**A Thrilling Off-Road Adventure with Nolan**

I'm looking at the top of a mountain over there, forward, right, right, right, right, that was awesome! Dang boys, you did it and under your own power! Nolan, yes, in honor of the land, you are now the real silverback.

Nolan thinks that more expensive doesn't necessarily mean better. I agree, I think the most important thing is to go out there and do it. Yep, in comparison to the cars we built last season, if you're on a track, seconds, milliseconds, there's tons of people watching you, knowing how well you're doing.

Every modification makes a huge difference now. I'm not saying that the mods on the trucks didn't make a big difference, but the focus should be on getting out there and having fun doing it for sure. Like spending more money on high-truck didn't make it more fun to drive necessarily. I had a blast every time we hopped in low truck; it's just fun to drive something where a car isn't meant to be.

The views weren't any better from high truck, but low truck was able to do everything that high truck could do and more. The camping experience wasn't that much different. It's not about the parts, no; it's about the experience, about getting out there with your friends and just going on an adventure.

You know, like off-roading is just as fun as going to a track. The speeds are way different, but it's a different kind of fun. I think that like off-roading is just as fun as... (no complete sentence)

Everyone was in it together, whether it's pulling to the side of the trail to let you pass or if you're going over a big obstacle, stopping and getting out and watching you, and hyping you up; that was awesome.

So Nolan, uh six thousand dollars worth of mods versus 35,000 worth of mods; which truck are you going with? Oh, low truck! No question! I know 1,000 agree. Yeah, it's the best truck in the world! I love low trucks so much; it's a tough call, do I love low car or low truck more?

Low car is a piece of trash; that's true and low truck is a great little brave gentleman. So much! The Toyota Tacoma, top 10 vehicle ever made of all time? No question!

I also want to remind everybody that we took a stock Tacoma with Justin ELocker out to our test site and it did great. You know, like you don't even need six thousand dollars worth of stuff as long as you have a locker and four-wheel drive maybe some wheels and tires, and maybe a little bit of a lift, you can have a really, really fun time in a truck.

Absolutely! And what's even cooler is everywhere that we went was public land. We're paying for this stuff with our taxes, and you just go out there, and drive in it, sleep there; who knew? Thank you very, very much for watching this season of Hi-Lo: All the highs and all those, yeah! It was a great time! It's a great experience!

I had no idea that I would love this so much. Thanks to everybody who commented both positive and negative, that's why we make these videos and build a community, and to build a community and welcoming us into this new community of off-roaders.

Because Nolan, we are definitely off-road guys now! Yeah! For sure! Thank you very much; hit the like button, hit the subscribe button, hit the subscribe button... Be kind; I love you. See you next time; breathe in and out; good mindfulness and controlled breathing are great practices for managing stress.

But you know what else is going off-road? Find yourself and share in the chillness with this new shirt; find yourself flowers butterfly toadstool frog all around you all around mother earth, and only 29.98; so much cheaper than thirty dollars, available now at DonutMedia.com go find yourself; the chillest shirt we've ever made! Namaste my dudes! What...

