Sedole's LX - Mod Log & Occasional Adventure Thread (1 Viewer)

[sedole]

After owning my 2011 LX for ~15 months I've finally accumulated enough content to make a hopefully semi-interesting start to a thread. Not calling this a "build" thread because this thing isn't going to hugely transform. Just a place to post my mods and musings and occasional adventures.

First an introduction: I come from the lowered car world originally, Mazdas in particular. Never a stance nation bro, always more of an OEM+ type of guy. What started as breaking parts/getting stuck trying to get into trailheads and having some rough times chasing storms to go ski with my lowered Mazda3 led to me getting my first 4x4. A 1991 Mitsubishi Montero that had been sitting for 12 years before I scooped it up for pennies. Fortunately I'm a somewhat handy--although occasionally lazy--guy so I was able to nurse her back to health and ended up with a pretty damn good looking and capable truck if I do say so myself. Sold that truck to step up to a more modern vehicle, a 2003 Montero for more comfort and capabilities on long road trips and adventures. Despite the Montero world having many very loyal followers, it has an overall lack of aftermarket support which led to a lot of the mods being done/fabricated by myself. And ultimately a lack of parts availability making it harder and harder to keep 20+ year old vehicles in tip top shape led me to my first Toyota, a 2011 4Runner. Loved the 4Runner and it took me to some neat places, but ultimately it felt too small for our family of 4 (2 humans and 2 GSDs) and lacked some of the charm/uniqueness I'd come to love about the Montero. This led to me picking up a side chick, another Montero. This time a 1989. It was a fun little thing while it lasted but the combo of 4Runner and Montero still wasn't doing it. I missed my 2003 Montero's size (though on paper the same as the 4Runner, internally much more room) but wanted more modern power and braking abilities. This led me to the 2011 LX I've got today. Something I feel I will be enjoying and hanging onto for many years.

The Mazdas:

The Monteros:

 

[sedole]

And just one of the 4Runner...we've all seen enough of those:

 

[sedole]

And now the star of the hour, the 2011 LX570 I bought with 118k miles:

Decent condition, history of a couple small accidents and some minor surface rust on the undercarriage, but otherwise problem free. My general plans for the rig will likely follow a similar formula as the gen 3 Montero: bigger tires, bumper, sliders, skids, moderate lift, exhaust, maybe a rear locker, aux lighting, and any number of small hidden mods to improve the comfort and usability.

First order of business was the atrocious factory cupholders... 3D printed ones to the resque. The shift knob and 3D printed tray forward of it came later but all I have is a current pic so here's all 3:

Also being that I got the truck in the winter and I ski just about every weekend, fixing the broken driver side seated heat STAT. I checked all the common areas including trying a known working ecu from a LS but ultimately what I found was that the wires on the back of the plug to the heating element in the seat back had actually all ripped loose where they were pinned in. Very odd problem to have, but I have helped at least 2 people on facebook who had the exact same issue. Nonetheless, very nice to have a hot rear end again. I also added some leftover seat "jackers" aka seat angle spacers that were from the 4Runner. Most people seem to wish for more thigh support for comfort. I need the opposite with the rear end of the seat bottom of most vehicles not coming up high enough or level enough for me.

 

[sedole]

Next up picked up some Tundra wheels and threw on some 285/65/18 Nokian Outpost tires. At the same time popped some 1.25" wheel spacers (I've since moved down to .75" front and 1" rear spacers) and trimmed the rear mudflaps + deleted the fronts because I just didn't like the look. Max sensor lift as well.

At this time I was looking for a phone mount solution. Eventually I'll install apple carplay but that's a ways down my priority list for mods. Not a fan of the vent clips or the ones that mount low by the shifter. And definitely wasn't going to shell out for the gamiviti mount. Led me to thinking...why don't I just make my own? I already had a phone mount from offroam leftover from the 4Runner and taking inspiration from gamiviti decided to buy an extension arm and a ball mount plate. Short amount of time later yielded me a very sturdy phone mount. I don't know that I'd put a large ipad on it, but a large phone or even something like an ipad mini or other small tablet should work just fine. Trouble free for a little over a year now.

Also installed a redarc liberty for upcoming trips. Decided not to go with the pro as I really don't tow very often and don't need the extra features. Deleted the kneel mode cause I don't ever use it.

 

[sedole]

Made a rear seat extender for the pups. We sadly lost our first shepherd last summer. Best dog I ever had. Nearly made it to 14 which is a great long life for a shepherd. Both the younger pups enjoy my handiwork though!

