Casper's Broken Down old Grumpy Assed Build

Lighting:
I'm not much on all the interior lights and stuff, nothing wrong with it just not me. I decided I needed at least some additional exterior lighting for when the opportunity arises off road and when entering and exiting my hunting property in the dark. I decided on a set of ditch lights and a set of flush mount pods for the rear bumper. I figured the ditch lights would function well for finding deer on the side of the road, alternative off road lighting, and helping me see the way into hunting. The bumper lights, jokingly, for shinning people who bright lite me but really to illuminate my trailer for loading and unloading the 4wlr in the dark. So for Christmas I got a set of flush mount Nilights for the bumper with a harness, a Rago Fab ditch light brackets and eurolife 18w flood pods for the ditch brackets with a harness.
So, now the fun begins. I cut the holes in the rear bumper which you need to be careful about as the bracing really only leaves you 1 option per side and mounted the lights. I installed the harness in the engine bay on a relay bracket I made and extended the wires to the rear. I installed the Rago brackets, a well made product that bolts to your fender instead of the hood which I liked. The pods were mounted and the harness run and hooked up.
One of the most puzzling things to me was figuring out just where to breach the firewall but I finally found a spot behind the master cyinder. The wires were run into the cab and hooked up to CH4x4 small Toyota push switches mounted in the console below the heater controls.
Thanks to TW here a couple of weeks ago I found the Caliraised thread and discovered their new side projecting ditch lights. I looked in to these as I already had ditch lights but the way these are designed they orient forward facing and also provide side lighting so I figured these would provide additional forward lighting instead of buying an aditional light bar and I'd still have the ditch lighting bennifit. So they were ordered along with a harness.
I moved my current ditch light pods to the front bumper with the addition of Laminex amber films to be used as fog lights along with relocating their harness with them. The Caliraised lights were mounted to the ditch brackets and the new harness run and hooked up. I have to say these lights and harness are wonderful quality. They function as advertised and provide extremely bright lighting to the front with 18w worth of spot lighting to the front and 9w of flood lighting to the sides. The harness is made extremely well and is essentially a plug and play system with the addition of another CH4x4 switch. Neat, clean, and a factory appearance.
The following pictures will show the different lighting in it's funtional positions and finally a few to show the bennifit of the Caliraised pods in front.


Original ditch lights



Relay bracket in engine bay



Caliraised lights



CH4x4 switches



parking lights


parking lights with amber led pods


low beams with fogs


Highbeams


All lights with Caliraised pods the pictures really don't do them justice as to their brightness. In the second picture I'm standing bac by the bed and you can see how far out to the dide they project.



All in all it's pretty simple yet functional which has been my goal with this truck all along. Have a wonderful day!

 

Sweet lights man. I love the new side projecting pods that the big companies are coming out with.

 

Thanks they give you alot of frontal light and really good side lighting

 

Glad you like them! If you could post some pictures in our thread about them it would be very much appriated, let me know if you need anything else!

 

Thanks! sure

 

Looks awesome. Job done!

 

Thanks, 3 stupid days with 1 hand hardest part was the damn zip ties.

 

Ah, yeah I don't envy that. But worth it in the end.

I installed my 7.5" on Saturday. By itself, the output is OK, but nothing to write home about in my opinion. Where it works well, is after the pic below, I aimed the pods out more and used the 7.5" to fill the gap for light output. I'm happy with the outcome with that combo. Don't have any output shots currently, but I can snag them if you want

 

Shoot that looks good as bright as these things are I'm almost suprised you need anymore light but you wheel way more than I do and in a different environment as well. I guess mine being higher up may make a difference as well idk I'm going to see how they work in the woods before I decide if I need anymore I guess.

 

Thanks man

Eh, it's nice to have. Aside from wheeling, I like having them for hunting. For the most part they all have a purpose. Only ones left I need are the ambers. The work awesome when driving at dusk during bird hunting season.


For reference tho, I went full retard on the Taco with lights...so not unusual I suppose for me to run so many

 

Ha that'll light up your world! I moved the lights I'd had in the ditch position to my ront bumper and added the laminex amber film for fogs. SOS cuts round holes for the fogs so I may end uo cutting square and moving the lights more forward as they are recessed more than I like and I don't know that I'm getting the full bennifit out of them. I can then get some 1/8" Aluminum and box in behind them. They're bright but kinda hiding in the bumper

 

Chris
I know you told me once but where did you get the switches? are they a good fit?

