Thanks gents

 

So the amp on the right side of the pic had to be returned because it was not new in box as was advertised, so the audio is on hold for the moment. I have another 4 channel I could use, but I'd really rather have all the parts together when I do the install. Plus I had to order a backup camera which should be here by the end of the week. More updates to follow soon

 

Finally got the last pieces for my audio upgrade situated, looking like memorial day weekend is going to be a busy one

 

 

So I have been itching to start working on the 4Runner, but won't be doing the audio install until next weekend (memorial day weekend) so I did a couple of small things in the mean time. I got a weathertech digital fit trunk liner to match the digital fit floor mats that I already have. I also installed my Morimoto HID kit from theretrofitsource. It's very high quality and I'm glad that I paid the extra money for it. The install took about 2 hrs, because I took my time, and also ran all the wires so that they were not visible or sticking out.

Here's a pic of the kit,


Here's a pic of the relay harness that I ran


Here's a before pic of the stock h11 headlight bulbs


On the driver's side I removed the battery in order to wire everything and to have room to mount the ballast.


On the passenger side I had a lot more room so mounting everything was a lot easier.


Here is an after shot of the HID's, I went with 4300K which is stock color, so far I'm very impressed.


Cheers

 

Nice dude! Pics of the cut off tonight?

 

Sure, I can try and grab you a pic of the cutoff, I'm hoping that it looks as good as the stock cutoff looked.

On the agenda for tonight, remove the Hydrocarbon filter from the intake, oil and install my K&N drop in that I cleaned over the weekend, install a new cabin filter, and possibly switch out cigarette lighter assemblies with the new double plug version that I bought from Toyota. (May wait on this one until next weekend when I rip out the console)

 

Great work

 

Cut off is an easy thing to fix. Look up "cereal box spacers" on TRS or HIDPlanet. When I did my retrofit I played with mine quite a bit and was actual able to get them so sharp its somewhat of a burden...everything above the cut off is pitch black.

I think I used 4 spacers.

 

Thanks, I know plenty about cut off as I did a retrofit years ago. This is just using HID's in the stock projectors. I have been debating on doing a retrofit with the extra set of d2s projectors that I have, just did this to tide me over

 

Congrats on the car, looks very nice and clean. I'm starting to get suv jealousy.

My poor lab doesn't like bucket seats in a lowered sports sedan. I was looking at some 4 runners but they're outta my price range for a 3rd vehicle.

Seeing your thread though makes me want to start looking again though, sh%t.

 

That was a Hi-Lux, which is way better than a Tacoma actually

 

And the modding has started Can't wait to see the audio install.

 

Holy shit, long time no see Bill, how's the second Beamer treating you?

Yeah, continued last night. I removed the Hydrocarbon filter, god that thing is restrictive on airflow, and oiled and installed my K&N filter. It's amazing how much more response I get just letting her breathe, and I didn't even reset the ECU

 

It's running solid and the fact I still have it and someone hasn't smashed into me yet, so thats good. (I typed that as I knock on wood, holding a lucky rabbit foot, with a horseshoe around my neck, picking a four leaf clover and used my birthday wish that I've been saving)

You still in Pittsburgh?

 

yes sir

 

Last night I gave the 4Runner her first oil change since I bought her. Drained the crappy dealership oil and put in Mobil 1 Synthetic. This is all she will ever be fed as long as I own her.

Hapa, here's a pic of the cutoff. Not bad for stock non-hid projectors


I finally got to drive her at night and I couldn't believe the output of these HID's. They're damn comparable to my TSX d2s projectors in my ack. I turned my foglights off, and could still see the whole freaking road.

 

Damn, the stock cutoff is better than the cutoff on my MS3 with oem HIDs

I really like that style 4Runner. Thinking of getting one if I move out to the coast.

Hows the power on the V6? I've driven my dads modded prerunner a few times, but I'm sure its lighter. I just can't seen to justify the V8 unless I tow something.

 

Yeah I was pretty surprised with how clean the cutoff was, it's not perfect, but I'm definitely not in a hurry to do any kind of retrofit any more.