Took a trip out to the lake. LX is an absolute unit towing through the soft sand (albeit with a pretty light camper). People were getting stuck left and right but no troubles here.

And as usual, keeping the utility in SUV with all my rigs. Always funny getting stares when I load pavers or gravel or sod in the back of my rigs. Especially the Lexus.

 

[sedole]

Snagged a early tundra trd pro skid plate for cheap (early ones had no letters) which fits with minimal mods. Also absolutely scored on a set of 4 tundra TRD pro wheels with 35" nitto ridge grapplers for a whopping $600! Decided to do some cutting, bashing, and heat molding to run the 35s for a few weeks for s***s and giggles then turned around and sold them for $350. 4 TRD wheels for $250 is absolutely wild. It's also a good trial run for when I eventually upsize tires again. I think I'm going to do either 285/70/18 or 295/70/18, I'm undecided. In either case, 35s were stupid easy to fit. Or I'm just not afraid to hammer some metal and cut some plastic lol.

Got some LC roof rails as well. I don't think I'd ever use a full rack enough to justify the MPG hit...though they do look good... And trimmed the engine bay heat shields because I'm already annoyed with having to take them off the 3 times I've aired up so far lol.

 

[sedole]

First mod requiring more effort was the exhaust. My goals were a slight bump in volume without highway drone. First attempt I tried using a 4x9" borla muffler. Much too loud. It stayed on the truck all of 3 days before I cut it off and moved to my current iteration, a Magnaflow 5x11. 22" long I believe. It started off pretty great, very quiet on cruising and maybe 10-15% louder when you open it up. It still droned around the 2200-2500 RPM range which I ended up fabbing up a quick helmholtz resonator to correct.

This setup was very agreeable for about 500-1,000 miles but as with all Magnaflows, is now a little louder that it's broken in. I'd say it's about 20% louder than stock now which is not bad but the drone is annoying. Admittedly this is my fault. Instead of actually measuring my exhaust temp to get the corresponding speed of sound for my helmholtz resonator length calculations I chose 390 degrees F which is around 432 m/s for the speed of sound. Well turns out it wasn't a complete waste. When I was measuring the droning frequencies originally I got drones at a little 141, a lot 151, and a little at 161 hz. Well it didn't do much for knocking out the 151 but it completely eliminated the 141 when I was trying to target the 151. Simple math tells me I therefore should use 408 m/s speed of sound. At some point here I'll yank the muffler section and shorten the resonator to correct for this. I also now have a noticeable drone of 121 hz around 1,800 RPM. Space is tight around the muffler to add a second helmholtz, but with the next mod you'll see, I should end up with more space next to the muffler for this resonator. The other advantage of a helmholtz resonator is it will reduce the overall volume of the exhaust as well.

Hopefully this will make driving more tolerable. Short drives are A ok. But my wife complains on long road trips and I do admit it does get pretty annoying. I'd probably go crazy on any longer drive when towing in the current configuration. If it doesn't make it tolerable I will be looking for a stock muffler mid section that I can swap in and out depending on the occasion.

 

[sedole]

And that catches us up to speed and to my current project: AHC bye bye.
Like others I can confirm no warning lights and my AVS is still fully functional having left the height sensors and AVS fuse in position. I installed 6112/5160 Bilsteins in place of the AHC. Fronts on the 4th perch and I used the 177lb rate Bilstein rear springs and 15mm coil spacers to make sure I keep some rake. Can't say I would recommend this mod to everyone but I'm very happy. I've ran Bilstein setups in all four of my last rigs and am excited to once again.

Referencing everything to a max sensor lifted ride: side to side sway feels about as wallowy as driving in comfort mode and very slow speed bumps feel in between normal and sport in terms of harshness. But where the Bilsteins really shine are in their higher speed abilities. So much better control and composure and damping of bumps, especially considering I'm at a higher ride height now. Way outpaces the AHC. This was really my only complaint of AHC and my main reason for switching (aside from some failing/rusting AHC components which I could've replaced/rebuilt and the annoying drop at highway speeds). AHC high always felt really stiff and pogo-stick-like to the point of I'd really only ever turn it on to help get out of deep snow or to pose when parked lol. This is butter in comparison. For example, the parking lot where I took the side profile picture has an entrance that's about 8" higher than the lot. There are two turn ins with ramps and everything else is a 90 degree curb drop. I've hopped off the curb numerous times to go do donuts in the lot when it has snowed and boy is it a hard harsh hit with the AHC. I took it at about 25 mph with the Bilsteins and you can barely tell you just hopped of a curb. So smooth. Me likey.