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en21 000 over landing toyota tacoma verse 45 000 over landing toyota tacoma does more expensive really mean more better let's find out big thanks to ebay motors for sponsoring today's video oh dude i got a dud no one noticed aaron everyone gave it her all this season from teams to everyone you don't see behind the cameras and honestly it would have been even harder without the support of ebay motors and their commitment to making a secure automotive marketplace for car boys and girls like us on this season of high low we've gotten to do a lot of cutting and welding which honestly i've really enjoyed i liked blowing up the tire in the first episode i liked working on cars with my friends and i liked watching nolan kick a stool across the shop as he was holding back tears because he was flashing back to high school geometry whoa nolan what the and with features like ebay's proprietary fitment which matches parts to your specific vehicle the ability to send out licensed trained inspectors to validate your vehicle and let's not forget about that sweet sweet money-back guarantee ebay motors has got what you need find out for yourself by clicking the link below or download the ebay motorz app today let's get dirty with these tricks we bought two nearly identical toyota comas and we've been modifying them to be fun daily drivers that you can take literally anywhere even to the top of a freaking mountain which we did one truck gets the expensive parts and one truck gets the cheap parts then we test these trucks to see which components are worth spending your hard earned money on we've been building these things for the past four weeks and they're finally done so now we're gonna dive into each and every component and tell you where it's worth it to spend the extra cash or where you're better off saving your hard-earned money for like a a house you probably should buy a house before you build this stupid thing you could live in this on our journey into the wild we want to test our rigs in three distinct but equally important facets of outdoors travel first we want to see how these tacos fares general road trippers how do they handle the long stints on the highway what do they like to camp out of second we want to test their general over landing abilities on the famous imaging pass how do these trucks like long journeys over a variety of terrain at 13 000 feet 13 000 feet and third the ultimate off-road test crawling over big ass rocks on the harrowing poughkeepsie trail culminating in the world famous obstacle the wall but before we jump into our road trip let's recap all the modifications we made to our stock first gen tacomas here at the inglewood propulsion laboratory we kicked off both builds with a suspension upgrade i really don't advise you to do this at home high truck got a 3200 dollar icon suspension kit while low truck got a 700 kit from bilstein both trucks gained three inches of clearance as advertised by both kits however three inches of lift didn't make a huge difference to our approach and departure angles also we've added a lot of heavy parts to high trucks since this episode we realized we should have opted for the higher rated springs from icon they could have counteracted some of the weight that was to come the icons really just absorbed and handled the trail better than the bilstein so i think we all agree on that that's true james but bang for your buck though seven hundred dollars for those bilsteins is a great value you won't regret saving the money yeah i would put them on my truck for sure yeah much better once we had gained a little more room under the fenders we could throw in some bigger and grippier tires here sounds like low team went with a set of 800 kenda clever all-terrain tires well high truck spent almost double that 1500 bucks on a set of nitto ridge grappler all terrains we opted for all terrains because again we're making daily drivers that you can take off-road we also got some mean looking wheels high truck got a set of kmc b-dock wheels at just over two thousand dollars for a set of five and low truck got a set of vision wheels for 500 total we're gonna use this torch to inflate this tire at our test site both tires performed almost uh identically but when it came down to the trip driving on the highway and off road they also performed almost identically through all our testing the trucks were getting quite a beating so we gave them a suit of armor high team bought rock sliders skid plates a rear bumper kit and a front bumper costing 4 000 while we on low team bought about 800 worth of steel pipe and sheet metal this is my design just took a picture of the truck and used markup on the iphone it's pretty bad but i'll grind it down in the end low team wasn't able to get all the armor we wanted installed if you're able to get the tools i think installing diy armor on an off-road is an awesome beginner project and the fun and experience is worth some of the headaches you might face like basic geometry after testing we decided front bumper and rock sliders go for the diy for skid plates pre-cut kits don't cost that much more than metal so you could go either way and for the rear bumper it just really depends on how complex of a setup that you want in all low truck doesn't have nearly the same protection that high truck does but boy does high truck weigh a lot a lot more oh after the armor it was time to address the elephant in the room the main thing holding us back throughout all of our testing you guys were in the comments screaming about it so we got ourselves some locking diffs hi team got the full monty setup front and rear arb air lockers which are only a thousand dollars each but once you add