5th Gen Build --> A Baja resilient daily driver

Hey all -

I have been wanting to catalog my 4Runner build and decided now is the time.

First off, the intent of this build is to make it as BAJA capable as possible while maintaining it as a daily driver. So mid-travel suspension, a couple of race radios, full storage to spend 2+ weeks in Baja with wife and 2 daughters, full tool set, the option to pack a small welder for races, stereo to enjoy the 24 hours driving back up the Peninsula, eventually a Starlink with a high powered pure sine inverter, and maybe a 12volt fridge.

I got my 4Runner paid off last month and intend to do some upgrades I have been putting off. I have had it for almost 6 years and have slowly added things to it over the years that I will try to update in detail with reviews later but quick recap of its current status:

• 285/70/17 KO2s
• P&P sliders and full skid plates
• Second Battery with isolator
• LFD Front hybrid bumper with WARN EVO 10s winch
• CaliRaised Ditch Lights
• CaliRaised 30" hidden LED bar
• 2 race radios (VHF)
• Westcott full-length roof rack
• 5100 shocks upfront
• Mid-travel rear suspension (Dobinsons) with ICON overland springs, panhard bar relocation w/ extended brake lines and extended sway bar links
• Homemade rear shelf

Future Upgrades planned (roughly in order)

• Stereo ~$3,000
• Upgrade front suspension ~$2,500 -- Dobinsons Shocks & JBA Control Arms
• 34" tires
• Regear and air locker rear & (maybe front?) ~$4,000
• Baja Designs 4" lights on roof rack, work/camp/rock lights off both sides of roof rack, rear chase light ~$5,000
• Rear bumper - Coast off-road? ~ $1,000
• ROAM cases for the roof rack ~ $1,000
• ARB tank with a mini hose reel ~ $300
• Pure Sine inverter ~$300
• Starlink capable (install mount and wire it)
• Garmin Tread XL Chase Edition ~$1,800
• Upgrade my rear shelf I built into a drawer system to better accommodate a fridge and welder

I just cleaned up my engine bay's wiring over the holidays. I added a MicTuning switch system for my already installed ARB compressor, Warn winch, ditch lights, light bar, rewired my 2nd battery iso switch, added a NOCO battery charger, a solenoid for my winch, ran wires from my batteries to the dash for a voltmeter (this does NOT fit in the 4Runner and I need to find a replacement) and added/upgraded my fuses to Blue Sea with Blue Sea terminal fuse block holders. I am very happy with how it all looks.

I already upgraded my front door speakers and my dash speakers.

My wants for the stereo are (in order) DMX8709s receiver, under-seat Kicker 11HS8 subwoofer (driver side), I'm going to start with rear door speakers, Infinity Kappa 63XF, then maybe upgrade those later to Infinity Kappa 603CF and move the 63XFs to the hatch.

Once I get everything installed, I want to power them with an AudioControl LC 6.1200 amp installed under the passenger seat

Channels 1/2 to the door speakers with the dash running off of the receiver.
Channels 3/4 to the rear door speakers
Channels 5/6 to the rear hatch or maybe bridged to another subwoofer

Some current questions/issues I am thinking over:

• Where to mount the pure sine inverter?
  They're the size of an amp and my plan is for the driver side to have a sub and passenger to have an amp. I'm thinking maybe in the rear, I can sneak one into the rear wheel well area, but not sure yet.
• Will my stereo be loud enough? <--mostly a joke, but I might add a secondary subwoofer system that I can easily unplug and remove for Baja trips but keep it in for my DD duties.
• Where to mount my mini hose reel? I was hoping I could sneak it into my engine bay, but I don't think it will fit, but a tank just might instead.
• Where to mount a fire extinguisher(s)? I might pull the trigger on a rear molle setup, this could also help with my mini hose reel situation.
• If I pack a welder, I'll need the ability to pack 2 small generators and a tank for C25. Perhaps after a rear bumper is installed, I might be able to also pack a bottle for compressed air for air tools and quicker tire fill-ups.

