepter MFC Fuel Cans
Two Scepter MWC Water Cans
285/70 17 Hankook Dynapro MT's (9/6/12)
Cobra 75 WX ST CB radio, 4' Roof mounted Firestick

Suspension~~~
Front
Total Chaos Stock Length Lower Control Arms
Total Chaos Stock Length Upper Control Arms
Chaos Weld on Spindle Gussets
Chaos Weld on Shock tower / a-arm gussets
Chaos weld on lower arm cam tab gussets
Chaos secondary shock hoop
Extended Length 2.5" Icon Vehicle Dynamics Reservoir Coil-overs
Secondary Icon 2-Tube bypass 2.5" reservoir shocks
Spidertrax 1.5" wheel spacers
Body Mount Chop

Rear
Full adjustable, 4130 Chromolly Linkage with FK Rod ends and poly bushings - .375" wall tube x 1" OD.
Total Chaos lower link reinforcements.
Replaced all rear suspension hardware with Grade 8 SAE 9/16" Bolts with Metal lock nuts.
Icon 2.5" reservoir 2-tube bypass shocks
Icon Air bump stops
OME 896 Rear 2" Lift springs
Spidertrax 1.5" wheel spacers

Interior and exterior custom stuff~~~
Did the "rear storage mod" (thanks!)
100 Square feet of Fat Mat Extreme through the entire truck minus headliner, double layered in the front doors and rear deck.
Front doors layered with acoustic sound deadening foam.
CDT Classic CL6 speakers in front doors, custom aluminum / ABS adapters
CDT Classic CL6 EX Speakers in Rear doors and rear hatch.
Acoustic foam through out rear in "dead spaces"
Full Husky Liner Floor Mats
Full window tint - 5% over all rear windows, 35% on front windows
Sunroof Tint - 5%
Fire Extinguisher
Condor TRT Rescue Tomahawk mounted in rear.
Custom Grill - top and bottom
Custom shorty antenna
Custom Gobi Stealth Tool Box
3M 1080 Vinyl (Matte Dark Grey) Hood Wrap
ARB Awning 2000 - Rack mounted with FourTreks Mounts (Page 25)
Custom Rear Bumper with Swing Out Tire Carrier and exterior 20MM Ammo Can Storage. (Page 25)
13 gallon Aux fuel cell, plumbed into OEM filler neck for fuel transfer.

***In the works***
Custom Snorkel

Now for the Pics: I will try and group em in sections, e.g.. suspension, interior, etc.

Lighting

All of the front lights on

55Watt Vision X HID's behind grill

V-Led's Strip LED mounted on hood for engine compartment lighting.

Mounting the 55Watt HID's - Custom Bracket

Engine Compartment strip LED

Gratuitous desert lighting shots

Interior 5K LED conversion

V-Leds Strip lights used for "rock" lights

6" Rigid SR series LED lights - custom mount for GOBI rack.

Continued in next post....

SOcalTRAIL · May 21, 2012

Rear Rigid SR lights, mounted on GOBI

Contura Switch panel - control for all aux. lights.

In order to fit the 6 switch Contura Panel, the support to the "knee airbags" had to be modified. When you pull off he panel, you will see the bracket which has two holes on top. I ended up using the sawzall to cut the bracket up near the bottom hole and about 6" down from there. For the new bracket, I sheared up a 1" wide strip of stainless and drilled a 1/4" hole in the top and added a slight bend to match up with the existing top hole on the bracket. I drilled the bottom bracket and match drilled my strap and the modification was done. This allowed me to fit all 6 switches nicely!

