My 2013 D40 ST - A.K.A. Black Betty

[Jake Drake]

Just thought I'd start a thread of the things im planning on doing to my truck if anyone was interested and if anyone is able to help me if i run into problems or vice versa.
Bought stock in July 2021 as per first couple of photo's long term goal is to try get her looking nice and running on 35's if possible

 

[Jake Drake]

Over the past week I've installed a 2"body lift, ran into minimal problems, just the trimming of engine cover, unclipping abs lines whilst doing the lift. ended up leaving fuel filler cap attached to tray as there was enough length and flex in the rubber hose to work without problems. Front bumper moved up with body lift, however a minimal gap appeared - more due to me accidently have bent the bottom of my bumper inwards. On thing that i didn't notice till today was there was a small earth wire going from mid exhuast to the chassis and that I have snapped during the lift

 

[Jake Drake]

Couple days later my 2" suspension lift arrived. At this point I went for the cheap option (Roughly $250NZD). This consisted of 2" front strut spacers and 2" extended rear leaf shackles. Install was easy and took only a couple of hours. After Install I found 3 problems.

1. Rear leaf springs now sit perfectly level with no curvature to them. Guessing I need some new or heavier duty springs. I don't have a photo of this atm sorry.

2. Upper control arms hit top of strut when suspension maxes out. Normal driving is fine however offroad there is a wee knock wheni hit a pothole hard. I knew this was expected and at this point I am alright with it as I am not actually going to be driving truck for a wee while.

3. Sway bar popped both end links. Once the lift was in, when I lowered truck back onto the ground there was two pops. both end links had popped out, I didn't realise this would be an issue. by looks of it i am going to need some slighlty longer ones to take into accound of front end angles. Because I live in a semi rural area, my cheap fix was just to remove front sway bar completly for now until I get new links.

Pics are with truck with 2" body, 2" suspension and two motorbikes on the back when me and my mates went for a play down the river

 

[Jake Drake]

My 3" Stainless exhuast from PPD arrived today, ran out of time to finish taking the stock one off. Thought it would be funny to go for a quick drive to my mates to see what it sounded like with litterly the downpipe from the turbo attatched. As my mate said, sounds like a spaceship XD.

Here's the video if anyone wanted a laugh

 

[Scott52]

2. Upper control arms hit top of strut when suspension maxes out. Normal driving is fine however offroad there is a wee knock when I hit a pothole hard. I knew this was expected and at this point I am alright with it as I am not actually going to be driving truck for a wee while.

I fixed this problem by installing 25mm extended upper ball joints.

 

[Jake Drake]

I fixed this problem by installing 25mm extended upper ball joints.

Thanks for that! was looking at longer upper control arms but that might be a cheaper option for me for now

 

[Jake Drake]

Hey guys another update. Installed my PPD 3" exhaust today. Install was easy, just had a few troubles when removing the old system. When unbolting the downpipe I removed the LH side inner guard to get to bolts a bit easier, didn't want to remove any of the hoses in the engine bay so decided to drop downpipe out from the bottom. Foor me to doo that i had to disconnect the front driveshaft from the front diff. once that was out the way it came out easy.

Heres a couple of video's if anyones interested in what it sounds like:
I do have a video from the rear exhuast but too large to upload here. might upload to youtube sometime

 

[Jake Drake]

I do have a video from the rear exhuast but too large to upload here. might upload to youtube sometime

Here's link to the video:

 

[Jake Drake]

After waiting almost 4 months my XROX Bullbar has arrived, got that all on and to be honest pretty easy install. measure 50mm from below the centre of the grill and mark a level line with masking tape around the front of the bumper, simply cut that off. Then its as easy as slide the rubber on the bumper thats just cut, assemble the bullbar on the ground and bolt on. (can go into more detail if people have any questions)

Also installed 2x Kings 7" LED Driving Lights, came with all the wiring you need and was super easy to install, ran the wiring for the switch through the firewall where the main loom goes through. Super bright and so happy with them, you can find them here if anyones interested

https://nz.adventurekings.com/adven...air-plug-n-play-smart-wiring-harness-kit.html