I'll take some pictures this weekend and update the thread. I'm really happy with how my engine bay turned out. My wife is getting tired of me staring at it and "thinking".

 

Sounds like you pretty much have it nailed, followed for pics.

 

Here’s some pictures of the engine bay.
A couple notes:

• Still need to remove the NOCO battery clips and hard wire with fuse to the battery on the main battery.
  
• It’s very dirty. I still haven’t washed it since I did 3,000 miles in Baja 2 months back. The inside is even worse with 2 toddlers.
  
• I forgot I wanted to add under hood lights: just bought 2 of these to try them out.
  $32 KC HiLiTES Cyclone V2 LED - Single Light - Clear Lens - 5W Flood Beam
  KC Hilites cyclone V2.
• I still have some work to cover some terminals on the battery.

 

Current as it sits. A ton of forward rake. I’m hoping to get 6-12 months more out of these tires and then I’ll upgrade the front suspension and put on 34s I think.

I’m currently thinking through how I want to wire my 2 antennas for the VHF radios. Might just make a couple tabs and mount to the roof rack. I bought a bunch of tnutz for the rack to mount containers.

 

A couple of random pictures. The top one is it loaded up 2 months back. I had the springs on but not new shocks. The ones I bought didn’t work so I had to run my 5100s on the rear and just take it easy so they didn’t extend too far. Also before I reworked the sway bar and panhard bar. I’m hoping to head down to San Felipe for the SCORE race in March fully loaded to see how it drives when heavy.

 

I have been doing a lot of misc electrical work over the last couple of weeks.

First off is I added a dash top multi mount from TacoGarage and mounted my VHF radio head to it.

 

Any best guess how much weight you had loaded on the WD rack? How did it handle it other than expected wind drag?

 

I also upgraded my stereo receiver. I already have the 3.5” tweeter upgrade and 110 watt RMS 6x9 speakers in the front. An amp is coming very soon. Even after the head unit upgrade, you can tell the 6x9s need a lot more help. I added sound deadening material to the rear driver side door and got a 6 3/4” speaker to fit with some homemade brackets.

Receiver: Kenwood DMX8709S
https://www.crutchfield.com/p_113DMX8709/Kenwood-DMX8709S.html

Rear door speakers: Pioneer TS-M650Pro 6-3/4"
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009MS7CP2?ie=UTF8

Desired AMP: Audio Control LC 4.800 w/o DSP or D.4.800 with DSP ($250 price difference)
https://www.crutchfield.com/p_161LC4800/AudioControl-LC-4-800.html
https://www.crutchfield.com/S-ko9Rkwit1Ns/p_161D4800/AudioControl-D-4-800.html

 

While I was spending countless hours wiring the under the hood, I kept thinking how much I wished I had lights mounted. So I did that too. Should have done these first in hindsight.
I bought KC Cyclone V2s and used a rivetnut gun to install inserts into the hood. Overkill but I’m happy with it.

 

I started to run some amp wire through my passenger firewall and ran new coax cables for the 2 VHF radios and mounted the base for the antennas. The PCI antennas come tomorrow.

I purchased 2 of these:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFFC2CBR?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
I mounted one front passenger side, with the coax going out the boot of the passenger side firewall because the OEM hole is filled with a 1/0 gauge wire for the amp and pure sine inverter.

The other is going out the driver-side tail light. I will send the wire under the carpet when I decide to add deadening material to the floor. Future project for sure.

Need pictures of the setup.


I also got my second NOCO connector hard wired. I cut the wires before the connector they provide to make a cleaner look and turns out there are 2 wires going from the device into the connector but NOT OUT of the connector and it is giving me a fault code. I contacted NOCO and they say it’s for a temperature sensor and they don’t have any advice for me. I tried wiring them together and didn’t solve the problem. I might try running them to the battery and see if it solves the fault codes on the NOCO.

