My name is Chris and this channel is all about my 2021 Toyota Tacoma TRD Offroad 4x4 that I call the Fortune Taco. I'm a photographer, videographer, and published author for TrailTacoma.com. My channel covers installs, product reviews, trail rides, and events that I host or attend. If you have an interest in Tacoma content make sure to subscribe to my channel, follow me on Instagram, and head over to my website for all Fortune Taco content.
Tough call. My truck is white so the standard black - the almost white part would not look horrible. Tho the alpha black is sharp. I think the red compliments your red truck the best, but that's just my opinion. The cheapo leds that came with my truck 9y ago, left side has finally bit the dust so here i am shopping. Lol great video comparison thanx much!
I was debating getting this 20w system and this was a great video to describe it. I Want to have a small unit hidden in the truck’s center console. Thank you!
You might find it to be better going through the passenger side and then fishing through the floor mats. Less chance for heat and vibration to damage the antenna cable. A bit more work but ultimately less chance of interference. I would also cut the excess wire off. Just my 2 cents.
@@NJtoAzMountainBiker I’ve thought about cutting the antenna wire but I’ve never cut antenna wire before so I didn’t know how easy it was to trim it and connect the two ends
@@canoeshoe it depends on the angle you set the mirror to but you can see the tire and traffic at the same time, it’s much wider of an angle than factory
Good looking bumper man. I purchased the C4 overland plate bumper and cannot wait. Damn lead times lol. Can you please let me know what weight coils you are using to compensate for the added weight up front? I currently have 650 pound coils up front but im wondering if it will be enough. My bumper will be 135lbs + the winch another 70lbs so around 200 pounds total
Looks really good! I ordered one with a mid height bull bar. Can’t wait to get mine hopefully soon. I ordered the front and rear so I’m guessing it’ll be a while till they arrive.
tire sizes often arent true to size. best thing is to measure how many percent your speedo is off using a gps then just input a random made up tire size thats the same percentage difference. also like another comment said do not input that youve changed gears since speed is read off the abs sensors not driveshaft speed on 3rd gens
Another solid video, Chris. Just straight to the point with everything! We released a portable jump starter. Can we invite you to do a review? We have emailed for an inquiry.
Thank god bro!! Finally someone who made a video about all of them. Why the companies who have all the product don’t show all the types and what each look like are beyond me. Finally someone who shows all of them and what they look like. I wanted either alpha black or black but didn’t know which looked better and lot of peoples videos were just wrong about what they got. Thank you brother for doing this!!! Been struggling and didn’t wanna buy the wrong one.
@@FortuneTacoAZ After watching I still can’t figure out which I like better the alpha black or black😂. Which do you think would look better on the lunar rock color. I want black cause of the smoked lens but I also like the alpha black housing. Wish it could be combined😂 they both look great.
@@duradeaqili4322 I personally like the Alpha Black as you can tell in my video. The Black is darker from the smoked lens which I’m not really a fan of so I went with the Alpha Black for a lighter look. Iyou are a fan of smoked taillights the black will be your choice but if you want minimal smoked lens then the Alpha Black is what you should get.
@@ratboy5828 I love the low profile design of these too, I use to run Diode Dynamics lights that were similar to the squadron size and they were good but not much brighter than these S2 pros so I like the S2 setup the best
@@ricobesse4451 it depends on the year, some years it will and some won’t. Head over to the Hypertech website and input your year make and model and it will tell you
So if you are using a snatch block can you Ultra hook clip off to the split shackle or do you have to add another bow shackle to the closed system hole?
Unfortunately, the opening on the Ultra Hook is too small for the split shackle. I use a soft shackle through the closed hole and connect it to the split shackle, but you could also use a bow shackle wit the closed hole on the Ultra Hook
Such an amazing mount i definitely need one for my jeep my case that holds my jumper cables and 4tire air up hose makes it hard to see out my side mirror it would be nice to remove that case for day to day driving or move it to the inside of my rack
@@Auxbeam we could discuss something, I could also install a switch panel on a friends Tacoma if you want a switch panel video and you don’t mind me installing on another Tacoma that is not mine?