in the manifold and the compressor and the installation kits you're gonna end up spending four thousand dollars four thousand low truck went the simpler and cheaper route of swapping in a factory electronic locker which runs about eight hundred dollars depending on how you source it this might have been the biggest disparity in installation of this entire series low team was done in one day while it took high team three very long days to get everything buttoned up fifth try is gonna be the charm seventh tries the charm baby seven tries to charm 23rd try is the jar it's 3 30 in the morning and i'm still here honestly i think that it was worth it the air lockers engage much easier we have a built-in compressor now so we can air up our tires after we get off the trail very convenient and when both lockers are engaged it just climbs it feels like it's walking on its hands it's like a zombie coming out of a grave do whatever you can do to make sure you have a locker on your rig if that means you have to go the cheaper swap like low team then that'll do just fine it's like the bare minimum thing that i would have on an off-road vehicle the air lockers are better but if it's between waiting a year to save up the money or getting an e-locker this weekend get the cheaper option because the locker is going to open the door to a lot more trails and that's where you want to be well said james after the lockers it was time to throw on some recovery gear racks on racks home racks on vats beyond traction boards and recovery straps we wanted to see how necessary a winch really is high truck got a 1200 worn winch while low team was left with a very basic 80 come along during our test the long was able to recover low truck however the amount of labor and setup required for the come along made it clear that investing in a winch is very much worth it after the winch we got to installing some sick lights because we're scared of the dark oh god oh god that's right low truck got a generic 90 led light bar kit and high truck got a kc highlights pro gravity light bar and a pair of g6 daylighters adding up to 2 000 how about this the installation was pretty easy for both teams especially since high team already had a switch panel installed for their air lockers yeah we took both trucks out to the desert at night even though it was scary and the 90 leds performed surprisingly well yeah they had good coverage and spread high team's lights definitely were brighter and had further throw but maybe the biggest difference was the quality and the color of the lights themselves yeah everything felt more real with the kcs and the light temperature was vastly superior that's right ultimately the super cool and iconic look of the kcs won us both over and we agreed that the expensive lights were definitely worth the price tag i'll say there's a lot of debate in the comments whether that was true i stand by it though finally the last mod before hitting the road were our rooftop tents high team got a 2500 eye camper two well low team went with a 900 smittybilt cheaper parts are so much cuter names that's right come along smittybilt hey micah check a one two both installed relatively easily and performed great on our road trip while the eye camper had more room and just an overall better attention to detail we both think it's worth it to just save the cash and go with a cheaper tent like the smittybilt i'm really looking forward to taking out low truck and going camping and that thing because it'll be fun finally with both trucks completely decked out it's time to pack it up hit the road the road is where we live we belong on the road we began our trip with a 450 mile drive to our halfway point in saint george utah it's named after a guy who killed a dragon on the road it was immediately apparent that these trucks were very different from their stock form when we bought them the tacomas weighed around 3 800 pounds with all of our mods low truck now weighs 4 275 pounds almost 500 pounds more and high truck weighs 5 100 pounds that's 1300 pounds more that's only with the mods that doesn't even include people or all the stuff that we had in the back we went ahead and measured miles per gallon while we're on the road low truck averaged 14.68 mpg well high truck average is surprising 13.4 not bad the stock these trucks are rated to get 18 miles per gallon on the highway so we definitely lost some mpgs high truck is so heavy first time we drove high truck with all the stuff on it i rolled right through a red light once we were in utah we quickly stopped on some public land set up camp and did our best to sleep through a very very hot night in the desert mere inches away from my friend first night in the old smittybilt rooftop i feel like i feel great i went to sleep hours after year i feel amazing i think i got like one hour of sleep last night combined in the morning we packed up and hit the road again next stop telluride colorado a scampt 400 miles away we weren't in southern california anymore boy and the views stunning it's like lord of the rings wow look at these mountains we arrived just around sunset and set up camp we actually tried to shoot a segment for the tense episode and did basically yeah but we were running out of light and wanted to kill each other by this point nolan's attitude was not i was powering through i was like hey man we gotta get this done i did feel like i was gonna die though ah yes because nolan's a baby we gave him it was the altitude james it was the altitude so we gave up on the shoot and tried to get as much rest as we could because the following morning the real test began imogene pass is a 17.5 mile point to point trail connecting the towns of telluride and uray i think the focus of today is