 

Hard to estimate the weight but a good amount. Spare tire, 2 paddle boards, and 4 good sized bins, 1 was heavy. Took maximum effort to get it up. The other 3 were mostly packed with clothes or similar (toys for kids in Baja was one of them going down).
Wind resistance was very noticeable. Handling was tough to gauge because I had not reworked my pan hard bar in the rear yet.

 

Other things I have done:
I started to wire in some KC Cyclone V2s as rock lights. I got one wired up in the rear on the driver side. Found a great mounting spot and then went to the passenger side and the exhaust is in the way. So I'm stumped on that for now.

I also bought a RIGID scene flood light to mount to my roof rack for driver + passenger side light. I only mounted one so far to see how I like it. https://a.co/d/gtJc9E6

I bought weathertech mats for the vehicle. Should have done that BEFORE I bought the vehicle, oh well, better late than never.

(Need pictures)

Next up on my todo list:

• Program radios --> programming cable comes tomorrow
• I found an Iceco Fridge/Cooler on Craigslist, get it plugged in, and eventually a better mount in the rear.
  https://icecofreezer.com/products/vlpro60s-12v-refrigerator
  
• Mount more RIGID lights, 1 or 3 more, not sure yet.
• Add more KC Cyclone rock lights, 2-4 more
• Finish adding sound-deadening material on the other 3 doors and rear hatch
• Buy and install an amp and run speaker wires to all four doors. I think I'll buy some cheaper 6.5" speakers for the hatch and keep the stock wiring from the receiver to power them. They will be nice if we are ever tailgating somewhere.
• Once I get all the above dialed in, then I'll make a big purchase from Baja Designs and get some 4" lights on my rack. It's going to be a little pricey and probably overkill, but I don't want to buy some cheap lights. Buy once, cry once.

I'm planning to head out to King of Hammers this weekend to give everything a trial run. Probably won't use anything besides the radios and stereo, but soon enough.

 

I have been spending a lot of spare time working on the stereo. I thought an amp and wired it up today.

This is under the passenger seat. A positive and negative terminal block so I can have an aux power line for an inverter and make it easy to add a second amp. I have a 0 gauge OFC wire to the seat area from the main battery. About a 13’ stretch. And then 4 gauge from the block to the amp. I think I’ll add a second 0 gauge wire from the second battery and run 2 isolators if I add a second amp. This will allow me to pick what battery the amp(s) are being powered by.

I’m in the market for new speakers for the front doors and I need to sound deaden the doors. More stereo work to come.

I also mounted a rear shelf I purchased off another forum member here. Velox. Really strong and stout. I had to drill 6 holes to get it where I wanted but I’m pretty happy with it.

Lastly, I got a solar controller and mounted it under the hood with a solar panel up top. Solar panel is a work in progress. I was hoping to mount it underneath my roof rack so my roof rack was still usable, but it’s not working the way I’d like it too. Need to rework the idea.

Fridge slide comes Tuesday.

Camping in san Felipe for the race next weekend.

 

Did you regear? I didn't see it on your list.
Nice job.

 

No, started to talk the wife into it yesterday on our drive back from San Felipe though.

 

Upgraded my door speakers to Stereo Integrity 6.5”. They work a lot better than my previous 6x9s.

I still need to install SI 3.5 speakers in the dash and eventually mount the tweeters using pods on the a pillar for a full 3 way active stereo up front. When that is done, I’m going to buy a sub. Perhaps a kicker 12” through crutchfield. I found one that should fit behind my second row seats and in front of my tools boxes.

Stereo should really crank when I’m done.

I also bought 3 more rigid flood lights for my roof rack. Took the Runner down to San felipe last weekend to camp with the family for a race and everything is coming together well.

 

Stereo is 95% done. I have some other updates I can share elsewhere, but I'll start with the stereo upgrade. I'm about ~$3,000 all in (I saved about $1,300 buying 2 amps used and speakers BNIB off of DIYmobileaudio.com) I did all the work myself. I'm guessing 80-100 hours with all the killmat/noico, speaker wire runs, and install. Maybe more.

