thailoht

Ok, time out... we had a little fun

Mark my ;-) sign in the end of my post

To lower the Spare Wheel:

(1) Assemble the 3 piece Jack Bar (photo #1)

(2) Insert the assembled Jack Bar into the into the hole on your rear bumper until it engages the catch (photo #3)

(3) Attach the Jack Wrench / Jack Handle (photo #2)

(4) Turn counter-clockwise and the Spare Wheel will begin to lower

I ordered my Osram and Night Breaker Unlimiteds from 3 different eBay suppliers, one based in UK. The better eBay stores will tell you on their website the amount of any Thai customs taxes. Mine arrived w/o incident. What specific size are you looking for?

I tried my power drive switch for the first time the other day and noticed that when it was engaged, I could 'accelerate' (as though I was trying to overtake - pass - another vehicle) at a much higher RPM range than normal!

OP, seems I am in the same boat as you. Tested the battery this morning after a good charge yesterday, 12.4 volts , engine running 13.6.

My well trained ear tells me the engine is not cranking over as it should be too. Looks like new battery time.

Uh-oh!!!

Is this the battery in your pimped-up blue pickup?

How old is it?

Exactly 3 years old Boliden...BUT......When Mrs.Trans brought it back from BKK it was laid on it's side in the coach and a lot of the liquid drained out . Sooo, I never had the advertised 110 amps and for sure has something to do with it not lasting longer........

I was hoping it wasn't that battery!

My O.E.M. battery lasted exactly 2 years and died almost 2 months ago after we had drove down to Phuket. I replaced it with a Boliden dry cell because of the high regards it received on this forum. Sooooooo-oh, I hope I can get about 4 years out of mine(?) ..... I will make sure no one lays it on its side.

OP, seems I am in the same boat as you. Tested the battery this morning after a good charge yesterday, 12.4 volts , engine running 13.6.

My well trained ear tells me the engine is not cranking over as it should be too. Looks like new battery time.

Uh-oh!!!

Is this the battery in your pimped-up blue pickup?

How old is it?

What model pickup and engine size do you have?

^^^ Funny, since this is what the OP and myself, who happen to only be satisfied end users of Run-Stop's rear disk brake conversion kit and larger front rotor upgrade products, have been pointing out in this thread. I am quite sure that the Run-Stop techs and research have competently 'done their homework' in the products they mfg. in order to have survived in business for so long.

So maybe it would be more productive for those who have technical doubts or reservations about system installation or upgrade practicality to address their questions and points to the brake techs at Run-Stop or (EBC brakes) who are 'professional' and are more 'thoroughly' knowledgeable about these systems and can surely satisfy everyone with technical answers. The answers can then be posted here for all of our consumption.

Most of em sept You. Spoonman fitted bigger Rotors or Disks.That would certainly reduce stopping distance,especialy fully laded from higher speeds.If your pleased,thats all that matters.

Bail Ace you'll never convince someone whose spent 30,000 on brakes that they are not better.

I'm sure brake feel is improved and much less effort to pull the car up would be noticed. However I would doubt braking distance would be shortened - abs is activated on stock brakes under hard braking as it would with larger brakes. Better, wider and stickier tyres would need to be added to complement the brakes. The big brakes would let the abs activate more easily under hard braking with oem tyres. Even with stock brakes, the stopping distance can be reduced if better tyres are used. I noticed that when I changed my tyres from 195 to 215. Abs was less likely to engage with the wider tires, especially when new.

Somethings are priceless ......

I have been posting the results of my upgrades for the 2 years I have had them. My upgrades have all come from suggestions and recommendations of TV members, many from the period in time when posters took it upon themselves to share ideas and help one another.

Fredob43's experience and reaction to our rear disc brake conversion upgrade was exactly as mine was. This upgrade looks soon to be moot on SUVs because all the mfg are making 4 wheel disc brakes O.E. now.

