LED Hood Scoop Mod

Just sitting here and looking at your reps and you have so many for only 8 posts...LOL....and I like the way you're making us lick our chops just waiting for the wright up!!
dam you ......

 

Great. Thanks alot.

I was one of those geeks/loosers who installed led's in there scoop and got a strip torn off of by most members on these forums. Mind you mine was blue and had what I thought was decent light output.

You just made me pay $400.00 bucks to replace my blue led's with this bar. I do allot of night skiing and the output on this and the fact that it is functional is awsome.

I am still ticked at you. Next time do something like this sooner so you can save me from all the bad comments I received.

I will forgive you this time.

 

Sweet Led`s bud i didn`t think they would light up like that. Might add that on to the list now. thx

 

Awsome.... I want one....... Please provide the details of what to order and how to install....

Love the idea...

Over60

 

Kit Lives!

 

i like

 

go big or go home... get a big ass led light bar and mount it behind your lower grill

Ive thought about puttin one in an amber or yellow color down there ahaha.

 

so what you are saying is that to you, size matters? j/k

I actually like the idea of a smaller discrete unit, maybe even two about half the size of the OP's, one in either side of the upper grill. Lower valance might be two low to light anything up at a distance.

 

sweet

 

Rigid Industries SR 10” Specter LED offroad light installation inside 2011 Toyota Tacoma hood scoop



Richard Foote richard_foote@hotmail.com​

Original Idea
This all started when I was looking online at high powered LEDs. The light output of 10, and 20 watt LED is amazing. I thought that the light output would fantastic for offroad as well as for emergency flashes and other uses. I decided that I wanted to build my own device. I wanted to use micro controllers to allow for dimming and flashing and other features (think knight rider). The more I thought about the idea, the more I realized I just wanted a really bright and compact offroad light. Take dimming for example, when was the last time you wanted your offroad light to not be as bright as possible?




Prework
I started googling and came across a small handful of vendors. It looks like the 2 major players are VisionX and Rigid Industries. I don't endorse either product as I've only used the Rigid Industries SR part, so I can't compare to any other manufactures (that being said I very impressed with the SR part).
I started looking at these lights in 2010. At the time the only offering was the 'E' series lights (these are far too big to fit in my scoop). I saw a SEMA video on youtube that showed the upcoming SR parts. They were supposed to be available in 2011. I emailed the folks at Rigid Industries in early 2011 (Jan, or Feb I think) hoping to get more details. Mum was the word. They told me they'd be out soon, but couldn't give me any specs (I really wanted to know the size). I believe they finally came out in the April/May timeframe and the specs where impressive. 10” x1.5” @ 5100 lumens. From what I've read your stock head lights are around 1000 lumens each.
The next step was figuring out how to justify to myself why I would spend nearly $400 on a light. I thought about it for a few months and finally bit the bullet.
I ordered the light from Amazon (it's Amazon, then have everything!). It was $361 and included free shipping. http://www.amazon.com/RIGID-91061-L...W7RU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319780242&sr=8-1
Once ordered I have the next major obstacle. The switch.
I have a 2011 Tacoma TRD Sport. The major mechanical difference between the Sport and Offroad Tacoma is the Offroad model has a locking rear differential. Since I don't have the locking rear diff it means I have a blank where the switch should be conveniently next to my fog light switch.
The original thought was to buy an OEM fog light switch and wire it in. 2 problems there. These switches are made of gold @ $60 / each! And second, if someone else is driving my truck, I don't want them to accidentally use the “wrong” fog lights. In the end I picked up a switch from an electronics surplus store for $2. And it looks great!
When the light arrived, it came with everything you need to wire it. It came with an inline fuse, relay, switch, and more than enough wire to reach anywhere I needed to go (I probably cut off at least half the wiring during the install).


Installation
To be honest, this is the first real mod that I've ever done to my car. This made me a bit nervous taking a hacksaw to part of my car... Well, face your fears I guess.
Here is the installation procedure







Step 1
Remove the hood scoop – This is very easy to do, open the hood and you will see there are 5 10mm nuts and a small phillips screw in the center top. Remove all these, then close the hood. You should be able to lift out the entire scoop.