Components:
$665 - Kenwood DMX8709S w/ maestro to get factory controls
$600 (used) - Arc Audio PS8-50 AMP+DSP - ~ $1,200 new
$225 (used) - Rockford Fosgate AMP --> subwoofer - ~ $500 new
$460 (BNIB) - Stereo Integrity Speakers - ~ $880 new

TM65 Midbass
M25 Tweeter
M3 Carbon Midrange​

$315 - Kicker 12" subwoofer
$115 - Pioneer 6.75" speakers for rear doors (these are actually muted right now, probably don't need them)

Misc: kill mat/noico ($200), HDMI adapter cable for Kenwood ($60), power distribution blocks($65), RCA cable($15), speaker wire($30), tweeter pods from Valicar($100), custom speaker adapter from user on DIYmobileaudio.com ($45)

Years ago, I dropped in a couple of 6x9s into my front doors and did nothing else. It improved the stereo, but marginally. I also installed them haphazardly which led to them getting damaged over the years. I, recently, did the 3.5" coaxial upgrade found on this site. That was an upgrade I should have done first. This is when the audio bug bit me and I decided to go all in. I purchased the Kenwood with factory controls and that launched me headfirst into the project. I started to peruse DIYaudiomobile and found a deal on an amp that could power an active 3-way front stage. I then started to purchase speakers/drivers. Stereo integrity seems to have a good reputation at DIY and many users seem to purchase and then upgrade later, so finding all the speakers BNIB or slightly used took less than a week. Once everything started to arrive, I started to install the speakers. I was also lucky enough to find someone who had custom speaker brackets made for the TM65s and for a Toyota. I deadened my doors, I removed all the hatch components and deadened the rear of the vehicle and rear doors. I'm still waiting for my tweeter pods to show up, the person who makes them is in Europe. They are en route and I should have them by the end of the month. Right now my tweeters are just sitting on my dash. I have a little more work to do on my front doors, but as of right now, it sounds really good.

My review:
I'm very happy with it all. I still have some work to do on tuning and time delay of the speakers to get the active 3-way really humming. I think I will pay someone to help me tune it once I get my tweeter pods and finalize the installation. I was able to get both amps and power distribution blocks installed under my passenger seat. The kicker sub I bought was purchased solely because it would fit between my rear seat and the bins I keep in the cargo area. It fits perfectly.

Feel free to ask any questions or if you're local to San Diego, check it out in person. Besides the tweeters and the Kenwood receiver, it looks stock but sounds amazing.

Future upgrades:

• I'm going to keep my ears to the ground for a used ArcAudio Blackbird AMP/DSP. It is the exact same physical specs as the PS8-50 I have, but just sends out more power to the speakers.
• When I have a spare $1,500 cash lying around, I might upgrade to the JL stealthbox, but for now, the kicker sub is just fine.

 

My tires are down to their last 3-5,000 miles and we are taking a camping trip to Idaho in 3 weeks, so I decided it was time to upgrade my front suspension and fit 34" tires. I decided to go with Dobinsons Extended Travel MRR shocks with JBA UCAs. I bought 255/85/17 Mickey Thompson Tires and some Method wheels. I installed them on the front and I couldn't even get it out of the driveway before they started to rub on the body mounts. So I pulled it into the garage and went to work. I have been a little busy trying to get our house ready for a remodel and we went to the Indy 500 last weekend as well, but this should be all done by the weekend and I'll take it to get aligned next week and put some miles on it before we head up north for our camping trip.

I did a lot of searching around the internet and I struggled to find videos really breaking down how to install these longer shocks. I ended up disconnecting the lower arm and the tie rods which made it a lot easier.

Everything is mounted. Just need to go around all the bolts with lock tight and torque them to specs.