don't fall off a cliff yes any cliff this is considered a moderate trail you'll definitely need four-wheel drive and a decent amount of clearance to even be comfortable on this trail i think for many over landing enthusiasts this is as intense of a trail as they'll ever face i'm a little nervous uh our truck is very heavy he's just a little guy and we put a lot of weight on him we're airing down the tires we got our recovery gear we got a winch we got lockers as far as driver's skill goes second to none in the world probably and zach and i we got this we're pretty much the best behind any wheel so our objective in imaging was to see how the trucks compared in a standard over landing environment which incidentally was full of jeeps full we are officially over landing both trucks on trail we got load truck leading the way we're bringing up the rear the summit of this trail aaron is a little over 13 000 feet sick that's very high up i hope i don't get a headache the strangers are super nice your guys are all in this together you're trying to make sure that everyone on the mountain is having a good time and staying safe yeah because like you got to be polite otherwise you're going to fall off of a cliff face basically yeah if you want to see the best in humanity go to the side of a mountain you got a car coming back it's that lexus with the sick push bar we've been learning there's a little bit of etiquette to this we've been letting uh whoever's on cliffside pass us so a lot of this is very narrow it's one lane there is no passing whoever's got the better optional backup to the nearest kind of double wide area where they can pull off and let the person who's got the more treacherous drive past them within a few miles is apparent why people love over landing the views were insane it totally justified all the money dumped in the trucks all the time taking off work to take the trip i get why people do this after we finally made it to the top we had the chance to finally soak it all in just a group of friends on the top of a mountain after taking some shots for the gram it was time to start our descent well we peaked we're on we it's all downhill from here you know quite figuratively and literally oh my god we're peeking oh hey cute boy hey buddy hey you cute book oh bye-bye uh so far honestly the truck is feeling super good but it's not been gnarly enough to like need to engage our lockers i could see maybe if it was wet if it had just rained but we've got great dry conditions and it's been pretty easy going i really love low truck i think i can take it home right now and be super happy with this as a daily driver there's not a lot that i envy about high truck to be completely honest behind besides those air lockers like this is just a super solid truck and i gotta say this trip has been really fun and i'm just happy to happy to be here which modification would you say is the least critical that we've made so far i'm gonna have to say recovery gear it's a bold bold pick but that's because we haven't had to use it yet correct we have not had to use it and tomorrow i might be eating really wrong yeah eating my words yeah we'll know if the editors play that line in black and white all in all imogene was a really great way to get warmed up and neither truck seemed to outperform the other however the differences would begin to show themselves on the trail we faced the following morning we rolling out roll out like ludacris that was a dumb joke that's okay man all that matters is if you think it's funny i'm so tired let's do it here come the crawl daddy's crawl daddy's crawling the gypsy gulch was immediately a more challenging trail whoa where'd that come from the rocks were bigger the trail more narrow and the terrain more rugged right off the bat just straight into the crap so we've done the tires to 15 psi aaron you've already turned on the e-locker yeah already getting kind of serious this would already uh give eddie's lifted miata some trouble right here i think so that's kind of the benchmark the qc gulch is a six and a half mile difficult trail connecting you ray to silverton you definitely need good tires you need high clearance lockers and you probably want a winch this is not an easy trail there were tons of signs warning us not to go any further basically you can't get an ambulance beyond this point how'd you feel at that point i don't know as a heart patient i was a little bit like i don't know i kind of like having ambulances around at this point we're feeling pretty good about our trucks we're learning we're turning into real professionals imogene had served as a nice confidence booster so while tipsy is definitely a harder trail for the first half we felt like we knew what we were doing crawdaddy's crawl this is what we do oh nicely done aaron that was awesome a little momentum right that was so smooth yeah get that undercarriage nice and cleaned up okay then we came to a fork in the road and this is where the real off-roading began we're literally at a fork in the road you can choose the easier path but you can choose the more difficult more rewarding path where are we going james we're going to reward town right here it says uh experienced drivers and modified vehicles only extreme road ahead recommended high clearance four-wheel drive winch and lockers sick well we've got some of those things aaron i wonder i've never seen a sign quite like that i've never yeah i'm to be so specific and lockers stay right right right right right no that's it lost it lost it as you've probably noticed we also had a production vehicle with us not only was it nice for carrying our camera gear it also gave us a chance to show off high and low trucks traction boards nice i'm not sure if this is