Another 05 Tacoma Build (ProjectStormtrooper2.0)

As it sits of 11/19/2014





So im guessing your asking your self "why the 2.0?" Well, Im about to tell you.

So it all started when i was 15. My parents told me when i was 14 that if i memorized a book of the bible that they would buy me my first truck! so i got to memorizing I wanted a truck but i didn't want to pay for all the gas a full truck uses. I got to asking around and turns out that tacomas got anywhere from 16-20 mpg! That was what i liked to hear. I told my parents that i wanted to look at tacomas and they thought it was a good idea because they really liked toyotas. We started to look around and couldn't find exactly what i was looking for. I wanted a white tacoma with an extended bed because i wanted to fit my dirt bike in the back. I finally finished memorizing the book so we started looking. We went and looked at 2 trucks but they were a mess. One of them smelled like cigarette smoke and the other had rust all over it.

My birthday finally came. i had turned 16 and there was no tacoma sitting in the driveway. I went and took my test and passed (thank god) and then we "went out to eat." at least thats what my parents told me. we drove around and we passed a toyota dealer and i said "hey lets go look for a truck!" hey thought it was a good idea too so we went. we got to the dealer and i told him what i was looking of and he said to me "i think i have exactly what you are looking for." i followed him to the back and





Later i found out that it was set up! lol i was so happy. it only had 65k miles on it too!

It came with a camper top so the first thing i did was take it off and cleaned it up



We had some great times together the next few weeks

First time going to the track by myself



First time buying a new bike by myself



And a lot more good times!


So after putting a couple thousand miles on it, i started looking into what i could do to make it stand out a little more. i looked online and saw that there was some cool looking tacomas with blacked out badges, so i went to lowes and picked me up so good ole fashion plasti-dip. i did the badges and my grille and bumper and thought it turned out pretty good!






So a couple weeks later, i thought it could use a little more black on it so i picked up a couple more cans and did the wheels, gas cap, taillights and 3rd brake light (not a good idea at the time, i later realized that its a cop magnet)











So there it is. made my truck look pretty good for just a couple cans of plasti-dip! i mean, a high school kid like me can only do so much with the limited money supply.

So i drove around felling pretty good about what i did to my truck! wasn't planning on doing anything else to it but then it came time for some new tires. i started looking around and saw that tires can really transform a truck so i started saving. a couple months later i finally go enough for new tires but then i started looking at new tires and bigger rims.... so i started saving again! i was looking into 33" nitro trail graps with some fuel kranks. well i got to where i only had a couple hundred left to save and then this happened..





(hence the 2.0)

My pride and joy...gone..just like that i was just about to get some new shoes too! well, all my money went into fixing that. it took all summer to save up to fix it. i was following someone a little too close and she slammed on the brakes to turn. i guess she wasn't paying attention. she didn't even turn her blinkers on.. anyways i had 0% tread left on my tires so when i slammed on the brakes, my truck just skidded until it hit the back of her car.



I guess thats what she gets for driving a mazda

so 3 months later and its almost fixed!







then a couple days later and i finally get it back



every things just how it was except for the grille. i was deciding if i wanted to put it back on or leave it off so he just gave the grille to me and i kept it till i decided.

Just a cool pic of me and my truck on race day



So after i had it for a couple of weeks. i decided to save up again for tires, but first i needed to put a lift of for the wheels to fit. i picked up a 3" ready lift and put that bad boy on myself.















I think it turned out pretty good! wasn't that hard to do. i just invited a couple friends over to help and we got it on in a couple hours.

The next thing i decided to do was put the old grille back on. so i busted out the dremel and went to work! i scrapped all the old plasti-dip off and re did it.





That same day i decided to go a little out of my comfort zone and paint the headlight housing black! man, was this tough to do. i had to bake them in the oven, pry it open without breaking anything (this was the most nerve racking thing i have ever done) and paint the housing. then i had to put it all back together and reseal it all. (i didn't reseal it at first and i went to the car wash and next thing i know i have a puddle of water in my headlights. so i had to take it all apart and start over) this is the finished product at the end of the day



Well after this, i found out that i had just saved enough to get new tires and rims, so next thing i know, i end up ordering some 33x12.50 fuel mud grippers and 17x9 fuel Kranks











And the finished product

















The tires made such a big difference. i was so happy with the outcome. but tires wasn't enough...so i saved up enough money and i got @projecttacoma on Instagram (I'm sure you've heard of him if you have an instagram and follow a lot of builds) to make me some RETROFITS and COLOR SHIFT HALOS!!!! yeah baby!!

a couple of weeks later they came in. I didn't realize how how hard it was to install. @projecttacoma walked me through the whole thing though so it was all good. first thing i had to do was hook up all the harnesses. then i butt connected the inner hallo to the corner lights. then i hooked the halos up and ran them through my firewall so i could control the lights from inside. then i put the sensor in the pocket to the right of the steering wheel. I'm gonna show you a bunch of pictures of me troubleshooting everything and getting it all to work. then at the end will be the final product of the color shifts and retrofit.































































as you can see, i took the plasti-dip off the taillights and 3rd brake light and put a couple coats of nightshade on. this stopped me from getting pulled over because they are transparent



Well that is all for now. i hope you liked my build! leave some feedback below please!

Future mods:
-Color shift 50" curved led bar
-Color matched white Road armor
-Hornblaster shocker
-Color shift underglow
-2 10" subs in the back
-Kenwood dash
-Color matched white bushwhacker fender flares
-2" spidertraxx wheel spacers
-Led bar in hood scoop
-rdb or fuel grille
-2 led pods in the fog lights

 

brooo, I like your style! Sick truck!