 

Did you by chance by Load Range E tires?
I also run a lot of Baja, have been to LaPaz and back chasing races. I have a prerunner Tacoma and an Urban Runner 4R i chase races with and i can tell you from experience, Load Range E tires is the best thing you can have on a light vehicle down there. Obviously you know what the roads are like, especially the 1 down below El Rosario. Hitting holes at speeds is hell on tires and knock on wood i have never had to put my spare on the ground running Load Range E tires. I see so many others having issues and replacing truck and trailer tires in the pits or on the side of the road, always double what you think you need, cause you're gonna need it down there. I run load range E truck tires on my trailers too, the trailer tires are too thin and not speed rated, a load range E truck tire is the best insurance down there on everything.
Nice runner
cool parts
nice build
Who do you chase for? Or are you just sight seeing during the races?

 

Yea, my KO2s were load E and so are the new ones. I agree with you, I'd rather pay the price at the pump to have the extra protection.

I drove Highway 1 from El Rosario to Bay of LA for the 1000 back in 2021. That road is SKINNY. I had my truck camper and my buddy was towing his racecar/prerunner in an enclosed trailer that was a little too wide at times. The trailer ended up hitting a pot hole on the side of the road, we lost 2 tires and bent a spindle on the trailer. Took us a full day to get the spindle fixed. Took it off and rewelded back on strai I also just drove Highway 3 from Ensenada to San Felipe 3 weeks back for NORRA 1000 and that road was HAMMERED. I saw at least 2 teams replacing tires on their trailers.

A little bit of chasing, racing, and spectating. I help out and race with some class 5 guys, Ben Swift, Zac Reish, and Mike Belk. I navigated the 2021 and 2023 Baja 1000 race. Did the start out of La Paz with Ben Swift in Mike Belks 5 car. That was an awesome experience. 3 years back we raced Ben Swift's car down there and used Zacs car as a prerunner.

Who do you chase after? Did you watch qualifying for the 500 yesterday?

 

Yep, the road is so narrow, and with the big WAY OVERLOADED 18 wheelers running it when their tires are barely hanging off the sides of the road they cause the asphalt to break off so you get those pot holes that are on the side edge of the road. After a few rains the dirt washes out from under them so you end up with hard edge pot hole that is 2ft deep and your trailer tires hit them and blow them out. Tell all of your friends with race trailers, do the work to lift them up a little higher and switch to 235/70-16 Load Range E General HT truck tires. I pull a 30ft enclosed and i am getting about 75,000 miles out of a set of these tires. I have never had a blow-out and i pull all across the country and hit the worst stuff imaginable. These tires are taller than your standard trailer tire, i had to lift my trailer about an inch and a half to keep from rubbing but its WELL worth it. These tires are practically indestructible i have only lost 1 before and it was to a railroad spike. Man you talk about a hell of a noise, it went thru the tire and started hitting the inner fender of the trailer and i thought i broke a dam axle. Thats the only time i have ever put a spare on the road, but my spare was also a General HT Load Range E truck tire too. My spread axle makes the tires scrub on tight turns, this is what wears the tires out, it just slowly eats the sidewalls up but otherwise this tire is practically the best tire ever for a trailer.

Yep, see comment above. EVERYONE runs trailer tires, not realizing trailer tires are only speed rated at about 65mph so when they are blasting down the highway at 75mph with the road temps in the 160degree range the tread is delaminating and eventually peels the tire apart. OR the trailer tires are such a thin tire with polyester sidewalls they blow out from the potholes. Load Range E truck tires on the trailer with steel belted sidewall is a life saver in Baja.

Yessir i watched as much as i could, i had a busy BUSY day at work yesterday, i caught up last night on IG what was going on, ole Toby Price sure is fast. Those Mason AWD trucks are no joke. I build race spec clutches for the UTV racers, ive worked with all the factory teams for years, also work on tons of the privateers stuff too. I am going to miss this years 500, i have so much going on here at the shop i cant make it down.

 

I still need to do the BMC on the passenger side to fit the tires. But I did get a solar panel and Starlink mounted to the top of my Yakima Skybox.