really the ideal situation for these but it's probably the easiest thing to try so we're gonna try it okay make sure yeah right side up these do have a right side up and wrong side down type thing so luckily it says this side up just got to read it okay let's give this a shot all right okay whatever run over them yeah that was pretty amazing shortly after the fork load truck tried to take a challenging line and ended up getting just a little bit stuck uh low truck is beached on what appears to be a very large boulder for a second we had a little bit of a tip scare yeah let me try all right we're gonna try again just a different uh route over this rock oh yes so my left tire kind of aiming for that like right angle cut and right tire just inside of that crack oh i'm gonna call in the front locker and hopefully it'll be able to pull us right out of this yep dude that's front locker baby front locker only we all continued our slow ascent until we reached the wall this would be the ultimate obstacle every modification we've made this season will be put to the test a 21 000 build versus a 45 000 build how would they compare so we made it here the wall we got high truck going first since it is the most equipped most kitted out and we got the winch so once we're at the top if low truck needs it we can winch them up we got the tools we're going to put them to use just like that you're in low gear yep and that was all the beans we're running into an unforeseen problem we don't have enough beans we don't have the beans i'm enough power to tow all of our crap up this hill i'm literally putting my foot on the ground all right i think uh it might be time to use the old winch i trust everyone that i'm with a lot more than i trust myself all right everybody ready oh yeah you want to clear out a little keep it straight more straight yeah now a little bit left yes what's after that i don't know is that a clip maybe are you dragging me off a cliff i mean i want i don't know you son of a i know you've had it out for me ever since i since saved you from ohio keep it coming baby all right e-brake e-brake back up and give a little momentum well getting momentum is really difficult when you can't move yourself forward all right this is a suggestion i mean i i agree but we can't get any momentum all right so the problem high team is facing right now is that they winched all the way up basically the top very good job very impressive but where they stopped was right at the edge of a like a crest a crest yeah so like when it came time for james to give it the beans and get on over it uh just didn't really have any momentum yeah perfect just like that keep going so now job is gonna maybe back the truck up a little bit so james can get just that little bit of momentum he needs to get over that ledge and hopefully conquer this mountain okay i think that'll work forward go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go straight straight okay was that the winch that was the whole bumper high truck just broke their bumper off want me to get you off that joke i get it i am a lost dude i have no idea how bad it is but based on the amount of laughter it's pretty bad i just want to point out that as we said earlier the spotter's basically driving the car i'm just his hands all right well we've modified our look a bit might be problematic for getting everybody else up here now that we don't really have a winch one two three after we've come down from the shock of seeing that live in person my only concern now is what the hell are we gonna do i thought about taking the same exact route as high truck i might position us over just a foot i know that sounds like nothing but to me i think that's going to be the make or break amount of space to get us a slightly easier path and less restricted way up this this space right here see if it works i'm doing this for the humble driver who just wants a truck i can get over some big ass rocks right hand down i would take this time to try to get that diff locked if it's not it's locked 100 if it was welded welded it wouldn't slip but it's locked but we're still gonna have slip i mean less point of a locker is to lock the wheels together there's it ain't locked i think this lack of oxygen is getting everyone right it really is bro okay dude we got this come on momentum good left hand left left left left left left break good tits dude if we don't make it up we're gonna have to pull the recovery gear out go go go go go go go go they need to be careful about getting themselves sideways you're good yeah yeah yeah yeah are you safe no he is he's all right he's right oh dead no if we slide off i'm not killing eddie you know he's like you're gonna be he was down there i know but your path in general is problematic i think well what do you guys want to do well i mean i just you got to go straight up you're trying to take him sideways we're taking a different route obviously i know you just can't go sideways well i understand that but you know if we could back up is not locked i don't know if it's off or broke or what that's just the way the diff works though job this diff is a and that wiring harness we got does not tell if it tell us if it's on or off i know i'm telling you it's just it's just hard to tell and well it's off it's locked nolan i'm telling you oh my god i want you to come forward about a foot nice and easy good easy easy a foot did you unwind the wheel right now i i don't know i don't know where to let's try to go uh forward hard right first and then if that doesn't work i'll back you up all right we made it up under our own power way further than high truck did if it wasn't locked we wouldn't have made it half this far hey you're hard on the brakes yeah i'm on everything