@@FortuneTacoAZ Sure.We won't mind at all but will your friend allow you to do so and Will it be easy for your friend to schedule a time to install the switch panel and film the video with you?
@@Auxbeam I’m sure I could find a friend that would let me use their truck and let me do an install video for the switch panel, that would not be an issue.
As a former firefighter and someone with a keen interest in vehicle lighting including emergency / warning lights, PLEASE FIX THOSE LIGHTS. Strobing chaos as you have now is worse than no lighting at all. For simple marking of a position, steady burn or very slow flashing is best. For "get out of my way" or "you need to stop or react", faster flashing helps, but it needs to be very distinct. Either everything on one side on and everything on the other side off, alternating slow enough that the brain can recognise the movement of light side to side, or changing from one colour to another distinct colour. The best example of that I've seen is our local Ambulances (seperate emergency service in Australia). All of their lights are dual colour red / blue. And ALL of the lights are on displaying either all red, or all blue. You will not see a aingle blue light anywhere at the same time as a red light. It grabs your attention instantly. The worst example I've seen, unfortunately, is the fire brigades, where some lights are set to cycle through all of the flash patterns. Approaching a scene (or working around it) it is nothing but a confused mess of flashes. It's hard to define individual vehicles at night and can trigger epilepsy in people. At bush fires, particularly at night, we'd turn off the lights so that we could see better and not get headaches. Many LED lights come with dimmable functions. This may be light head specific with a "low power" trigfer wire, or through a digital lighting controller where the light modules are set to steady burn and the controller does the flashing. The controller can then dim ANY LED lights and often also include DVI, or dynamic variable intensity. DVI introduces "fade in, fade out" effects which are less jarring on the eyes than instant on or off. As a rule, flashing lights should not be used UNLESS there is a hazard. They may look cool, but their purpose is to warn others of an issue in which they need to take specific action, such as slowing down or moving over. Using them for normal driving, even off-road, degrades that effect. It's the old tale of the boy who cried wolf. How will an offroad driver know if its just some wanker with flashing lights, or an actual hazard, offroad tow truck etc. Not calling you names or trying to insult you, but most people just don't understand and go with "if it looks cool, I'm cool". That aside, not heard of this brand and I'll look at what they offer. If you have a contact with them, something I'd pass on is that a two wire setup is possible and would be WONDERFUL. Think of Canbus, two wires provide both power and a data signal. A compact lighting controller then only needs inject the data signal which makes wiring so much easier, cheaper, more flexible and more compact overall. For example, I want to setup a lighting package on the rear of my vehicle. 4 dual colour amber / white, and three tri colour amber / white / red. It will provide white scene illumination, brake light function, indicator function (amber indicators seperate from brakes as required in most of the world that isn't the USA), amber warning as well as traffic director function. Those functions will overlap, so if amber warning is on and I turn on rear scene lights, some lights will maintain amber warning and some will swap to white scene lighting. That means each light needs ro be wired separately, that's 17 different trigger wires, JUST for the rear lights. Front, left and right lights are also planned with amber warning and scene lights. I've worked out around 40 trigger wires will be needed in total for all the functions I want. Whom ever brings a two wire system to market first is getting my money and I bet a lot of installers will also be happy new customers.
That is one hell of a comment. This lighting setup is designed as an off-road safety feature, and i know very many people who run lights light these its not just me. These lights look way more blinding and intense in the video than they do in person. If you are about 20 - 30 feet behind the vehicle you can look directly at the lights and they are not blinding like you might think. These lights already come with a 2 wire function. They have a power wire, ground wire, then function 1 and function 2 wire you you can wire up a pattern and have a second wire ran to brake lights for dual function.