BMC, fit the tires, wire up 3 more light circuits and I think we’re ready for our Idaho trip on Tuesday.

 

Haha. No to the raptor lights, but I welcome and appreciate all ideas.

If you want to see ridiculous, you should come down to Baja for a SCORE race sometime. The amount of money being thrown around is insane.

 

https://score-raceinfo.com/

Baja 400
Sept 14

Baja 1000
Nov 15

San Felipe 250 is late March early April
Baja 500 is late May early June.

I try to go down for at least 2 of the 4.

San Felipe is my favorite race to spectate or whenever the race goes along the Pacific Ocean. This years 1000 is a loop race which makes spectating fun because you get 24 hours of race to follow.

Pick a race and I’ll do my best to go with you or at least give some pointers.

 

you'd be surprised at how many people go down for pre-run fun who don’t plan to race the course. Once the maps are released you get a whole wave of snowbirds coming down in practically box stock UTVs and pre-run the course for “funsies”
It’s cheap, you don’t gotta sign up, sign waivers, just download the course and start mapping out your utilities and stops and fuel and go make a trip with you and your buddies. You’d be surprised at how many absolutely breath taking sites you’ll see in Baja on the race course if you’re going slow and taking your time and not in a rush.

 

100% true. Even the racers prefer the prerun. The race is a job. Sometimes when you get out of the car you realize you were having fun.

Edit: I DO NOT ADVISE taking a non caged vehicle onto the course. Even during the prerun. Some dudes pre run the course 5-8 times and they get close to race speeds. They have a helicopter “lead” the way to make sure the course is clear and they do a speed run to check their notes.

 

this is very correct. I’ve seen these guys who bring box stock UTVs down they bought in the states to pre-run and I say
“What the crap are these old guys doing”
It’s been about ten years ago but it was a whole dam pack of RZR 900s all matching white limited edition with doors and bumpers and they were all piloted by like 70 year old men. As usual we saw them later and asked, it was some very wealthy guy from Memphis who decided on a bucket list splurge to buy a whole bunch of sxs and bring all his friends to the “race”. They were all just pre-running the course and having a good old time and supposedly staying to watch the race. Seen similar many times since then.
But yea, the serious dudes are pre-running practically at race pace and if you’re in the way in a turn you might get punted off the course. I’m on mobile now I can’t find it but I’ll try to find it later. The video from a MX riders helmet cam when Toby Price passed him during the race was jaw dropping. He had to have been doing about 130 and was less than 1000ft from a pretty hard right hander. He zoomed by the bike rider so fast it sounded like it scared him. Some of the top guys pre-run at or near race pace so things can get hairy for sure.

 

It’s a crazy place.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8F9kCuPgek/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Edit: these are “spec” trucks. 2wd and only 525 hp, TH400 trans.

 

I don’t really follow the Baja stuff at the moment, since there is a pre run…is a post run a thing for the guys who just wanna run it? They would seem safer eliminating the racers running practice.

 

the course is so hammered, it’s practically impassible in some places. Silt 3ft deep, hills so chewed up you’re not getting up them without winching. You gotta know lines and ways around, sometimes the course gets so blown out people start making detours and if you don’t know where you’re going or have an overhead drone or helo you may end up with a headache on your hands.
I’ve been thru it all, helped mark the course, done early pre-running, done day before the race pre-running, raced, and had to do recovery after the race. You’ll wanna do anything as early as possible, well before the race. Afterwards the roads are so hammered the braking bumps are so bad and the silt is so deep you’ll beat yourself to death and work yourself crazy just to make an easy loop on the course. The earlier you go the better. The more traffic the closer to race day the worse it gets.

Here is the video I was thinking about earlier. This was a moto racer likely at 75% race pace 60+ mph not realizing the trophy truck race leader was approaching fast and I mean FAST. You can tell it shook him, it would have done the same to me.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7z7qehyyUI/?igsh=MTBuZ2FqNDlmbmExag==