Where the AHC really shines and what I truly will miss are just how damn flat it can corner. A 6,000+ lbs SUV should not be able to handle that good its ridiculous. And the auto adjusting for load. It's stupid good. I will miss it for the one time I tow per year. This in mind, I have a stiffer rear sway bar on order. In my limited driving so far I feel like the front is OK but the rear could use a little more help. I also may have inadvertently softened the effect of the rear sway bar by how much I lengthened my rear end links. Long sweeping turns are no trouble at all, but there is too much body roll for my comfort when doing windy mountain roads with slalom-like turns. Advantage of a stiffer rear bar is the back end is so slinky I highly doubt I'll lose much if any articulation, but it should in theory help the front end articulate better. I'll probably also get some rubber spring coil boosters that I can swap out easily for long trips with heavy loads or towing.

For anyone considering Bilsteins with AHC, you won't find too much out there but I've read a total of two comments after scrolling multiple threads that the rear reservoirs might not have clearance with the rear sway bar. And I can confirm, they don't. You either have to delete the rear sway bar which I don't recommend, run the bar anyways and have it rub the bar which I don't recommend, or fab up extended end links which I do recommend. I extended my links by 2.5 inches. This may have been too much as it's more than my lift height but after taking measurements it's gotten me good clearance from the reservoir. At rest I've got about an inch of clearance. Flexed out a good amount on a little bank at the parking lot in my work leaves me around 1/4 inch clearance

The shop that did my alignment claimed they couldn't get anymore than 2 degrees of caster. This might actually be true. I gave myself an eyeball alignment before taking it in as I did the install myself and I maxed caster all the way out then got camber as close to zero as possible. This is slightly less caster than I had with AHC sensor lifted and I felt that was a little light on center steering already. This is a little lighter still. I originally thought I'd live with it for now but after taking a 500 mile roadtrip to chase some snow this weekend I've already got some aftermarket UCAs on order.

Aaand that brings us to ride height. Center of hub to edge of fender before and afters, all measurements taken with a half tank of gas in the same spot in my garage which does slope ever so slightly downwards towards the passenger side. Final edit for ride height after 1,500 miles and removing the 15mm spacer from the passenger side only, driver is still in. Pretty damn level. Me gusta.
Driver Front: 20 5/8" to 21 5/8"
Passenger Front: 20 7/8" to 21 3/4"
Driver Rear: 20 3/4" to 22 1/2"
Passenger Rear: 21 3/8" to 22 1/2"

I don't have measurements from before the sensor lift but I do remember it lifting me about 1 1/4" all around. That puts stock measurements around the 19 1/2" range.

My rear LCA bolts were seized like probably half of everyone else's rigs so I also cut those off and swapped in new to me LCAs (low mile take offs) and bolts during the suspension install. I'll go back in sometime in the next couple weeks to remove the rest of the AHC components.

Anyways enough rambling, here's some pictures:

 

[sedole]

Nolathane 30mm rear sway bar installed last night. Visually a bit more beefy than stock for sure. Quick drive around the block shows a noticeable reduction in body roll. Will report back how it feels when I drive up and down the mountains this weekend.

Buuuut...back to square one with the end links. They contact the reservoirs within 6.5" of down travel. Will have to extend them a little more. Clearance picture taken on level ground. I wish Bilstein would've given these shocks flex hoses for the remote reservoirs. Would have been so much easier.. I'm sure they could be rebuilt to include these but that's more of a hassle than extending some links.

Should be wayyy faster now too. Red gives +15 buff horses, right?

 

[ryanCA]

looks great

Used to have many Patrols and Pajeros too.

LOVE my Bilsteins!

 

[Nothinghead]

View attachment 3595798

Can you tell me who made that front bumper or where you got it?

 

[sedole]

Can you tell me who made that front bumper or where you got it?

It's made by goliath4x4 the "Trekker" model for a XJ Cherokee. Cut and welded the frame horns on the rig to mate up.

 

[sedole]

Updated swaybar impressions: huge difference. I use driving up I-70 here in Colorado as my example as I'm always making the trek. With the Bilstein suspension I'd compare the body roll amount/wallowy feel to having a loaded down rig in comfort mode (i.e. more body roll than just a single person driving in comfort mode). Totally driveable, but most would wish it would corner a little flatter and be bumping up into normal or sport--or just slowing way down. Driving by myself on the new setup feels like how it used to in normal mode. I'm back to driving up the hill much faster than I should haha. I-70 is not very windy as far as windy roads go but I'm back to taking the "windy" sections at 70mph comfortably whereas before the RSB I'd not feel comfortable even doing 65. I'd stick more around 55-60 (speed limit 60 in most of those sections). The truck also feels more balanced now as well. It felt a bit understeery with the stock bar and extended links.