Converting my O.E. drum brakes to disc brakes is an improvement in my vehicle's braking. Disc brakes trump drum brakes. The increase quality of the braking power with 4 wheel disc brakes should be undeniable to all except the most mechanically challenged. It was immediately obvious to me. If those who are interested bother to browse back to some of my previous posts, I believe I mentioned in some detail how much I credited this disc brake upgrade as well as the tyre choice for my new wider 20" wheels for help in possibly saving a little 5 year old girl's life or preventing seriously injury at the very least when she ran from behind a stopped song taew that had been coming from the opposite direction, and directly into the path of my MU-7! It had been raining but was only drizzling at the time and the roads were wet and it was a narrow country road. The instant I saw the top of her head as she ran into my vehicle's path, I hit the brakes ....... my big 1800kg MU-7 stopped on a dime! No skidding!! My vehicle hit the girl and she flew about 3 meters into the air but luckily was bounced to and landed on the grass and dirt to the passenger side of my vehicle. Even more luckily, the x-rays showed no broken bones or concussion - just head, arm and leg bumps and bruises. The point here is that these disc brakes passed 'real life' stopping test on wet roads. My vehicle's O.E. drum brakes and tyres could never have stopped like that, and in time, and that poor little girl would have surely been dragged under my vehicle .....

With all the toing a froing I forgot to put in a bit of trivia.

My Tuna is 5 years old and completed just over 70,000km front pads have less than 20% wear.

But the rear shoes when I inspected them last week during the change were almost shot. So looks like the rears wear a lot quicker on a Tuna than the front's. The brake set up I do believe is the same on the Vigo if it's the same wear wise with those I cant confirm. As said just a bit of trivia but well worth noting.

Well worth noting indeed! Thanks for the posting! :-)

Stopping distance remains the same.Overbraked Now. Waste of Money. But the Plastic Brembo Covers look nice.

I beg to differ. I put a BJmotors/runstop kit (320mm rears, 350mm fronts) onto my old Colorado pickup, the brakes on it were terrible with the 20" wheels (put the stockers on and it was tolerable).

Fitted this package and it stopped very well with the 20" wheels, infact it stopped a lot earlier than the oem with stock wheel. and before you say Iam lying, part of my employment is testing brake, tyre and suspension upgrade packages for the vehicle's we sell (who woulda thought that by adding 1000kg of armour to a vehicle it might need upgraded brakes/tyres and suspension).

I don'tt know if upgrading the rear brakes is good or bad but would not jump to conclusions. Hopefully Runstop are smart enough to design the rear disc brake setup to avoid dramatic imbalance and allowing the EBD / ABS to do its job.

Many current pickups and PPVs use EBD and may not have a hydraulic proportioning valve. Spoonman, do you know any details about EBD with your company brake upgrades? Do you know if EBD compensates and keeps the correct brake bias if only the rear brakes are upgraded like Fred and Thailoht?

It would be interesting to compare the brake systems on the Colorado pickup with drum rears and the Trailblazer with discs to see what differences GM made. Wonder if the EBD settings are the same.

Thailoht, if your rear brakes are wearing faster and your MU7 does have a proportioning valve and not EBD, the proportioning valve may need to be changed. Pickups used load sensing proportioning valves. If your MU7 has one, the bias may be able to be adjusted but the valves also use a low threshold pressure for the front discs to apply the rears first. That is why cars with disc/drum set ups used different valves to disc/disc.

Thanks a lot for the informative post and expanding our insight into this subject!

My MU-7 is 4x4 and uses the EBD system. I am not clear about whether or not any other relevant sensors are involved. I have separate EBD and ABS dashboard warning lights, though they have never been activated, so I take it the on-board EBD system believes it is operating properly.

To be clear about the whole situation: The rear dual caliper disc pads on the driver's side were equally worn all the way down (almost to the backing plate) but the rear disc pads on the passenger side were all equally only 'slightly more than half worn' and the rubber brake piston dust boots on the calipers on the passenger side have been torn. Both L & R side of the front disc pads show less than half disc pad wear.

I did upgrade to 20" wheels and tyres (from O.E. 16") and was looking to increase the anemic O.E. braking components to compensate for the wheel and tyre upgrade increase. In addition to the rear brake conversion, Run-Stop also installed 330mm front rotors and their disc pads on all brakes.

The OP may want to re-check with Run-Stop about any affect the rear dual caliper disc brake upgrade may have (if any) on the F - R Braking Power Distribution in his Fortuner and what is the exact % of F - R Braking Power Distribution in his vehicle.

Factory bias valves are usually non adjustable. Folk "hope" stuff will work out............

Rear pads wearing means bias is wrong. You have a major braking situation, the back will come round and stuff your day.

Having just discovered this pad wear and the 2 torn piston dust boots, of course I will be having it looked into.

Posted 2014-08-13 16:50:21

I have had my Fortuner Sportivo for about 5 years now, having had the engine tweaked I thought it was about time for a brake upgrade.

Having made several inquiries I settled for a Runstop replacement kit for the rear drums.