35Watt Philips Low Beams only

Low beams + HIR high beams

Low Beams + HIR Hi beams + Rigid LED Lights

Low, High, LEDs, + 55Watt HID Fogs

Low, High, LEDS, Fogs, + 6.7" 55Watt Vision X Euro Beam HID's

Rear shot - Two 6" rigid SR series flood beams

SOcalTRAIL · May 21, 2012

~~~Suspension~~~

I started off first with Fox 2.5" reservoir Coil-overs and King 2.5 reservoir adjustable rear shocks. It was a great setup until I reeeeally pushed my truck. I needed more!!!!! Needless to say, I went a liiiiitle over board....

I got the idea for the new setup after speaking with Jason Demello of Demello Off Road. He had this exact same setup on his last FJ cruiser and loved it. I initially wanted to go the long travel route since Total Chaos makes a +2" extended long travel kit that is pretty darned sweet. The only caveat with this kit is with the late model T4R's, you will not achieve the full suspension travel as advertised due to inner fender clearance issues. Because of this, I opted for the kit recommended by Mr. Demello. It consists of Total Chaos Upper and Lower Chromolly A-Arms, an extended travel Icon coil-over, and a secondary shock, in this case I chose Icons Omega bypass shock. It is a 2-tube design which allows an absolute extraordinary range of both compression and rebound adjustment. Before I installed the suspension, I removed the front KDSS sway bar....to all ye nay sayers, I have LESS body roll with the new suspension than I did before when I was running the fox coil-overs and KDSS sway bar. All of this is due to the fact that I can have multiple settings for the front suspension, I run the compression dialed up to about half of what is available for street use, 4 clicks more open (softer) for fast desert runs, and wide open for slow crawling. Its a fantastic kit, makes me smile every time the truck hits the dirt. I have about 9.8" of suspension travel up front to the bump stop, and about another .4" or so on full bump compression, so call it 10". Pretty impressive for a non-long travel kit with OEM length arms.

THe rear suspension went through a couple iterations as well. I started out at first with a really nice 2.5" King, compression adjustable shock and the stock coil spring. I liked the spring rate of the OEM shock so I machined a top hat for it out of 6061 Aluminum for a clean 1.5" lift to level the truck out and gain a bit of clearance. I ended up giving up the Kings in the rear because, although they were great shocks, the compression adjustment just didn't work all that great. I always had them set at wide open (soft), I had the option of re-valving them to a softer stack but found someone who wanted them, so I sold them. At this point, I went with the matching Icon 2.5" Omega 2-Tube reservoir bypass shocks and 2" lift Icon coils. This gave me just the right amount of lift and a great ride. To beef up the rest of the rear, I fabricated new rear links (upper, lower and pan hard bars) out of 1"x.375" wall 4130 DOM tubing, massive rod ends on the frame side and greasable poly bushings on the axel side. Total chase charges an arm and a leg for this exact set, needless to say, I built my own for muuuuuuch much cheaper!!! WhenI did the install on the rear links, I went ahead and swapped out all that OEM 14mm hardware to nice clean, tough and nails, Grade-8 9/16" hardware and all metal lock nuts. A nice, simple upgrade.

Old Setup - Front

Rear

New Setup

Gusseted Spindles

Shock Tower / Upper Arm Gussets

New Shocks

Beefy new Lower arms

Layed out the new rear links in a 2-D cad Program

New rear lower links

Shot of new rear links

SOcalTRAIL · May 21, 2012

~~~Trail Goodies~~~

Bud Built Beefy Bump Out Sliders

Painted with Rustoleum Truck Bed Spray - Awesome Stuff!!!

An Upskirt shot of the Shrockworks under carriage armor - Thanks for the group buy!!!!

Cobra 75 WX ST CB
I mounted the junction box under the center console and drilled a small hole for the handset cord to come though. I then screwed the handset mount to the front of the inside center console. Now the whole CB setup it completely out of the way and hidden when not in use. The antenna was mounted on top of the Gobi Stealth Rack. I used a 4" FireStick, the reception and transmission is excellent!

Always on switch for 12V outlets - switched to aux batt.

Making the aux. batt. tray

Finished battery tray

Odyssey PC 1200 finished mounted with 90 Amp circuit breaker

IBS DBS Controller with a panel of Contura Switches.

Wiring

Viair 450H Air Compressor

Original 1.5 Gal. Air tank - later upgraded to a 2.5 gallon

SOcalTRAIL · May 21, 2012

Last but not least - Here are just a few good pics of some recent trips off the beaten path....

Lake Havasu, AZ.

Ocotillo Wells, CA.

Valley of the Moon - San Diego

Another Ocotillo Wells trip

Diablo Dropoff - Ocotillo Wells, CA

Snowed on, local San Diego Mtns.

phillyd2 · May 21, 2012

Been looking forward to this thread! :banana:

Antman · May 21, 2012

That's it? Gees...:lmao:

Awesome stuff!

Quentin · May 21, 2012

Noice. Love it when someone takes a vehicle and makes it their own no spared expense.

ThirdToy · May 21, 2012

I'm in awe, well done! Looking forward to more pictures!! :trophy:

FactoryRide · May 21, 2012

Been waiting on this build thread for quite some time now...

Ride looks sweeeeeettttttt!!!! Love that suspension setup. Can't wait to see the rest.

RiDE · May 21, 2012

Finally! Such an awesome build!

brockeverly · May 21, 2012

What mount are you using for the HID's behind the grille? I know you have told me before, but I really want to grab one.

SOcalTRAIL · May 21, 2012

brockeverly said:
What mount are you using for the HID's behind the grille? I know you have told me before, but I really want to grab one.

There was nothing available commercially so I ended up making that one. It bolts on the the bumper and radiator core support cross bar, really stout. to fit those lights in there I had to "massage" the A/C lines and horn mounting locations to make room, it was kind of a pain. Talk about cramming 2 lbs of chit in a 1 lb bag.