However, I extended my endlinks again and while I've got clearance it now feels less taught. The drive into work this morning felt like something in between comfort and normal modes on the AHC. Original factory links are 4.75" long. I extended the links 2.5" to clear the shock reservoirs on the factory swaybar. Eyeballing it I ended up extending another 2.25" with the Nolathane. For a total length of 9.5". I'm measuring from center of lower eyelet to the lip where the washer sits. This puts the ends of the swaybar much lower than I'd like. I need to get this thing flexed to see if I can shorten the length a little more and still avoid contacting the shocks. I think I might be able to take some length off...

 

[AnyMal]

First mod requiring more effort was the exhaust. My goals were a slight bump in volume without highway drone. First attempt I tried using a 4x9" borla muffler. Much too loud. It stayed on the truck all of 3 days before I cut it off and moved to my current iteration, a Magnaflow 5x11. 22" long I believe. It started off pretty great, very quiet on cruising and maybe 10-15% louder when you open it up. It still droned around the 2200-2500 RPM range which I ended up fabbing up a quick helmholtz resonator to correct.

View attachment 3596077
View attachment 3596078
View attachment 3596080

This setup was very agreeable for about 500-1,000 miles but as with all Magnaflows, is now a little louder that it's broken in. I'd say it's about 20% louder than stock now which is not bad but the drone is annoying. Admittedly this is my fault. Instead of actually measuring my exhaust temp to get the corresponding speed of sound for my helmholtz resonator length calculations I chose 390 degrees F which is around 432 m/s for the speed of sound. Well turns out it wasn't a complete waste. When I was measuring the droning frequencies originally I got drones at a little 141, a lot 151, and a little at 161 hz. Well it didn't do much for knocking out the 151 but it completely eliminated the 141 when I was trying to target the 151. Simple math tells me I therefore should use 408 m/s speed of sound. At some point here I'll yank the muffler section and shorten the resonator to correct for this. I also now have a noticeable drone of 121 hz around 1,800 RPM. Space is tight around the muffler to add a second helmholtz, but with the next mod you'll see, I should end up with more space next to the muffler for this resonator. The other advantage of a helmholtz resonator is it will reduce the overall volume of the exhaust as well.

Hopefully this will make driving more tolerable. Short drives are A ok. But my wife complains on long road trips and I do admit it does get pretty annoying. I'd probably go crazy on any longer drive when towing in the current configuration. If it doesn't make it tolerable I will be looking for a stock muffler mid section that I can swap in and out depending on the occasion.

Subscribed.

Also i would like to know what rpm your cruising range target is.

With my new tires I gained 100-200 rpm. My drone zone has shifted, and i overlooked this when thinking exhausts before.

Very interested in you dialing this in.

 

[TeCKis300]

Updated swaybar impressions: huge difference. I use driving up I-70 here in Colorado as my example as I'm always making the trek. With the Bilstein suspension I'd compare the body roll amount/wallowy feel to having a loaded down rig in comfort mode (i.e. more body roll than just a single person driving in comfort mode). Totally driveable, but most would wish it would corner a little flatter and be bumping up into normal or sport--or just slowing way down. Driving by myself on the new setup feels like how it used to in normal mode. I'm back to driving up the hill much faster than I should haha. I-70 is not very windy as far as windy roads go but I'm back to taking the "windy" sections at 70mph comfortably whereas before the RSB I'd not feel comfortable even doing 65. I'd stick more around 55-60 (speed limit 60 in most of those sections). The truck also feels more balanced now as well. It felt a bit understeery with the stock bar and extended links.

However, I extended my endlinks again and while I've got clearance it now feels less taught. The drive into work this morning felt like something in between comfort and normal modes on the AHC. Original factory links are 2.75" long. I extended to 5.25" to clear the shock reservoirs on the factory swaybar. Eyeballing it I ended up extending again to 7.25" with the Nolathane. This puts the ends of the swaybar much lower than I'd like. I need to get this thing flexed to see if I can shorten the length a little more and still avoid contacting the shocks. I think I might be able to take some length off...

What would be interesting is how much this would impact articulation/RTI performance. The merit of AHC and KDSS has always been its ability to adapt and perform in both environments. Strong roll control on-road. Combined with strong articulation performance off-road.

 

[sedole]

Subscribed.

Also i would like to know what rpm your cruising range target is.

With my new tires I gained 100-200 rpm. My drone zone has shifted, and i overlooked this when thinking exhausts before.