Contacted BJ motors BKK [email protected] 022246580-2 very helpful. They wanted an email stating car model year engine wheel size etc I also asked about fitting of same.

Within an hour I had received a reply recommending their 320dics with twin callipers 27,500bt for the kit they also included a photo break down of how it's done looks easy and it is but unless you have all the right pulley's and presses your buggered.

They also recommended a fitting company not 10 minutes from where I live very handy.

After a trip to the fitter to discus the set up I was given a price of 4,000bt for fitting including a rear axle oil change recommended.

Paid a deposit and they ordered the parts this was a Monday afternoon by midday the next day they had receive the kit and Wednesday in I go at just after 8am. All sorted I was home at about 12.30pm after a little run round.

Right was the 31,500bt well spent.

Dose it stop better yes not to easy at first to give an accurate % wise answer just running about town but after just completing a return journey of some 1,000km fully loaded in high temperatures + the usual heavy rain, I can tell you it's fantastic I guesstimate at least 40/50% better.

It does take a bit of getting used to pressure peddle wise at first but after that it's all plain sailing.

Down side.

The hand brake isn't as effective as before on steep hills but an extra click on the handle sorts that out, other than that nothing.

N/B my Sportivo wheels have a 16" internal dimension leaving a gap of some 1.1/4 " between rim and the outside edge of the callipers so whether the standard Fortuner wheels can accommodate this set up I don't know. But what I do know that I should have had it done years ago.

Forgot their wed site it's www.runstopbj.com.

Congrats on your new brakes! I know you are going to enjoy them!

I had the exact same rear caliper brake upgrade kit installed on my brand new MU-7. I could not get to the upgrade center fast enough after I bought it. The improvement in braking was instantaneous and 'quite' noticeable and your description is what I experienced! Now my big MU-7 stops on a dime, with barely any brake pedal effort at all, like a good 4 wheel disc brake vehicle should! It helps me do these LOS mountains like Steve McQueen in, 'Bullit', and performs superbly in rain.

I upgraded to 4 wheel disc brakes because they are better than drum brakes and the brake of choice in higher model, more expensive cars - I would think any auto enthusiast knows that.

As confirmed by the Run-Stop tech, the factory brake bias valve to control the front rear % is factory set and was not been adjusted. They said the factory front rear % for my SUV is 45% - 55%. I have been driving 2 years now (31.5 km total) and I looked at my brake pad wear: The rear disc pads are wearing down faster than the front disc pads in my RWD (4x4 on-the-fly) vehicle.

Surprisingly, the techs also said that their caliper piston rubber dust boots only lasts 1 - 2 years! 2 of the 4 of my rear rubber dust boots are torn!

Posted by Kwasaki:

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

^ ^ ^ Not even!

I have been convinced all along that the springs are wrong, You should be able to dip the front as you say. As the car has been with her daughter for a number of years it might have been like this for a long time ... only drove it recently to get the Head overhauled. I did ask my wife to take it to a Gooru place BUT instead she phoned them up and got a long speal. Now she says he did say change the springs!!! I need a second opinion from a suspension place ............

Going out !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I would have bet on it being the wrong springs, too!

It's a shame you can't get the O.E. front end specs for your Lantis from Mazda service centers here in LOS, even if it means they would have to check with their corporate files in Japan. Hopefully you can find a knowledgeable repair person.

 

 

I stumble corrected.

 

Nice one!!   

Very artfully stated!

I find the size of the SD card is like the size of the HDD you would choose for your laptop, etc. You have to ask yourself, 'For how long of a period of time do you need your dash cam to keep its recordings?'  A 4GB SD card records for a proportionally less length of time than 16GB, 32GB and 64GB SD cards. In the dash cam, depending on how you set it, when the end of a SD card's recording space is reached, the dash cam will either stop recording or begin to record over - loop - what has already been recorded.

In addition to the 'Size' of the SD card, you must also select a 'Class' .

The dash cam I bought, the DOD LS330W dash cam, (a 'sister(?)' brand to the model IMHO bought), has great features and works well with certain 64GB sized SD cards, specifically, the Adata Class-10 64GB brand SD cards. I use 64 GB SD cards for their ability to store and record long hours (>10 hrs) periods of driving per SD card.

I set my dash cam to record at the 720p/60fps rate.
 

^ ^ ^ ^ Exactimo!

was it better or worse with the 22's on.

