I bought my KR almost two months ago (12/06). Since then, I have been working on it every chance I can which is not much because of my Mon-Fri, 8-5 job.

The first thing I did was have it undercoated and a sprayed in Rhino bed liner. Had a Snugtop cover put on. The front windows were tinted just slightly and all the rear windows tinted twice as dark as they were. I had a strip of tint put across the top of the windshield. Added dual exaust and had 4.10 gears installed. Last I replaced the Pirelli 275 55 R20 scorpion ATR tires with Michelin 285 60 R20 LTX M/S tires. I like Michelin's better and I wanted a slightly taller tire.

The additions to the exterior that I did myself... Changed the shocks to Bilstein 5100 series and added a Hellwig 1 7/16" front and Hellwig 1" rear sway bar. Changed to a Harley grille with white surround. Changed the headlights to the 2007 Mark LT lights and added Hella FF75 driving lights. I wired the Hella driving lights to the high beams and wired the fog lights to be used as daylight driving lights. I rewired all the lights with their own relays so they will have full power from the battery. All lights are Sylvania Silverstars. Replaced the tan running board with black ones. It matchs both in pattern and texture the rear bumper cap and blends and sort of disappears when looking at the truck from the side. Added a black 1/2" stripe between the white and gold. Changed the rear tail lights to a clear lens LED type. Not sure about them yet. I replaced the back-up light with a 50 watt halogen light and installed a relay on it. Replaced the third light on the roof with a clear LED type. Don't like the look of mud guards but had to add them. I live in an area where I am always driving on muddy roads and driveways. I had the Huskey mud guards painted the same gold as the trim of the truck. Removed the 4x4 stickers.

The mods I did on the inside are..... Completely removed all four door panels and lined the doors with Dynamat extreme and the door panels with 1/8" Dynapad. While I was in there I upgraded the stock speakers with Pioneer Premier speakers. I then removed the console, seats and the headliner and lined the entire floor, back wall and roof with Dynamat extreme and 1/4" Dynapad. I like an extremely quiet truck and I got it. Installed a Tellphone 4200 Bluetooth kit in the dash in place of the lighter and took apart the display module of the bluetooth kit so that I could relocate the electronics behind the dash panel. This way the module would only stick out 1/4". Looks much better. I wired it into the stock Nav radio so that when a call comes in, it mutes the front speakers and the voice comes from there. The Nav radio dims and displays "Phone". I mounted the mic in the panel on the roof that houses the map lights. I installed an iPod in the front overhead storage module in the PDA pocket. I took apart one of the Belkin car docks and customized it to fit in the PDA pocket and wired it directly to the car's ignition so that the iPod charges and it is also wired directly to the line in on the radio. The rear DVD headrests had a FM wireless transmitter to transfer audio to the radio. I did not like the way this sounded so I tapped into the control module for the DVD unit and also wired it directly to the radio. I replaced the line in jack on the top of the dash with a pushbutton switch that controls which audio source the radio sees, iPod or DVD. I installed a rear back-up camera (the license frame type) and replaced the mirror with a rear view mirror that has a 4.5 inch 16x9 LCD monitor. Unfortunately, they sent me the wrong one and the correct one is on backorder so I am using the other one until it comes in. It has two video inputs. One comes on automatically when the car is in reverse to see what is behind you and the other source is my rear DVD players. I also had to tap into the DVD control box again to get the video out. I wanted the rear passengers to be able to have control of the power rear sliding window so I ordered the switch and light assembly from the front unit and customized it to fit in the rear unit. The lights also work the same in the back as they do in the front now where the map lights are also the dome lights and the rear dome light is replace by the switch. Since this switch was not designed to have two of them in the same circuit, I had to install a small micro toggle switch to select which switch is active because they both cannot be active at the same time. I like floor lighting so I intsalled a light under the left and right side of the dash and also under the rear of the left and right front seat to light up the floor in the rear. Added a Ranchitout leather gear shift cover and 2004 door sill protectors in the front and smaller 2007 protectors in the rear.

Here are my photo galleries. Let me know what you think....

https://www.f150online.com/galleries....cfm?gnum=9005

 

Well.......

Why didn't you do some serious mods instead of just messing around with trivial stuff !!

(Only joking if you know me !)

Well done !