hopefully there's enough grip i'm gonna have to say recovery here tomorrow i might be eating my words nice and steady right hand down right hand down stop good work dude i'm so pumped that was sick it worked like charm yeah it felt really crazy that's forward a foot what's up yeah it's just enough it's like every little step it's a battle go ahead more more more more more more more and more more and more stop it god i can't see i'm looking at the top of a mountain over there forward right right right right right that was that was awesome dang boys you did it and under your own power nolan yes in honor of the land you are now the real silverback so so nolan does more expensive mean more better no i agree i think the most important thing is to go and do it yep in comparison to the cars that we built last season if you're on a track seconds milliseconds there's tons of people there's eyes on you you know how well you're doing the entire time yeah and every modification makes a huge difference now i'm not saying that the mods on the trucks didn't make a big difference but the focus should be on getting on the trail and having fun doing it for sure like spending more money on high truck didn't make it more fun to drive necessarily i had a blast every time we hopped in low truck it's just fun to drive something where a car isn't meant to be you know the views weren't any better from high truck low truck was able to do everything that high truck could do and more the camping experience wasn't that much different not that much different uh i think it's not about the parts no it's about the experience about getting out there with your friends and just like going on a an adventure you know like i mean i think that like off-roading is just as fun as like going to a track the speeds are way different but it's a dif it's a different kind of fun it's and i can't emphasize enough how nice the community was on every trail everyone was in it together whether it's pulling to the side of the trail to let you pass or if you're going over a big obstacle stopping and getting out and watching you and hyping you up that was awesome so nolan uh six thousand dollars worth of mods versus 35 000 worth of mods which truck are you going with oh low truck no question i know 1 000 agree yeah it's the best truck in the world i love low trucks so much it's a tough call do i love low car or low truck more i'm not really not a tough call for me at all low car is a piece of trash that's true and load truck is a great little brave gentleman so much the toyota tacoma top 10 vehicle ever made of all time no question i also want to remind everybody that we took a stock tacoma with justin e locker out to our test site and it did great yes you know like you don't even need six thousand dollars worth of stuff as long as you have a locker and four-wheel drive maybe some wheels and tires maybe a little bit of a lift you can have a really really really really really fun time in a truck absolutely and what's even cooler is everywhere that we went was public land we're paying for this stuff with our taxes and you just go out there and drive in it and sleep there who knew thanks teddy roosevelt this place is great thank you very very much for watching this season of hi-lo all the highs and all those yeah it was a great great time it's a great experience i had no idea that i would love this so much thanks to everybody who commented both positive and negative that's why we make these videos and to build a community and i just want to thank you guys so much for being part of that community and welcoming us into this new community of off-roaders uh because nolan we are definitely off-road guys now yeah for sure thank you very much hit that like button hit the subscribe button hit the subscribe button be kind i love you see you next time breathe in and out good mindfulness and controlled breathing are great practices for managing stress but you know what else is going off-road find yourself and share in the chillness with this new shirt find yourself flowers butterfly toadstool frog all around you all around mother earth and only 29.98 so much cheaper than thirty dollars available now at donutmedia.com go find yourself the chillest shirt we've ever made namaste my dudes namaste james what who said that you21 000 over landing toyota tacoma verse 45 000 over landing toyota tacoma does more expensive really mean more better let's find out big thanks to ebay motors for sponsoring today's video oh dude i got a dud no one noticed aaron everyone gave it her all this season from teams to everyone you don't see behind the cameras and honestly it would have been even harder without the support of ebay motors and their commitment to making a secure automotive marketplace for car boys and girls like us on this season of high low we've gotten to do a lot of cutting and welding which honestly i've really enjoyed i liked blowing up the tire in the first episode i liked working on cars with my friends and i liked watching nolan kick a stool across the shop as he was holding back tears because he was flashing back to high school geometry whoa nolan what the and with features like ebay's proprietary fitment which matches parts to your specific vehicle the ability to send out licensed trained inspectors to validate your vehicle and let's not forget about that sweet sweet money-back guarantee ebay motors has got what you need find out for yourself by clicking the link below or download the ebay motorz app today let's get dirty with these tricks we bought two nearly identical toyota comas and we've been modifying them to be fun daily drivers that you can take literally anywhere even to the top of a freaking mountain which we did one truck gets the