I upgraded the OEM 16" Dueller tires on my new MU-7 to a set of 265/50R20 Yokohama Parada Spec-X following the recommendations by the knowledgeable pundits of this forum. These tires ride just like Jitar and the other pundits said. I find them to be smooth, grip the road and excellent cornering and on wet pavement but you will pay for the quality. I have 30k km on this set and they have worn extremely evenly and look to have more than half(?) the tread remaining. I highly recommend these to anyone who wants an excellent performing tire. I will most definitely buy another set of Parada's when these wear out.

When going from 20" to 22", I would look at the difference in the amount of exposed sidewall tire between the road and your wheel. The Parada has a good 'reinforced' sidewall on these tires.

Thailoht ... thanks, I was hoping that you would do that for me.

Hint ... I don't think I actually need that. If it makes driving even more pleasurable than I would be quite happy, a little extra torque when needed is also a plus ... as for 380Nm, well maybe after hell freezes over.

I expect that I will go for one ... just would like to fit it on the quite and see if madam notices. She said the effect from blanking the EGR was quite noticeable, but then she knew it had been done.

Just wonder about the EGT, both mods increase it, so both will effect turbine life, but measurable ....

Thanks to your suggestion, a basic frame of reference for blank EGR - racechip mod performance comparison has been established for fellow enthusiasts.

Now that your EGR is blanked, giving known advantages at low revs ... I wonder how much difference there would be if you removed your Racechip.

Following the suggestion, I removed my racechip in order to note any difference in the operational performance of my vehicle's power train with its EGR blanked. Since 99.5% of my driving experience has been with the racechip installed, my point of reference can only be: Blanked EGR with racechip and Blanked EGR w/o racechip.

Driving with Blanked EGR w/o racechip, I could feel the power train operate smooth and fluid with power at <2,000 rpms. Acceleration at higher rpms with the Blanked EGR, the power train isn't as smooth and fluid as it is with the racechip installed.

My first hand blanked EGR - Racechip conclusion: Driving with only the blanked EGR mod on my 3L MU-7 diesel, I have very responsive, smooth and fluid power train operation 'plus' non-contaminated clear and transparent engine oil after having drove hundreds of km since installing this mod.

Driving with the racechip and the blanked EGR mods installed together on my engine, I have all of the above throughout the full range of the drive train plus smooth, fluid power accelerations and power train operation.

As far as diesel racechips are concerned, my racechip is a piggyback/plug'n-play or 'entry' level type. There are higher level type racechips that promise even more power and torque. For more information, you can contact member philipm at this thread: http://www.thaivisa....el-performance/

I highly recommend the racechip!

I have been using the racechip at its factory settings since purchasing my 3.0L MU-7. In this SUV, the racechip not only performs to expectation, it does so flawlessly - I have excellent acceleration on demand - absolutely no 'black smoke'. I also have good power upon acceleration and excellent fuel economy. The power train operates nice and smooth with the racechip installed.

I have also recently blanked my EGR. The main benefit that I was looking for from this mod - and the one I have achieved - was to keep the EGR particles from being deposited into and contaminating the synthetic engine oil I use. Now, after hundreds of km of driving with my EGR blanked, my oil is still transparent - crystal clear on the dipstick! The only downside is, like the OP, my fuel economy is now somewhat lower than it had been before the mod but I gladly accept that little trade-off if it means always keeping my engine oil in the pristine clean condition it is now in!

It is great if yo get 65k - 70k km from a set of tires! How do you like the way they handled? If you had no complaints, why not replace them with the same brand? Otherwise, what did you not like about these tires?

Not even two weeks and some drunk sleepy Thai falls asleep at the wheel and crashes into my right rear fender, destroying the tail light and causing significant damage to the panel. Man was I pissed off. The damage isn't that bad...but ...Only two weeks with the car. The wife says the reason for the accident is because I didn't have the car blessed at the Monkery.

Ouch!

Man, do I feel your pain!!

When the title of the vehicle (along with its license plates) are transferred into your name, it will still be registered in Chiang Mai. If you want this vehicle to be registered in your home province, as I did, you could ask the DLT - Chiang Mai officials if they would begin the transfer process paper work for you. Extra fees required.

That was my experienced when I drove from my province to CM and bought a used vehicle. If you have time and want to play it safe, you may want to pick up and take a copy of the vehicle province registration transfer form from DLT-Chiang Rai with you to DLT-Chiang Mai. I believe you can also initiate the 'Province of vehicle registration' change from within the province where you reside.