Caliraised bumber light bar on 2020 Offroad

Just bought a Caliraised lower bumper light bar with brackets from Empyre Offroad. In the instructional video, the person tells you to remove the two large "Air Deflectors" next to each headlight, and not to reinstall them. They have a substantial amount of plastic to them, and I keep thinking that they are there for a reason, I just don't know what that is.

Is anyone here knowledgeable about what these deflectors do for the truck, and how important they are?

Thanks.

 

just air flow management. You might have to trim those pieces. I used a pair of tin snips

 

Thanks for the reply. I figured they had something to do with airflow management, and didn't want to lose them altogether. Sounds like you have done this install already, or a similar one. You were able to trim yours to keep most of the deflectors intact?

 

yes, I have. You’re just going to trim a small section of it

 

+1, I just trimmed mine as well. Worked out down the line too, it gave me somewhere to mount the hid relay and switchback controllers when I had the BHLM done.

 

How do you like the light itself ? Ive had it in my cart a few times but just havent pulled the trigger....Good on you for not throwing those air deflectors away , hehe. I will definitely follow your lead on this part when i do it. @NEIPA27

 

Great, thanks for the help. I'll probably try to get the install done this weekend.

 

Thanks for the pic! That makes sense.

 

I haven't had a chance to play with it it yet, just look longingly at it sitting on my workbench every day when I get home. The lightbar it'self seems pretty solidly-built and of good quality. I hope it's as bright as I want it to be. I've read some hate on here about it, but most people seemed to have good things to say about the quality. I'll update after I get it installed and let you know.

 

Im sure it will be awesome ! Look forward to your "review" , hehe. I sure want one too

 

The light seems plenty bright to me. I don’t have anything to compare to, but it has good intensity and coverage.
I found a couple other photos of actually installing it and what I did on the air dams.

 

Great pics, thanks so much. Always helpful to have a starting place headed into a project. I'll take some pics when I do mine also.

 

Well it seems I won't be posting any review or pics of the install any time soon. Just went to do it, and discovered that they forgot to ship the wiring harness kit and relay with the light bar and brackets. Just emailed them about it, but it's Christmas eve, so who knows when I'll hear back. (sigh) so much for my project today.

 

from what i gather, the caliraised brackets are large enough to "take the place" of the radiator air baffles, you remove on install. i was leaning this way then, the wife surprised me, by buying me the diode dynamics bar, and brackets.

the DD kit, allows you to use the baffles, no trimming. i did buy the caliraised oem light bar switch, to finish the clean install. very happy with the install, kit, looks, and performance of the combo light patterns. was a great gift, and a great addition to the sport. Ski

 

Hit them up
On FB or IG they will respond faster

 

I

I went ahead with the install, despite the lack of a wire kit. Empyre Offroad got back to me in a timely fashion, and said they would contact Caliraised about it, since it shipped from them. Hopefully that gets sent out soon.

I was able to keep my air dams, and trimmed them using the pics that WyoRoadDog had posted, which saved me a lot of trial and error. I had a lot of trouble getting the lightbar itself down in there following the video on the Empyre Offroad sight. It tells you to install the bracket loosely first, then somehow weasel the light-bar down in there. It very conveniently does not show how they actually do it, you just have to guess. I tried if from the left side first, (as you are facing the front of the truck) then the right side, then back to the left side with no luck. It kept hitting the bracket. I found that if I removed the left bracket (or didn't install it first) then the light-bar easily drops down in there, and you can slide it over, then install the bracket.

Reaching through the tiny holes to tighten all those bolts is another big pain, and I found that removing the two visible screws and the clip for each headlight allowed me to flew the headlight assemblies out of the way just a couple inches, which helped get my arms down in there a little better. I suppose removing them altogether would have made it a lot easier, but I wasn't sure how to do that, and this was my very first mod, so I'm still learning. (unless you consider looking up the odometer/ignition sequence on a 2008 taco to disable the seat-belt alarm, which I suppose really isn't.)

 

looks good! See you went with the combo spot / flood. My dad (Tundra) and I (Tacoma) did also, it’s a good balance

 

I figured it was the best option to supplement the headlights for offloading in the swamp. I couldn't really find a good video or photos of the different options, because it's kind of difficult to document on camera I suppose. I was concerned that because of the way they are recessed back inside the grill, that the flood option wouldn't really reach it's full potential because of the wide angle. Do yours throw really good light?

 

I totally get what you mean.
mine does well with the flood but yes, a little issue (very small) with the recess part but just the nature of where it’s placed.
my dads (same bar) is a little better due to he has his mounted on his full face brush guard so no impediment of light.
pros and cons. It being recessed will have less wear with sun damage (not sure if you’ve seen light bars with prolonged sun damage, it can significantly decrease light output and patterns) so a long longevity of the bar. my dads it’s fine because he made a cover for his and it’s barn kept, 2 years old and has maybe 8k miles and that two 2500 mile trip to his hours in Colorado.

 

Well I finally got the wire-harness from caliraised yesterday, and installed it today. Install was a breeze, and I used an OEM switch instead of the one that came with it. The switch lights up nicely to tell you it's on, but isn't obnoxiously bright. Instead of cutting a hole in that big boot with all the wires running through it, I ran the wires through a small hole that had a little rubber plug in it just above that hole. I had already removed that plug anyway, to install a dual-band mobile radio system.

I was worried that it wouldn't be bright enough. Boy was I ever wrong about that. This thing is awesome. Granted this was taken at like 10 O'clock this morning, those are the high-beams for comparison. Can't wait till it gets dark.