Want to borrow a KR Expedition for a few weeks ?!!

 

That is crazy-but great.

Very well executed details.

How much of a difference does the Dynamat & Pad make with sound, and road noise?

That is a mod I am really considering before beefing up the Sound.

 

Thanks,

Yeah I've been working on it alot and my friends thought I moved away or something.

One other thing I forgot to mention in my first post was I ordered a programmer from Mike at Troyer a few weekes ago. Ford could not calibrate my speedo because the gear ratio and tire size do not match up with my VIN. I wanted a programmer anyway as I have never had one before and everything I have read on this site seems like everyone loves them.

I did the same Dynamat/Dynapad thing on my 2002 F-150 and I did it then mainly for the stereo. I was not concerned as much with road noise because it was a fairly quiet truck to begin with I thought. Anyway in that truck I installed a very nice (and expensive) Alpine system. The difference in adding the Dynamat and Dynapad is quiet a bit. It is the Dynamat that really makes a difference for the sound inside the truck and the Dynapad just quiets the inside down a bit sort of like having cloth interior. Think about it. Does anyone make speaker cabinets out of thin metal? You line the entire interior with that stuff and you instantly get deeper bass and more of it. The road noise is at different low frequencies depending on the speed you are going and that interferes with the same frequencies the sub is trying to put out and it's just not good. You just hear more of your stereo sort of like when you are just sitting at a stop light.

There is one thing that really bothers me though with this new truck. I have tried to read some of the posts to see if anyone else has this problem or if it was just with my truck and I should take it in to have it checked out. The engine seems very noisey to me. My 2002 F-150 I could hardly hear the engine unless I really got on it but even then it was farily muffled. This trucks engine is quite noticable just in every day driving and accelerating. I am thinking it is because it looks to me that half the engine is damn near inside the truck under the dash. Adding the Dynamat and Dynapad in the front floor board section and up the firewall as high as I could go helped a bit but I still feel it is too loud. Some say it is because I have eleminated the road noise so much and this truck already has little wind noise, that all I have left is the engine noise. I don't think so. One other thing is that I can feel a slight vibration of the engine through the gas and brake pedal while accelerating. The only thing I can think of there is that it might be the exaust system. I looked under the truck and it seems to me that everywhere Ford has mounting points for the exaust, they are rock solid. Didn't exaust use to be hung on soft rubber mounts that you could really flex the pipes? Anyone else have excessive engine noise or vibration?

 

truck looks awesome

 

Those are 2 of the longest posts I ever read in my life.

Very nice and clean mods!! Seems like you have a lot of "style" in the mods you choose.....not too "over the top". I like that!

 

Same here. VERY impressive.
There has got to be some type of award you deserve.

 

rsr1, I just looked at all the mods in your gallery, very nicely done! I would like to do the same thing with the Ipod dock in the overhead storage. Could you share some details on how you did it? Which Belkin dock did you use? How was it wired and routed?

Thanks

 

That is great work!

 

That was not a slam dunk easy job but I like challenges. If I want something, I will try my hardest to make it work.

First, I needed a base type device that would hold any iPod and also be very slim to fit into the PDA pocket of the overhead storage module. I went down to Circuit City and found a Belkin TuneBase FM or iPod http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProdu...duct_Id=257270 This device was just perfect to mount down at the bottom of the PDA pocket. The thing is, I could not use any of the electronics that it came with so I basically spent $80 just for a special sized base. This unit will charge the iPod but sends the audio over FM. I did not want this and would not be able to use it like that anyway as the lighter plug is hard mounted to the back of the base and it would not fit into the pocket like this. As I said, I bought it just for the base. I needed something that charged the iPod and also had an audio out. So I bought another Belkin device, the Auto Kit for iPod ($30) http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProdu...duct_Id=149006

I took the TuneBase completely apart and tossed everything out including the connector that was at the bottom of the base that mates with the iPod. I then took the Auto kit and slid the connector into the bottom of the base of the TuneBase and glued it in place. This left me with a small flexable wire coming out of the back of the TuneBase and I cut a hole in the back of the PDA pocket and ran it up the back and out the top of the storage module. The other end is a lighter of course with a small 1/8 inch standard audio plug on the side. At radio shack, I bought a lighter receptical and a male to male 1/8 inch audio cord 12 feet long.

