The Adventures of Fiona - '08 JK Rubicon 2-Door

Okay, realized I didn't really document the aux lighting I did and since I had to redo the rear, I figured I'd post it up in this thread in one post...

Apollointech switch pod installed and had some custom covers made for the rockers...

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Rock lights and scene lighting
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Front amber dust/fog lights
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Rear chase lights with adjustable flash pattern (2nd photo shows button to change pattern)
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Rear work/backup lighting
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Yes, I already have a winch and lockers. 🤣

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Build Thread - Adventures of Fiona - https://wayalife.com/showthread.php?t=47407
 
BaddestCross said:
Okay, realized I didn't really document the aux lighting I did and since I had to redo the rear, I figured I'd post it up in this thread in one post...

Apollointech switch pod installed and had some custom covers made for the rockers...

View attachment 291640
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View attachment 291642

Rock lights and scene lighting
View attachment 291643

Front amber dust/fog lights
View attachment 291644

Rear chase lights with adjustable flash pattern (2nd photo shows button to change pattern)
View attachment 291645
View attachment 291647

Rear work/backup lighting
View attachment 291646

Yes, I already have a winch and lockers. 🤣

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Build Thread - Adventures of Fiona - https://wayalife.com/showthread.php?t=47407
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I have seen the light panel before. Very nice! Love the tire cover too!

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catahoula said:
I have seen the light panel before. Very nice! Love the tire cover too!

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Thanks... It's an Xprite G2 series. It seems to be built very well. The one I had before was their base model and after one day blasting through the desert the vibration killed most of the LEDs. Hopefully this one will do better.

The tire cover (a gift from my son) is probably my favorite mod. 🤣

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Build Thread - Adventures of Fiona - https://wayalife.com/showthread.php?t=47407
 
Last month, Fiona hit the 100k milestone so I've been going through and doing some routine maintenance.
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She's been idling a little rough, so I knew it was time to replace plugs and wires. I came across this kit from Performance Distributers and figured I'd give it a shot. Who doesn't want some more performance (lol) out of their 3.8L? 😎
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New Livewire plug wires compared to stock...
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After reading up on spark plugs, I decided to stay with the Champions recommended by the factory. The only difference, with the upgraded coil pack you need to gap the plugs to 0.065 instead of the factory 0.050.

I began pulling the plugs and they were definitely in need of replacement... No oil or excessive carbon buildup, so that's a good sign. I did do a deep soak and gas treatment with Seafoam a couple weeks ago before the last oil change, so maybe that cleaned them up some.
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You want to know how to make a $200 job a $700 job?
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Yup. The last plug snapped off in the cylinder. Fuck. Had her towed over to the shop. Thankfully, my guy was able to extract the rest of the plug out of the cylinder without dropping anything into the block!
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It turns out, whoever did the last plug swap (or the factory... The plugs looked original) cross threaded the plug. My mechanic was able to get a head specialist over to rethread the block.

Everything got back together...
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So far, she's running like a champ. I'm gonna try and put some miles on her tomorrow to see if there's any noticable difference with the upgraded coil pack and wires. It does seem that the idle is smooth, so that's a plus so far. 👍

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Build Thread - Adventures of Fiona - https://wayalife.com/showthread.php?t=47407
 
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That blows regarding the sparkplugs but I've seen that shit many times before. Tech's need to slow down and do it correctly.
 
WJCO said:
That blows regarding the sparkplugs but I've seen that shit many times before. Tech's need to slow down and do it correctly.
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Yeah... It could've been a lot worse. I'm thankful that nothing dropped down into the cylinder and that my guy was able to fix it without pulling the head.

At least now I know when the plugs were done and that the motor seems to be running well with no internal leaks. She doesn't burn much oil between changes to speak of (knock on wood). After a year and a half of ownership, I've just about gone through everything and fixed a lot of dumb shit from the prior owner. The plugs were about the only maintenance item I hadn't checked off yet.

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Build Thread - Adventures of Fiona - https://wayalife.com/showthread.php?t=47407
 
And I thought I was the only person shit like this happens to. I got where I hate to do simple stuff because it winds up costing me more than if I would had let someone else do it to start with.


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Nick Henninger said:
And I thought I was the only person shit like this happens to. I got where I hate to do simple stuff because it winds up costing me more than if I would had let someone else do it to start with.


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Welcome to WAL. You should post up an introduction in the Wave forum. 🍻

Yeah, it seems like every little job I've done lately has turned into a shit-show. I'm hesitant to do the simplest things lately. When this happened, I actually started laughing because I was totally expecting something to go wrong.

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Build Thread - Adventures of Fiona - https://wayalife.com/showthread.php?t=47407
 
Sucks about that plug. I had an F150 with those dumb 2 piece plugs on a 5.4. You just assumed about half would break. This is what this reminded me of.

If you don’t mind post up a long term review on that coil. I will probably be doing this within the year.


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enfielded0405 said:
Sucks about that plug. I had an F150 with those dumb 2 piece plugs on a 5.4. You just assumed about half would break. This is what this reminded me of.

If you don’t mind post up a long term review on that coil. I will probably be doing this within the year.


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That was a stupid design. Luckily I never had to replace mine in my f150 but I was worried about it.


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enfielded0405 said:
Sucks about that plug. I had an F150 with those dumb 2 piece plugs on a 5.4. You just assumed about half would break. This is what this reminded me of.

If you don’t mind post up a long term review on that coil. I will probably be doing this within the year.


Sent from my iPhone using WAYALIFE mobile app
Click to expand...

OverlanderJK said:
That was a stupid design. Luckily I never had to replace mine in my f150 but I was worried about it.


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Funny you guys would mention Ford... The only other time I've had a plug snap on me was years ago changing them out on my old '59 Fairlane. That time it broke above the nut and, thankfully, I was able to remove it without any damage.

Yeah, I'll post my thoughts after I put some miles on the coil pack and see if there's any noticable difference. It would've been a more fair review/comparison if the plugs weren't in such bad shape, though.

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Build Thread - Adventures of Fiona - https://wayalife.com/showthread.php?t=47407
 
Man that sucks, my threads on one of plugs was crossthreaded when I replaced them last year. There's always one! Glad you got it fixed. There's so much pleasure fixing the dumb shit and knowing it's done right.
 
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