 

I got mine from Amazon. They are CH4x4 "Toyota small push switches". Yes they fit and work great just splice them into your harness. They fit the spaces below the heater controls. I did use an add-a-fuse to tap into the parking light circuit so they illuminate when your lights are on. $20 also come with a pigtail and connector

 

thanks
i'll look them up

 

If you have Amazon prime you get free shipping also

 

Performance:
Hello everybody! I haven't made an entry here for a little bit as what I've covered so far has involved the bulk of the work thus far. I choose not to post about mods that there are already threads on here as that info is readily available.
We all know that the 2.7 is not a power house nor did I purchase it thinking it was or with the desire to do a bunch of things to it which could compromise it's dependability. With the addition of these heavy assed wheels and tires and the impending installation of suggested armor I decided to do some research just to see what coud be done with out tearing the engine apart or breaking the bank.
A supercharger and turbo are available, however, with both having pricetags in the $6k range I'm not going that route. So, with this being said mods are limited but there are a couple.
1st- I decided to tackle the intake side of things first. I think we all understand that an engine is a pump essentially so the more you can free up airflow both in and out the more efficient it should be and the more power it should create. Through a rt good bit of research I discovered that a "cold air intake" had almost no bennifits to this engine over stock. The stock intake is an actual cold air intake drawing it's air from the fenderwell as opposed to inside the engine compartment. I decided to leave that part as is and only change the filter situation. I have always used K&N drop in filters in my vehicles but after finding out just how subject the MAF is in these engines to contamination from an oiled filter I opted for the AFE PRO DRYS drop in filter. It's still a cleaneable filter that doesn't need to be replaced and still offers better airflow. While I had everything apart I decided to go ahead and tackle the removal of the secondary "charcoal" filter for emissions to lessen the restrictions even more. I found minimal bennifits through this. Perhaps, a little better throttle response but if your only doing the intake side with out helping the exhaust changes will be minimal anyway as the 2 work in concert with each other.

2nd- Intake being done it's time to tackle exhaust. My beautiful wife graced me with an LCE long tube header kit for Christmas this past year and the only thing left was finding the time. When the opportunity to install presented itself I laid out all the associated parts and completed the install, total time about 6 hours having to wrestle with 3 hard headed bolts. I'm not going into detail here as I will try to link the install video below. Top quality poduct, good instructions, and all parts needed were included.
Bennifits? Well I have no dyno so can only tell you what I have experienced. It seems to have deleeted any adverse effects of the added weight of the heavy wheels and tires on acceleration. I took a 4 hr trip to NC pre installation and noticed how much down shifting was done through the mtns. Post installation I made the same trip and returned with a whole bed load of solid walnut furniture. The truck handled the mtns much better and didn't need to down shift nearly as much. Regular driving it was also noticeable it accelerated much better making passing on the highway much easier. This isn't a cheap kit but I feel as I've recieved my moneys worth. SO, happy me!

Not many pictures for this, as, just not much to take pics of. These aren't the kinds of things that offer any visual impact.



Torn down and ready


Here yu can see the difference between factory header and the LCE:


LCE's Youtube video for those interested and they have others as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JVX3_dKqxI

 

FWIW, I had a K&N filter in my Tundra and never needed to clean it. No MAF problems either. I also have a K&N filter in Corolla Tuner. No problems there either.

 

I have 1 in my scion and it contaminated it. They were all about the same price so thought I'd try the dry 1 this time since it received so many recommendations

 

Slider fittment:
People keep asking just how should sliders fit? Really a lot of it is personal preference. It all kinda depends on what you'd like to do with your truck. If you just want looks and protection from grocery carts close to the rockers is fine. I have researched and asked advice of others with more experience @TacoFMS , and @CVYota among a few others. I have tried to make every aspect of this project functional. From the info I've gathered, whether strait or angled the outer edge of the outer tube should be even with the outside of the tires. This promotes and provides proper deflection of obstacles, additionally the kickout should protrude past the rear tire to actually push the tire away from obstacles. Whether you bolt on or weld on apparently the actual placement of the sliders is of the most importance. Do they really kinda stick out? Do you hit the back of your legs on them getting out? Yes and yes I personally prefer a little inconvenience to poor performance and lacking protection. I only have a couple of pics hopefully you'll get the idea.

 

A set of sliders is cheaper than fixing the rocker panel