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Y61 SS Upgrades Help & Recommendations


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As I spend more time in my Y61 SS LWB, a few things are beginning to ramp up on the modification list. My intention is to leave most elements as stock as I don't believe I'm nearly good enough yet to be exploiting the full range of this car's capabilities. So far, I've only added a front skid plate and recovery points. Furthermore, I am building my car up to be an overlander - part of the reason why I bought a LWB. With that in mind, I'm not touching suspension or tires at this time. These will definitely come when my wadi crawling become more continuous.

My current two areas for upgrades are the Lighting and Head Unit + Sound System.

LIGHTING

For the Lighting, after listening to a a roof-mounted light bar on the highway (pretty much every road in Dubai), I'm steering towards putting in to two (2) x Spotlights on the front bumper. Ideally, 7inch maximum as I find the 9inch units to be too big for the front fascia.

On the A-pillar, I'm looking to mount one spot+flood combo light each.

So here comes the first question - would you folks recommend going for Amber lights in both or White lights with Amber covers?
I see the value of Ambers for dusty driving but so far in my night drives, I've only seen very dusty conditions when covering flat patches. Otherwise, the sand seems to settle very quickly after being flung about by the cars in front. 

The last area that I'm struggling to pin down is if I want rocker switches or an sPOD. The shops tell me that I can program multiple levels of the lights across low beam, high beam + strobe (for that trance party I will be hosting in Liwa). But wanted to get a view on what the consensus is around running On/Off switches vs a programmable pod?

HEAD UNIT + SOUND

The current Clarion Head Unit in the Patrol comes out of Malaysia but no matter how hard I look, I can't find firmware updates for it. The system settings say that its BT version is 0.9 which is quite literally Gen 1 and head units today are pushing BT 5.0. This head unit has a notorious skipping problem with BT where I feel like a wannabe DJ... Has anybody here done upgrades on their head units? Do you have recommendations?

I would like to install a double DIN unit and not bigger than 7 inches so it's not floating out of the space. Furthermore, with the semiconductor chip shortages, finding Pioneer head units in the market has been extremely challenging. I've found similar units in the US. Are these universal and can I just have it shipped over and install it here?

The second reason I would like to use an upgraded head unit is to use CarPlay and run Gaia on the larger screen than my mounted phone. Here, I'm also planning to add a Garmin GLO or a Dual XGPS160 to augment the GPS/GLONASS signals coming in. Is this overkill, or have your phones + offline maps been reliable enough?

For the sound system, there are quite a few upgrades available in the market across the spectrum with Kenwoods & Alpines at the lower end to Hertz & Focal at the higher end. The latter also require increased dampening, and an additional amplifier. I have sourced an internal A-pillar with a tweeter cutout so building a component here is ideally the way forward for me.

Edited by munkybizness
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17 minutes ago, munkybizness said:

strobe (for that trance party I will be hosting in Liwa).

Please invite us.

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For lighting, I can say that go with bumper setup and LED bar with good brand and latest technology. Roof bar make noise and not bumper setup. With LED bar you get combo of flood (edges) and spot (center) which covers almost 150 degree with one job, one wiring and one placement. Amber and white, seek some other expert advise as I have never used Amber so far.

For head unit, double din looks classy and full of feature but it may be sensitive to regular dune bashing unless some new tech arrived in market with IP67 kind of rating.

For choice of Pioneer or Kenwood you cant go wrong, just make sure player has 4 channel and not 2 and as high watt RMS and then add a good quality amplifier (MOST IMPORTANT INVESTMENT IN SOUND SYSTEM SETUP) hope you get its importance with all caps.

For sound system @Niki has recently done some research and installation so Ill let him chime his knowledge along with our resident head of music @Frederic who is on holidays atm.

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13 minutes ago, Gaurav said:

For lighting, I can say that go with bumper setup and LED bar with good brand and latest technology. Roof bar make noise and not bumper setup. With LED bar you get combo of flood (edges) and spot (center) which covers almost 150 degree with one job, one wiring and one placement. Amber and white, seek some other expert advise as I have never used Amber so far.

For head unit, double din looks classy and full of feature but it may be sensitive to regular dune bashing unless some new tech arrived in market with IP67 kind of rating.

For choice of Pioneer or Kenwood you cant go wrong, just make sure player has 4 channel and not 2 and as high watt RMS and then add a good quality amplifier (MOST IMPORTANT INVESTMENT IN SOUND SYSTEM SETUP) hope you get its importance with all caps.

For sound system @Niki has recently done some research and installation so Ill let him chime his knowledge along with our resident head of music @Frederic who is on holidays atm.

Thank you! I'm definitely going to get an additional amp because my speakers aren't even doing my lo-fi Apache Indian any justice right now 😛 I was totally unaware of the IP67 ratings for the seals on the units. I will definitely look into that. This weekend, I put the windows down and there was sand everywhere... so getting it into buttons and jamming them is definitely something I need to watch out for.

I've pulled some quotes from three different shops - two in Al Quoz, and one in Sharjah (Kenwood). The Head Unit really pumps up the prices so am trying to maximize as much return as I can get from the unit in the car.

image.png.b59c398635b23fea2cca7a2e56396b04.png
 

For the lightbar vs spotlights, I'm a little torn because I don't like the lightbar aesthetic but I completely see your point, and having seen yours and @Rizwanm2 in action, I am sold on the output & versatility.

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Hi 

I personally chosen the option of bumper LED bar and side shooters mixed white spot and amber at the periphery ( see my profile pict 😄) also like that 👇

image.jpeg.958c31f327baf03615703f024645ff93.jpeg

( pict curtesy @Anish S )
so far I am so happy with it on night drives 

and no sounds on high ways 

both I purchased it via Amazon 

 

Edited by M.Seidam
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3 minutes ago, M.Seidam said:

Hi 

I personally chosen the option of bumper LED bar and side shooters mixed white spot and amber at the periphery ( see my profile pict 😄) also like that 👇

image.jpeg.958c31f327baf03615703f024645ff93.jpeg

so far I am so happy with it on night drives 

and no sounds on high ways 

both I purchased it via Amazon 

 

Thanks @M.Seidam! That's a stunning photo that really shows off those lights. And we can make yours strobe to complete the rave lighting needs :D :D 

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Talking about Strobes, @Frederic Pajero has LED bar on strobe setting. When I first drove his car and accidently switched on, I was scared that what did I do now.....!

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Got scared when accidentally did this on the highway 🤭 luckily no cups were around 🤪🤣

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3 minutes ago, M.Seidam said:

Got scared when accidentally did this on the highway 🤭 luckily no cups were around 🤪🤣

While out getting a quote for my skid plates, a guy was asking them to wire his lightbar to his dipper. And no matter how much they would say "no", he wouldn't budge. His argument - "I want to give dipper with full lights" (exact quote) 🤣🤣🤣

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