@@FortuneTacoAZ again, not meant to be an insult to you. But tell me this, what safety benefit do those give when flashing like that over a steady burn? It's not always about pure light intensity blinding people, but rather the flashing pattern of light. I've worked in airport and trucking (including rollback trucks, oversize loads etc) with amber warning systems and have over 11 years as a firefighter with red/blue lighting. I have first hand real world experience that shows simpler lighting is better. At emergency scenes, after the chaos of initial arrival, it wasn't uncommon for us to go around and turn off emergency lighting on most vehicles. Only the vehicles blocking the road or being a traffic hazard needed their lights to be on. If driving in a convoy, only the first vehicle would use sirens, to help people clearly hear them rather than having a confusing mix of sounds. Having the same or similar colours (like amber and red) close together and alternating produces a "single flickering light" source, particularly from a distance, that really isn't as useful as it could be. My advice isn't to stop using these lights, but rather how to make them more effective and to convey the right message. "This vehicle exists" and "This vehicle presents or is protecting a hazard" are two very different messages. I do hope you'll read through my comment again and try to understand it for what I intended it to be. Then you can pass in that knowledge to your friends and others on the trails to promote a positive change.
@@FortuneTacoAZ do they have a sync wire? Sometimes the pattern change wire doubles as the sync wire. If they do, than my suggestion would be function 1 is steady burn on them all and function 2 to alternate a double or quad flash left than right. Units with a sync wire often have each pattern duplicated, the duplicate is offset in timing. Eg, pattern 1 is on then off, pattern 2 is off then on. I'd be happy to help as best I can if you would like that.
Just read the manual for the lights, yellow is your combination programming and sync wire. Connect to +12v for programming, all yellows together with no 12v or ground for sync. They also have a dim mode, but unfortunately it is set during programming and can't be used on the fly unless you set both functions to the same flash pattern and set one of them to dim mode. Also unfortunately, all of their light switches and siren controllers appear to be the older "basic switch" design, compared to a few companies that have moved to computer programable smart systems.
@@calvinpulda5650 They have 4 wires coming from each light (power, ground, function 1 and function 2). You could wire up function 1 as a chase light and function 2 to your brake light power and they will act as a chase light as well as a brake light.
These antennas are 100% about looks. A standard antenna will do just as well and cost far less. You could buy a small pile of them for what these things cost and have some left over when you die for your kids to inherit.
Thank you! This is only my opinion because I’m not pro but Guild Outfitters doesn’t mention any downsides. Just to be safe it’s probably never safe to overload the inverter to prevent any long term wear or damage to the system
Thanks for posting! Would love to see a follow up video showing how well the antenna works in that location. I know it would be semi-subjective, but would like to hear how it compares to the other location(s) you’ve had a GMRS antenna mounted.
On every NMO mount I've installed, the o-ring on the brass nut faces down against the bracket or body panel. A good practice is to apply a thin coat of silicone grease (NOT RTV sealer) to the o-ring and to both sets of the brass threads.
I was not aware of that, it didn’t make sense to me for it to be face down because I didn’t understand why you need to water proof the connection on the bottom it made more sense to protect the antenna. Do you know why the o-ring faces down?
@@FortuneTacoAZ That style of connector was originally designed, and still widely used, to mount antennas through roofs and trunk lids of cars and trucks. The o-ring seals the under side from water ingress. Think first responder vehicles.There is a separate, flat gasket to seal the antenna on those installations. You probably also saw (I did) wrench flats on the part you put down used to tighten the nut with a tool. Hope that helps.
Please do explain more on how you did that, I just ordered a replacement clip for a cb mic and I was gong to drill into the mic so I can mount it like any other cb radio mic
@@FortuneTacoAZ I took a small metal plate used for a cell phone and gorilla glued it to the mic then used a flush mount magnet and mounted it to the dash.
@@jonathanwheeler9105 that sounds like a simple fix. My plan is to add the cb mic button on the back then possibly purchase the magnetic mic system to attach it to my dash.
