New Year, New Build (2019 Raptor)

Nice truck, but that lake view has it beat!

 

Had quite a few things get delivered today, including all of my ORA 550 stage 3 package, JLT oil separator, the Baja Designs behind grill light bar, the Husky wheel arch liners, some LED license plate bulbs and a few other odds and ends. I can't wait to get this installed, but there are a couple of things in my way:

1) It's been an oddly cold winter in Florida this year, and I don't think the Raptor will fit in my garage far enough to let me close the door. So it looks I'll be waiting for a warm day.
2) My 91 Jeep needs just a couple small projects before I can move it out of the garage to make room for all of the Raptor parts and to give me easy access to my tools. The projects include: brake booster, new brake lines, new exhaust, reassemble 30% of the front end, replace the fuel tank, and fab up a drag link. It looks like a long list, but its really just a project a night for a couple of weeks. This should give you an idea of how long it will take for me to do all of that:


In the meantime, I found another use for my DU-HA underseat storage box:

 

Looks like an S8 on the floor. Your gonna love that. Just got mine installed. It’s been a cool winter. More 40’s coming this weekend way south. Refreshing change.

 

Welcome to the place. Congrats on a beautiful Raptor. Nice jeeps too!

 

Love the color! Congrats and welcome to FRF.

 

So I took Friday off and knocked out a bunch of stuff on the Raptor. The small stuff I installed included the Du-Ha underseat storage box, the Ford Perimeter Plus module with BajaMod bracket, stubby antenna, and weather tech wind deflectors. Now onto the big stuff (split into the next two posts). First up, the ORA 550 Stage 3 performance package. I ordered the entire kit, with BDX tuner, plugs, Cobb Intake, and AMS Boost Tubes, but I substituted the Cobb front mount intercooler for the Wagner setup that mounts to the factory location but includes an upper portion that extends behind the bottom of the grill. I wanted to keep the factory shutter system and avoid blocking as much of the radiator as I could to prevent overheating and because honestly I didn't want to cut up the shutter system on a new truck. The Wagner IC is massive, here's a picture of it next to the factory unit:



The install was pretty straight forward, and and just required removal of the grill and the factory IC crossmember. I basically gutted the entire intake system to make more room, and then installed all of the new parts at the same time. I didn't run into any major hiccups, and overall it took about 6 hours from start to finish. Here's a few pics of the install:





After that, I tuned it with the ORA 550 tune using the BDX tuner, and took it for a quick test drive. Initial impressions are smooth power delivery with no hiccups and a nice smooth idle. It also has better throttle response than stock, but is not overly sensitive like some other tunes (i.e. it is very drivable). I haven't let it completely loose yet since I need to put a couple hundred miles on it first, but it does seem quicker than stock (butt dyno, so who knows). If it continues to drive like it does now, I will be very happy. Overall, it was a fun project and didn't take as long as I expected, which is always nice.

 

While I had the grill off for the ORA 550 install, I decided it would be a good time to do the BajaDesigns 30" S8 behind grill lightbar install. I really like the quality of this lightbar, it has the same quality feel and design of Rigid and other name brand lights I have used in the past. The brackets are high quality, and the install makes for a very factory look (i.e. no drilling or exposed wiring, etc.). The only thing I wasn't too happy with was how noticeable it is behind the grill with the chrome reflectors. I am building this truck to be sleeper-esc, and I didn't want to add anything that would draw extra attention.

To resolve this, I ended up buying a strip of Lamin-X in the lightest tint they offer. Before anyone jumps in and says why would you tint a light bar, it'll reduce light output, why would you spend that much on a light just to cut the output in half, etc. note that this is the lightest tint I could find (just enough to mask the chrome and the yellow LEDs behind the grill), and for my purposes (camping, driving in the woods at night) the light output is still more than satisfactory. Its also completely reversible, so I can always peel the tint of later if I feel like I need more output. I cut the Lamin-X to the appropriate size, removed the black bezels from the bar, applied the film to the lenses, and then replaced the bezels. Here's what it looked like during that process:




Notice that he bar now has a smokey color, just enough to blend in behind the grill. After that, I installed it on the grill per the instructions and mounted everything back up.



With the bar off, you barely even notice its there, which is exactly what I was going for. Wiring was extremely straight forward with the included harness, and I ended up tapping Aux 1 for the main light and Aux 5 for the amber backlights. I may connect the backlights directly to the truck's amber running lights in the future if I decide I want the lightbar's backlight to always be on, or if I need another switch. Until then, the plan is to wire the backlight for the S8 and for my bumper lights (once I order them) to the same switch. A quick test and everything powered up as expected. Overall, I'm super thrilled about this setup, and can't wait to get the 3 light setups for the holes in the bumper. More updates soon!