Build Thread for cps502’s 2013 Blizzard Pearl 200 Series Land Cruiser. Very excited! Will try to keep things to the point. This post will see some edits, but I want to throw up what I have now, since I'll never get it perfect.
Intended Mission: Steadfast weekend warrior work, often travelling from San Francisco to Lake Tahoe or the Eastern Sierras to go backcountry skiing. Regular offroad driving, not much serious wheeling. Never used for commuting, only for fun! (My commuter is a motorcycle.)
Previous Vehicle: 2003 Toyota V8 4Runner, lifted with Dobinsons, rubbing aggressively with 255/80r17 Falken Wildpeaks
Purchase Experience: I flew to a remote town in Texas to purchase it. It was the third 200 series I had looked at, and it was in the best condition. Going to a small town dealership paid off—they had the best customer service and had the most (perceived by me) integrity of all the dealerships I went to.
Straight to the dealer back to California, bone stock except for the 285/65r18 Falken Wildpeaks (classy mod, mister original owner)
Very tight fit in the garage
Build:
Sheepskin seat covers – I bought these because they reminded me of my uncle’s old Jeep. They look good in the 200-series and are comfortable. Chick’s dig ‘em (maybe). Install took an hour and they fit pretty well. A couple notes:
Fox 2.5 front coilovers and Fox 2.5 rear struts with SPC UCAs
Intended Mission: Steadfast weekend warrior work, often travelling from San Francisco to Lake Tahoe or the Eastern Sierras to go backcountry skiing. Regular offroad driving, not much serious wheeling. Never used for commuting, only for fun! (My commuter is a motorcycle.)
Previous Vehicle: 2003 Toyota V8 4Runner, lifted with Dobinsons, rubbing aggressively with 255/80r17 Falken Wildpeaks
Purchase Experience: I flew to a remote town in Texas to purchase it. It was the third 200 series I had looked at, and it was in the best condition. Going to a small town dealership paid off—they had the best customer service and had the most (perceived by me) integrity of all the dealerships I went to.
Straight to the dealer back to California, bone stock except for the 285/65r18 Falken Wildpeaks (classy mod, mister original owner)
Very tight fit in the garage
Build:
Sheepskin seat covers – I bought these because they reminded me of my uncle’s old Jeep. They look good in the 200-series and are comfortable. Chick’s dig ‘em (maybe). Install took an hour and they fit pretty well. A couple notes:
- The seat controls are blocked by the covers. This isn’t really a problem, I just reach under the cover to press the buttons.
- One of the straps that holds the butt part of the cover onto the seat pushes against the lumbar support button. This is kind of a problem. I think I’ve pulled on it enough to give it slack so that it doesn’t press the button, but I’m not sure. Not a dealbreaker for me.
Fox 2.5 front coilovers and Fox 2.5 rear struts with SPC UCAs
- I chose these for the following reasons:
- Fox is a reputable American company across many industries that has great customer service
- Accutune carries them and I thought a custom tune and some additional product support would be helpful over the course of ownership
- Having a larger shock body (2.5” instead of 2”) presumably makes these stronger than some of the other popular LC200 options.
- Adjustable Dual Speed Compression is pretty useful. I’ve been adjusting low and high speed compression on a regular basis to work towards my ideal suspension setup and it’s definitely making a difference
- A couple notes on install:
- The UCA install was a pain in the butt because the UCA bolts have to pass through the engine bay to be removed. The pathway for these bolts is blocked by a couple runs of flexible conduit and I had to disconnect their wire guides to loosen them enough to get them out of my way. I also removed the battery to make this easier. It was also kind of hard to get into the engine bay when the car was on jack stands. Lesson learned: have a stool ready for accessing the engine bay when your car is on jack stands.
- Removing the passenger side shock was difficult until I figured out exactly the right technique with a pry bar and screw driver to get it out. Lesson learned: having a variety of prying devices is helpful (don’t just have one).
- Amateur LL: Make sure you have plenty of lighting. I had overhead lighting and a couple magnetic spot lights that I could stick to anything metal, and those were incredibly helpful (until their batteries died)
- Amateur LL: Have a stool and a knee pad. Both are very helpful.
- Amateur LL: I didn’t use an impact gun at all, and I think that slowed me down immensely. I would recommend that you don’t skimp on this (I was missing one purely out of laziness).
- Amateur LL: There were no serious hiccups, and the job took me 14 hours. I think this is because of the lack of an impact gun and my taking my time. My point in sharing this is—even if nothing goes wrong, if you’re not super experienced, little problems might take you a long time to figure out. Some that come to mind are the UCA bolts like described above, figuring out how to hold the coilover up while tightening the three nuts at the top (typically I see coilovers with male/nut connections, but the fox shocks have threaded holes at their tops, which made the install harder), figuring out how the heck to force the sway bar into place to get it reconnected, etc.
- Conclusion: I didn’t enjoy the install and it took me way too long. I’m happy that I did it so that I have some familiarity with the underside of my car. Even though I only worked on one of the car’s systems (suspension), I feel like it exposed me to a lot more than just that one particular system (the engine bay and all the different jack points, for example)
- User experience/performance:
- These things are pretty cool. A little about me, since it’s very difficult to accept suspension opinions without knowing who they are coming from—I’ve never been much of a suspension nerd, but I’ve used a lot of suspension across different things. I’ve owned 8+ motorcycles, a few of which had pretty nice full Ohlins suspensions; I’ve owned two full suspension mountain bikes, one with Fox and the other with Rockshox suspension, and my previous vehicle (V8 4Runner) had a Dobinsons coilover kit and springs on it. All of these toys saw extensive use from me but not much suspension tinkering. I do know what compression and rebound are, and I know the difference between low speed and high speed compression.
- Counter-clockwise = decrease compression = shock compresses faster = softer and more supple
- Clockwise = increase compression = shock compresses slower = stiffer and more supportive
- I’ve adjusted the LSC and HSC three or four times (one click counter-clockwise each time) over the last month. I started out with nearly maximum compression (fully clock-wise) and backed it out until I was happy with it (until it bounced around like a happy little truck and a little bit s***ty on paved hairpin turns, basically). To me, this feels good and comfortable. Too stiff and the truck feels super heavy and clunky.
- I’m not sure how/why you could do without this kind of adjustment on a big car like a 200 series.
- I highly recommend these shocks and am curious to see if there’s further dialogue on this forum about them—it’s strange to me that they are so under-utilized on our 200 series platform.
- My one gripe: why the heck is this a 2” and not a 3” lift kit? Fox and Accutune gave me an unclear explanation, but I didn’t care enough to inquire further. I will say, a 2” lift on these trucks feels like nothing. I was pretty bummed to see the before and after (this was when I had 285/65r18 Falkens installed). But then I got some 35’s and felt better.