The V6 has some good power man, it only has like 10 hp less than the V8 motor. It has a lot less torque and towing ability but I never tow anything anyway. Just removing the HCF and adding the K&N really made it more responsive and what I was used to with my last V6. The other great thing about the V6 is it's very good on gas

 

Nice Cutoff! HID retrofit was one of the first mods performed on my '06. The V6 is not bad for power/performance. It won't outrun my TL SH-AWD, but it will go places the TL never sees.

Just passed 100K Miles. And at that mileage, still got 20.3 MPG Hwy, which is pretty good for a 4400 lb Body on Frame Truck. And, always changed the oil at 5K with Mobil 1. I should get another 100K out of her.

 

Here's what I have in store for this weekend


Started last night by removing the stock sub, amp and wiring from the stock enclosure that I picked up off of ebay. This is going to be a hellish project with lots and lots of labor, but I expect great things in the end.

Here's the stock enclosure, my last truck had this setup, this one did not come with it stock, so I will be doing a lot of modification to get this to work, but I wanted to keep it as stealthy and stock as possible.


Here's a comparison of the JL 8w3 compared to the stock JBL sub




Test fit, the box definitely needs modified to fit the larger magnet and height, I was expecting this, but wanted to do a test fit just for the hell of it


Here's the stock box that I'm working with before I start modifications


And here's my next project, I will be grinding down and removing all the braces and fins in here to make room for the JL


Will be starting on that tonight, expect more pics soon

 

I gotta admit, I think I'm going to stop reading this thread. You make me feel soooo damn lazy, haha.

I'll sometimes have like 7 five hour energy bottles in my car for a month till I get up the energy to take them all to the garbage.

Good work bud, those headlights look glorious.

 

Looking good! I love TRS' stuff. Have a retrofit in my FJ and it's one of the best upgrades I've done. Good luck with the audio install this weekend!!

 

Thanks man, you aint seen nothing yet, just wait till this weekend, I'll be posting tons of pics

Thank you sir

 

Wow, the cutoff looks great using stock projectors!

 

Been a very long hot 24 hrs. Here is the progress so far.

Removed the stock head unit




Got the bazillion wires on the 4 wiring harnesses and steering wheel controls all wired and soldered.





Broke out some 4 year bottle fermented Hop Wallop


And time to tame the wire monster


Tons of wires tucked back in the dash, ran 3 sets of amp RCA's, a backup camera RCA, hooked up the steering wheel control interface and an auxiliary input for my phone.


JVC Navi Touchscreen using stock brackets and metra trim pieces


Tested everything with the stock speaker wires and the Alpine Type S speakers for now.

Ran all the RCA's and backup camera wires down the passenger side


Since I had the whole dash apart I threw in the new cabin filter that I ordered a few weeks ago

 

Finished trimming and grinding down the JBL stock sub box to fit the big ass magnet of the 8w3.


The point on the end was my biggest enemy


Used the stock rubber grommet to run wires to the 2 voice coils on the JL


Made some modifications to the JBL emblem, changed it to say JL


Had to reverse the seal in order to get a good even seal all the way around the box, and then screwed that bitch down


First mounting attempt of the amp, was trying to match the stock setup but the amp is significantly larger than the stock JBL amp


Not sure if we're gonna leave the amp this way or flip it upside down to fit better. Going to have to trim some metal on the body to sit flush, but we picked up some 90 deg RCA plugs just in case




Then it was on to running the power wire for the amps,


I ran it down the driver's side, but the sub and amps will be on the passenger side, so have to stealthfully cross the middle of the truck
Ran it under the fold down back seats


Had to rip the whole back out, but this is where we ran under the seats


Rear panels removed, this shows what we're going to have to cut out to fit the stock sub box since the JBL system uses a separate panel that costs $400 by itself


Test fit of the stock JL box, there is a small clearance issue with the amp and the body panels that needs addressed


Also swapped out the stock ashtray/cig lighter for a toyota "smoker's ashtray" that has 2 cig lighter plugs.