Very interested in you dialing this in.

I wasn't specifically targeting cruising range so much as just the most annoying frequencies to my ears. According to my so super scientific iphone app the really annoying drone is 151hz which happens around 2100-2300 +/- RPM. My value for speed of sound was off as I didn't actually measure the exhaust temp soooo I missed that mark but it pretty darn completely eliminated the 141hz not as loud frequency that the app picked up around 2000 RPM.

I also get a drone of 121hz around 1700+/- 100 RPM which is starting to get mildly annoying as that tends to correlate with the speed I cruise at. 70-75mph keeps me in that range and it's a constant low buzz (quiet, but it's there). Under load either with weight or driving uphill I tend to stay in the 2200-3000 RPM while climbing and it drives me nuts lol. Loud enough that you have to shout a little to hold a conversation.

I took a drive from Denver to SLC on 285/65/18 tires and as long as I kept 80mph which pinned it to 2000 RPM on the nose it would be about 95% as quiet as stock. Almost imperceptible. With my 275/70/18 winters on I've got to hold ~82mph to keep it on 2k RPM.

My thoughts are to adjust the resonator to kill the drone while under load. Then add a second resonator to target the 1700 rpm drone. below 1500 rpm there is a tiny tiny bit there but it's like 85-90% as quiet as stock and very tolerable.

 

[sedole]

What would be interesting is how much this would impact articulation/RTI performance. The merit of AHC and KDSS has always been its ability to adapt and perform in both environments. Strong roll control on-road. Combined with strong articulation performance off-road.

I agree. I'd love to get on a ramp and compare. I'd be surprised if it scored higher than stock AHC. If anything I'd guess similar to slightly less. Just my suspicion. No data to back up that statement.

I don't visually notice much difference on the rear, but I do notice a tangible amount of droop increase on the front. On that same vein I will also admit I do notice a little less up travel. Though if I had to eyeball it I'd say I gained more down travel than loss of up travel.

 

[TeCKis300]

I agree. I'd love to get on a ramp and compare. I'd be surprised if it scored higher than stock AHC. If anything I'd guess similar to slightly less. Just my suspicion. No data to back up that statement.

I don't visually notice much difference on the rear, but I do notice a tangible amount of droop increase on the front. On that same vein I will also admit I do notice a little less up travel. Though if I had to eyeball it I'd say I gained more down travel than loss of up travel.

Yup, its always a trade. I definitely believe you scored some good down travel with this setup. AHC can be modded for more too. Definitely makes a difference.

 

[sedole]

Yup, its always a trade. I definitely believe you scored some good down travel with this setup. AHC can be modded for more too. Definitely makes a difference.

For sure. I got it in the air up front and on jack stands for a good height to remove the wheels with AHC at full droop and was surprised during the install how much more I had to jack up the truck to get the wheels back on.

 

[AnyMal]

I wasn't specifically targeting cruising range so much as just the most annoying frequencies to my ears. According to my so super scientific iphone app the really annoying drone is 151hz which happens around 2100-2300 +/- RPM. My value for speed of sound was off as I didn't actually measure the exhaust temp soooo I missed that mark but it pretty darn completely eliminated the 141hz not as loud frequency that the app picked up around 2000 RPM.

I also get a drone of 121hz around 1700+/- 100 RPM which is starting to get mildly annoying as that tends to correlate with the speed I cruise at. 70-75mph keeps me in that range and it's a constant low buzz (quiet, but it's there). Under load either with weight or driving uphill I tend to stay in the 2200-3000 RPM while climbing and it drives me nuts lol. Loud enough that you have to shout a little to hold a conversation.

I took a drive from Denver to SLC on 285/65/18 tires and as long as I kept 80mph which pinned it to 2000 RPM on the nose it would be about 95% as quiet as stock. Almost imperceptible. With my 275/70/18 winters on I've got to hold ~82mph to keep it on 2k RPM.

My thoughts are to adjust the resonator to kill the drone while under load. Then add a second resonator to target the 1700 rpm drone. below 1500 rpm there is a tiny tiny bit there but it's like 85-90% as quiet as stock and very tolerable.

Dang son, 2k cruise? Slow down you are eating fuel for 5 minute gain!

I went from 1200 -1400 to roughly 1400-1600 on 34s @ around 70. I tend to drive just past the speed AHC lowers, 62?, so a realistic 70 while the speedo is somewhat beneath.

If im in a 75 i do speed up too but never past 1800 or so from observation thus far.

Its very helpful and interesting you playing with the harmonics and seeing so much variance within the highway band.