Step 2
Once the scoop is removed the wire screen and plastic back plate need to be removed from the scoop. This is held in by 3 pop rivets. Drill out the pop rivets and the wire screen and backplate will come out (slide these forward, not backward).


Step 3
The next step is to cut out the plastic back plate. This is pretty soft plastic. I first measured the with of the light and then I used a hacksaw blade (removed from the hacksaw) and cut it by hand leaving the bottom intact. I sanded it a bit with some 220 grit sand paper to get rid of any edges.




Step 4
Next is cutting out the screen. I used some basic wire cutters to clip around the circles. I was sure to leave the bottom intact as this adds rigidity to the plastic back plate. On the sides I left about an inch to inch and a half to bend in (don't want any bugs getting in my air intake ). The light sits slightly behind the plastic and the screen, so all that really matters is that all the light can get out. The cuts don't need to be exact (whew!).




Step 5
Put the scoop back together. This is pretty straight forward (assuming you have a pop rivet gun). The two top rivets I used 3/16 x 1/4” rivets, and the bottom was 5/32 x 1/4”. (the 3/16 rivets were a bit tight going through the plastic, but went with a little convincing). Now the only probably is the rivets are shiny silver on my dark gray truck. I taped up the scoop (all the painted areas) and sprayed it with some flat black spray paint for the screen and rivets.


Step 6
You'll need 2 1/4” x 6” bolts, 4 washers, and 6 nylon lock nuts.
Installing the light. The light comes with 2 sets of mounting brackets. There is a short set and a long set we'll use the long set. Place the bolts through the short side of the bracket and tighten up once of the nuts until tight. (Makes more sense in the photo Remove the nuts on both sides of the light and attach the long side of the long set of mounts with the short side of the bracket pointed toward then center of the light. Once attached point the brackets directly behind the light and tighten. Place another nut on each bolt and thread it about half way up the bolt.


I placed a little bit of canopy foam around the light to act as a small buffer between the hood and the light and with the hood scoop removed the light will slide into the cavity snuggly. The two bolts that are installed will slide back into a small bracket that already exists under the hood. Place a nut on the back.



Step 7
Reinstall the hood scoop and bolt it back in. Then use the nuts to adjust up against the scoop.
Your install is complete! Now wire it up!


Step 8
For the wiring I did it as simple as possible. I removed the switch and relay (my switch is rated for 16amp, a 60amp relay seemed like overkill).
I didn't take any photos of the dash removal, but here is what I followed: http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/technical-chat/1475-05-drl-daytime-running-lights-install-oem.html
Once the dash blank was removed I used a mill with half inch bit to drill out the hole and finished it up with a square file.


I pushed a piece of welding rod through the firewall boot next too the hood release cable tied the switch wires too it and pulled them through.
The positive line goes from the battery, to an inline fuse, to the switch and then back to the light. Ground is connected directly to the light.
The wiring is inside a plastic casing to protect it (casing came with the wiring with the light). I used 1”x1” self adhesive square and zip ties to route the wiring.
The wiring is routed along the hood.







Results
The results speak for themselves:

 

OP replace your fog's with the RI d2's now!!

 

project well done! i love me some brite lights!

 

Great write-up OP! +1 for you.

Fink

 

I am not trolling at all when I say this, but you say "Taylor" like he/she/it is somebody we should all know...like some almighty diety of the Toyota world. Who is this person?

If I'm the only one who doesn't know, feel free to add this post to the derp thread.

Fink
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pssst!! Taylor is the guy that is from Rigid Industries and is going to set us up with a group buy discount!!

 

yo fink see read this post...

 

tbk224 is a vendor on here for them lol

 

That's cool as hell. I dunno if it's $400 bucks cool through.

 

That's what I get for skimming. Damnit.

Taylor FTW!

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