Darthyota's Raptor Build

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darthyota

Rank IV

Enthusiast III

So I originally got my Raptor to replace my X-Runner after the motor failed at 95000km. I chose the Raptor because of its looks and its offload capability out of the box, my needs had also changed as I needed a 4wd truck for work as opposed to a lowered 2wd sport truck.
Check out my 4Runner build here: Darthyota's 4Runner Build

The day I picked up my Raptor

It stayed bone stock for about a month before I started adding things to it. The first addition to it was a rigid fog light kit followed soon after by a 20" hyperspot bar in the bumper. I then added a VHF radio as I needed it for back country work communications either between coworkers or to call milage on radio controlled roads.

Unfortunately while working out of town my truck was hit and run in the hotel parking lot, this offered me the chance to add a few more aftermarket goodies to my truck to me with little out of pocket expense to my self. At this time I had the shop put on an SVC front bumper and a set of fiberwerx +2.5 fenders, as well as a new 30" Hyperspot Driving combo to fill the new larger bumper hole. Just before the hit and run I picked up a set of factory bead lock wheels to use with my winter tires.



As I'd come from the import scene prior to owning my Raptor I thought I could tastefully bring some of that flare to my truck with some crazy color combos. I then stumbled across Denton Racings trucks and I knew I had my color combo. I know my truck isn't white like the Denton trucks


I then went about ordering new summer wheels for my truck as I had found a really good deal on a set of brand new 37" General Grabber Red Letter tires but by the time I got the wheels and all the correct parts to get the beadlocks to work with the tires due to the extra thick side wall of the 37" Grabbers.



during this time I had also started to have issues with the stock battery so I decided to upgrade to something a little bigger.

This required a new battery tray so I went to work an built on to suit.




While I was getting the new battery and battery tray into the truck I also added some underhood lighting. I tried to use the same factory hood switch as the alarm but found out that I couldn't because it was a normally open switch so I would have needed to add a bunch of extra wiring and a relay to make it work so I just used a Rigid wiring kit switch mounted into the bracket that came with the Ford switch. The lights are 2 Rigid A-series high powers that put out 400 Lumens each.
 
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darthyota

Rank IV

Enthusiast III

Before I could get my tires on my truck was rear ended one my way home from work so again I took advantage of the situation and had insurance replace the stock parts with something I was going to do anyway so on went a SVC V3 bumper to match the front bumper. I also had the dealership dovetail the box to keep the lines clean.

Before I put the 37's on I also had to perform the mid perch mod which involves compressing the springs on the shock while they are on the truck sliding the collar up and moving the c-clip that retains the spring perch then uncompressing the springs in the new position. this brought the nose up so the truck sits level.

After having filled my 4 factory upfitter switches with lights and knowing I wanted more lights and some fancy gadgets in the truck I set to work on making a mounting plate for a Blue Sea Safety Hub 150 and a 12 circuit fuse block.

And installed

After doing a Raptor run or two with some other local Raptor owners I decided I should probably invest in one of them fancy offroad marine chart plotter gps systems. After doing so research I decided that I didn't want to run a Lowrance unit that every one else was running as I wanted a larger screen and I also wanted to be able to run video into the unit so that I can run a FLIR Pathfinder II system into it down the road, so I ordered my self a Garmin GPSMap 7410. Not fully realizing how large the unit was till I got my hands on it Doh!

This meant I had to build a custom mount for it because no one I talked to had the time to build one for me or think that I could modify the production Lowrance mounts they made to work with it. Roughly where I want it to sit.

Templates made.

Now to make them out of steel.




And installed.


And that brings us up to date with how the truck currently sits.
 
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Johnnie Canuck

Rank III
Launch Member

Advocate II

Those 37s look pretty snug in those wells lol. Gonna do a mid-perch mod?
Great to see another Raptor build! Totally following this thread! Feel free to check out my build threads. And keep posting your work!
 

ASNOBODY

Rank VI
Launch Member

Advocate II

3,984
Detroit, Michigan
Member #

3270

Nice truck man! My older brother is a senior engineer at Ford SVT so I get to ride in a lot of Raptors lol. Love em. Really debating picking one up some time in the future… unless they happen to build a Bronco on this platform.
 
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Johnnie Canuck

Rank III
Launch Member

Advocate II

Sorry my quote took so long to post before your second post. It does that sometimes for me.
Are you on the Alberta Raptors Forum? Seem to recognize your orange theme rig from there.
 

W4P

Rank III

Advocate II

816
Sudbury
Too bad you have to have....a raptor for work.....right. and you sure those accidents that happened were ???seems they fit well into upgrades...ha. great looking rig and nice fabwork ..luv the orange!!

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Raul B

Rank VI
Launch Member

Influencer II

4,521
Kyle, Hays County, Texas, United States
First Name
Raul
Last Name
Banuelos
Member #

2957

Great looking build.... I had something similar for my GPS but the glare was unbearable...i then went with a full ram mount kit that mounts to the passenger seat. That was better but the wife hated it..... Now I'm running mob armor and love it... Glad to see another full size rig on here....

Sent from my SM-G930T using OB Talk mobile app
 
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darthyota

Rank IV

Enthusiast III

Great looking build.... I had something similar for my GPS but the glare was unbearable...i then went with a full ram mount kit that mounts to the passenger seat. That was better but the wife hated it..... Now I'm running mob armor and love it... Glad to see another full size rig on here....

Sent from my SM-G930T using OB Talk mobile app
Thanks, that's the nice thing about the marine chart plotter GPS setups is that it has a super slick anti-glare coating and its polarized sunglass friendly. I would eventually also like to have a 13" iPad Pro on a Ram mount with Lead Nav to call out course changes.

Progress! One side bent up. Lots of bend a bit fight with the bender check it repeat.

 

W4P

Rank III

Advocate II

816
Sudbury
Sorry you didn't get my sarcasm.apologies. it's just we all seem to have different ways to justify upgrades,too bad yours was an accident.

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darthyota

Rank IV

Enthusiast III

Wats the plan for mounting them?
Welded to the frame with frame plates and gussets

Sorry you didn't get my sarcasm.apologies. it's just we all seem to have different ways to justify upgrades,too bad yours was an accident.

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No sorry I didn't. It's one of those things that if you had to replace it and you know that you're going to go to an aftermarket part down the road anyway way not just do it now and save yourself doing it twice. The nice thing was is the insurance company didnt care if I did it as long as I didn't come back later and said its not what I wanted. The only person that was against it was the adjuster but he was kind of a dick.