Right above the first storage module is a power jack that is not being used and I tapped into that for the power of the lighter receptical. I plugged the lighter plug from the Auto car kit into the receptical and the audio jack into the lighter plug and stuffed it up into the hole in the headliner above the storage module and snapped the module up in place. I ran the audio wire straight forward towards the mirror and across the right side of the top of the windshield under the headliner and down the right A piller, under the top of the dash to the line in input of the radio.

Now, I do have two line inputs going to it one from the iPod and one from the rear DVD players so I also have a switch and some other electronics under there doing the switching but you would not have to worry about that. I may have made is sound very simple but it did take me all night to figure it out and do the job. I can upload a picture or two of the storage module and the parts somewhat but I did not take any photos of the tearing apart of the Belkin units. Let me know...

Also, sorry about the long posts. I am new here and normally use to photo forums and have to sometime explain myself in detail to avoid too many additional questions and I guess I just expected the same here. I can keep it very short if that is best.

 

Thanks for all the info. Some pictures would be great. I was searching around and came across this http://www.brandmotion.com/products/...port-ipod.html It doesn't appear to be available yet, but it looks like the controls for the Ipod will be fully integrated into the HU.

I also found this http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProdu...duct_Id=277954 visually it looks like it will fit, do you know anything about it?

I hope it doesn't seem like I'm stealing all your ideas, but can you tell me about your switch? I would also like to use the aux input jack for a Sirius S50 as well as the Ipod.


Thanks again!

 

Just found this http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/ipo...for-ipod-nano/ Not sure if I could modify this for what we're taliking about.

 

I had called Brandmotion about their iPod Docking system and they had told me back at the beginning of January, that it would not be available for a few months and it would not work with my stock Nav radio. It would only integrate the iPod controls with non-Nav radios. So I had no further reason to look into this. I also did not understand why they had to take up an entire stroage bin for one iPod. I think this would be great for you to get as you would not have to spend the time engineering a base like I did. I hope it becomes available soon as I know a few people that would want this unit.

I do not know anything about the Belkin TuneDeck. When I went do Circuit City last month, I did not see this. Maybe they did not carry it or were out of stock but I probably would have bought it instead of the TuneBase that I got because it is cheaper and I only needed it for the base. You still would have to modify it by incorporating the Belkin Auto Kit for the iPod.

When I get a chance I will pull down the storage bins and take a picture of the bin that I modified and post it.

 

You are not stealing any ideas. I posted what I have done so that if anyone else wants to do this, I can maybe help or learn to do it a better way than what I have done.

Sometime what I do to get what I want is a very crude way of doing things behind the scenes but the finished outcome (on the outside) looks good and it works well. This is the case with the switch I added for wanting a to be able to select between two different aux line inputs.

I looked for a pushbutton switch that was a DP/DT that would fit in the hole in the top of the dash panel that would take the place of the aux line in jack. I could not find one that I thought that would fit after looking around here. So I decided to just buy any little toggle switch and install it in the console storage bin. I went and bought the Ford top dash panel that did not have the line in jack since I would have to locate the jack under the panel and the original panel would have a hole in it. I did all of this and it worked fine. Then, I was at an electroincs store and found a very small little box that switches two audio sources. It had two RCA line inputs and one RCA line output and a little black push button switch on the front. Just what I was looking for. I tore apart the box and mounted the switch in the hole of the dash panel where the line in jack was and mounted the rest of the insides of the switching box under the panel. I bought some RCA to 1/8" mini audio adapters and that was that.

You can find a box like this that already has 1/8" mini jacks but it has a slide swich and that would not work in the stock panel too well. http://electronicsusa.com/mk1and2.html This is the little box I got here at a local electroinics store. http://www.mcminone.com/product.asp?...5Fid=50%2D6220 It is just a little small box with a pushbutton switch, same one I mounted in the dash panel in place of the line in jack. It has two RCA phono style inputs on the back and the one RCA output cord. This is not a good picture but it is the same unit that I got and maybe an electronics store around you carries it.

Don't suppose you want me to take a picture of the ugly mess that is under that panel do you? Just joking, I will if you want but it is not too pretty.

 

Ok, I added some photos of the Belkin iPod install and the Aux Line In switch.

https://www.f150online.com/galleries....cfm?gnum=9005