expensive parts and one truck gets the cheap parts then we test these trucks to see which components are worth spending your hard earned money on we've been building these things for the past four weeks and they're finally done so now we're gonna dive into each and every component and tell you where it's worth it to spend the extra cash or where you're better off saving your hard-earned money for like a a house you probably should buy a house before you build this stupid thing you could live in this on our journey into the wild we want to test our rigs in three distinct but equally important facets of outdoors travel first we want to see how these tacos fares general road trippers how do they handle the long stints on the highway what do they like to camp out of second we want to test their general over landing abilities on the famous imaging pass how do these trucks like long journeys over a variety of terrain at 13 000 feet 13 000 feet and third the ultimate off-road test crawling over big ass rocks on the harrowing poughkeepsie trail culminating in the world famous obstacle the wall but before we jump into our road trip let's recap all the modifications we made to our stock first gen tacomas here at the inglewood propulsion laboratory we kicked off both builds with a suspension upgrade i really don't advise you to do this at home high truck got a 3200 dollar icon suspension kit while low truck got a 700 kit from bilstein both trucks gained three inches of clearance as advertised by both kits however three inches of lift didn't make a huge difference to our approach and departure angles also we've added a lot of heavy parts to high trucks since this episode we realized we should have opted for the higher rated springs from icon they could have counteracted some of the weight that was to come the icons really just absorbed and handled the trail better than the bilstein so i think we all agree on that that's true james but bang for your buck though seven hundred dollars for those bilsteins is a great value you won't regret saving the money yeah i would put them on my truck for sure yeah much better once we had gained a little more room under the fenders we could throw in some bigger and grippier tires here sounds like low team went with a set of 800 kenda clever all-terrain tires well high truck spent almost double that 1500 bucks on a set of nitto ridge grappler all terrains we opted for all terrains because again we're making daily drivers that you can take off-road we also got some mean looking wheels high truck got a set of kmc b-dock wheels at just over two thousand dollars for a set of five and low truck got a set of vision wheels for 500 total we're gonna use this torch to inflate this tire at our test site both tires performed almost uh identically but when it came down to the trip driving on the highway and off road they also performed almost identically through all our testing the trucks were getting quite a beating so we gave them a suit of armor high team bought rock sliders skid plates a rear bumper kit and a front bumper costing 4 000 while we on low team bought about 800 worth of steel pipe and sheet metal this is my design just took a picture of the truck and used markup on the iphone it's pretty bad but i'll grind it down in the end low team wasn't able to get all the armor we wanted installed if you're able to get the tools i think installing diy armor on an off-road is an awesome beginner project and the fun and experience is worth some of the headaches you might face like basic geometry after testing we decided front bumper and rock sliders go for the diy for skid plates pre-cut kits don't cost that much more than metal so you could go either way and for the rear bumper it just really depends on how complex of a setup that you want in all low truck doesn't have nearly the same protection that high truck does but boy does high truck weigh a lot a lot more oh after the armor it was time to address the elephant in the room the main thing holding us back throughout all of our testing you guys were in the comments screaming about it so we got ourselves some locking diffs hi team got the full monty setup front and rear arb air lockers which are only a thousand dollars each but once you add in the manifold and the compressor and the installation kits you're gonna end up spending four thousand dollars four thousand low truck went the simpler and cheaper route of swapping in a factory electronic locker which runs about eight hundred dollars depending on how you source it this might have been the biggest disparity in installation of this entire series low team was done in one day while it took high team three very long days to get everything buttoned up fifth try is gonna be the charm seventh tries the charm baby seven tries to charm 23rd try is the jar it's 3 30 in the morning and i'm still here honestly i think that it was worth it the air lockers engage much easier we have a built-in compressor now so we can air up our tires after we get off the trail very convenient and when both lockers are engaged it just climbs it feels like it's walking on its hands it's like a zombie coming out of a grave do whatever you can do to make sure you have a locker on your rig if that means you have to go the cheaper swap like low team then that'll do just fine it's like the bare minimum thing that i would have on an off-road vehicle the air lockers are better but if it's between waiting a year to save up the money or getting an e-locker this weekend get the cheaper option because the locker is going to open the door to a lot more trails and that's where you want to be well said james after the lockers it was time to throw on some recovery gear racks on racks home racks on vats beyond