That's the progress so far for the first 24 hours, taking a short break and then going to cut metal body panel

Will post back with more pics soon

 

Alright, so the fitment issue with the amp turned out to be bigger than I thought, ended up having to cut a significant amount of body panel in order to get the amp to sit flush. Here you can see the RCA side not sitting flat because the back is hitting the back panel hanging behind it


Here's the area that I'm working in trying to mount all this stuff that doesn't belong there


The dark gray bar with the clip and screw holes is what the amp is hitting


Dremel with metal cutting wheel


So the initial measurement was just the 2 sections outlined in red sharpie. It turned out after I cut these, that I had to cut the entire section between the 2 red lines in order to get the amp to sit down in.


Here's after the first cut


Better but still not there


Here you can see what all I cut to get the heat sync to sit in there


Once I got the amp to sit in there flush, I switched to something easy and put the fuse and battery wire all together for the amps.


More updates to come soon, going to have to cut the crap out of this panel next and wire up the JL amp.


Probably going to do all the rest of this work tonight, and start on the door speakers, highs amp, and fishing new wires through the doors tomorrow.

 

This is a great build thread. Between the 5.0s and your 4R I want to add two more cars to my stable lol.

 

Damn ack, those stock projectors with the HID bulbs look great. I'm really liking the cutoff. Can't wait for the audio upgrade also.

 

Got the JL amp all wired up and working, the JL 8w3 sounds awesome, definitely way more punch than I expected. Also ran the remote gain knob up to the center console.


Here's another before pic of the rear panel, Toyota wants $400 for the panels that come with the JBL system, and I just couldn't bring myself to shell out that much money for plastic trim, so I had to do some modifications


I had to remove the entire pocket overhang so the amp and sub box would clear, here's a pic of what was removed, next to the pocket that used to be where the sub and amp are sitting


Here's the panel fit on top of the sub and amp that was cut into the metal body paneling


Next up was the door that covered the storage pocket, this also had to be modified to allow the sub to move air. I bought a generic 8" speaker grille and cut out a hole for the air to move through, here's the mock up


Dremel got a real work out during all this


Here's the frisbee that we cut out


We were a little high with our cut, but we were trying to line up with the waves in the plastic in order to mount it and screw it down flush.


And here's the speaker grille all installed


Here's the interior all put back together, I recently picked up a weathertech digital fit rear trunk liner to match my digital fit floor liners


Here's another pic of the mat


Here's a pic of the head unit up and functioning, this thing is awesome, it has GPS/Navi powered by google maps, bluetooth music input and bluetooth phone support with microphone, Ipod interface, 2 auxilary inputs, HD radio, Dolby digital surround sound, and a removable face plate.

 

Right now I'm running my Alpine Type S's off of the stock wiring, it actually sounds really good with the new head unit. It turns out that the 4 channel highs amp that I bought is too big and won't fit under the rear panel or passenger seat, so I am looking at getting a smaller profile amp to mount somewhere hidden, since I'm trying to do everything stealth. So for now I'm gonna hold off on installing the MB Quart front and rear components and fishing speaker wires in the doors until I can pick up a different amp. For now I am very happy with the system and it will tide me over until I can install the new speakers and highs amp. I also want to do some more work on the speaker grille panel. I am thinking about cutting the grille completely into the panel and fiberglassing it into place so that it's 1 piece and won't rattle. Either way, it was a very long 48 hrs and I am very sore and tired, but very pleased with the results.

 

Wow! Impressive work!

 

It was unpainted like the Xterra so you wouldn't have to worry about branches and rocks scratching the body while you wheel. However after one year they wisened up and realized 99% of people use these as mallcrawlers so they painted it.

 

Eeeeehhhhh. I sat on my butt all Memorial Weekend relaxing. Haha Great job!

 

Always like following audio builds... also curious, what kind of MPG are you getting in your 4Runner?

 

 

Great work.

 

Thank you sir

the unpainted bumpers and fenders were nice the few times I went offroading on trails, but I much prefer the painted bumpers myself

I'm jealous, thanks

I get about 18-20 city and 25-28 highway



Thanks man

 

Ordered a new low profile 4 channel amp, once it gets here, round 2