traction boards and recovery straps we wanted to see how necessary a winch really is high truck got a 1200 worn winch while low team was left with a very basic 80 come along during our test the long was able to recover low truck however the amount of labor and setup required for the come along made it clear that investing in a winch is very much worth it after the winch we got to installing some sick lights because we're scared of the dark oh god oh god that's right low truck got a generic 90 led light bar kit and high truck got a kc highlights pro gravity light bar and a pair of g6 daylighters adding up to 2 000 how about this the installation was pretty easy for both teams especially since high team already had a switch panel installed for their air lockers yeah we took both trucks out to the desert at night even though it was scary and the 90 leds performed surprisingly well yeah they had good coverage and spread high team's lights definitely were brighter and had further throw but maybe the biggest difference was the quality and the color of the lights themselves yeah everything felt more real with the kcs and the light temperature was vastly superior that's right ultimately the super cool and iconic look of the kcs won us both over and we agreed that the expensive lights were definitely worth the price tag i'll say there's a lot of debate in the comments whether that was true i stand by it though finally the last mod before hitting the road were our rooftop tents high team got a 2500 eye camper two well low team went with a 900 smittybilt cheaper parts are so much cuter names that's right come along smittybilt hey micah check a one two both installed relatively easily and performed great on our road trip while the eye camper had more room and just an overall better attention to detail we both think it's worth it to just save the cash and go with a cheaper tent like the smittybilt i'm really looking forward to taking out low truck and going camping and that thing because it'll be fun finally with both trucks completely decked out it's time to pack it up hit the road the road is where we live we belong on the road we began our trip with a 450 mile drive to our halfway point in saint george utah it's named after a guy who killed a dragon on the road it was immediately apparent that these trucks were very different from their stock form when we bought them the tacomas weighed around 3 800 pounds with all of our mods low truck now weighs 4 275 pounds almost 500 pounds more and high truck weighs 5 100 pounds that's 1300 pounds more that's only with the mods that doesn't even include people or all the stuff that we had in the back we went ahead and measured miles per gallon while we're on the road low truck averaged 14.68 mpg well high truck average is surprising 13.4 not bad the stock these trucks are rated to get 18 miles per gallon on the highway so we definitely lost some mpgs high truck is so heavy first time we drove high truck with all the stuff on it i rolled right through a red light once we were in utah we quickly stopped on some public land set up camp and did our best to sleep through a very very hot night in the desert mere inches away from my friend first night in the old smittybilt rooftop i feel like i feel great i went to sleep hours after year i feel amazing i think i got like one hour of sleep last night combined in the morning we packed up and hit the road again next stop telluride colorado a scampt 400 miles away we weren't in southern california anymore boy and the views stunning it's like lord of the rings wow look at these mountains we arrived just around sunset and set up camp we actually tried to shoot a segment for the tense episode and did basically yeah but we were running out of light and wanted to kill each other by this point nolan's attitude was not i was powering through i was like hey man we gotta get this done i did feel like i was gonna die though ah yes because nolan's a baby we gave him it was the altitude james it was the altitude so we gave up on the shoot and tried to get as much rest as we could because the following morning the real test began imogene pass is a 17.5 mile point to point trail connecting the towns of telluride and uray i think the focus of today is don't fall off a cliff yes any cliff this is considered a moderate trail you'll definitely need four-wheel drive and a decent amount of clearance to even be comfortable on this trail i think for many over landing enthusiasts this is as intense of a trail as they'll ever face i'm a little nervous uh our truck is very heavy he's just a little guy and we put a lot of weight on him we're airing down the tires we got our recovery gear we got a winch we got lockers as far as driver's skill goes second to none in the world probably and zach and i we got this we're pretty much the best behind any wheel so our objective in imaging was to see how the trucks compared in a standard over landing environment which incidentally was full of jeeps full we are officially over landing both trucks on trail we got load truck leading the way we're bringing up the rear the summit of this trail aaron is a little over 13 000 feet sick that's very high up i hope i don't get a headache the strangers are super nice your guys are all in this together you're trying to make sure that everyone on the mountain is having a good time and staying safe yeah because like you got to be polite otherwise you're going to fall off of a cliff face basically yeah if you want to see the best in humanity go to the side of a mountain you got a car coming back it's that lexus with the sick push bar we've been learning there's a little bit of etiquette to this we've been letting uh whoever's on cliffside pass us so a lot of this is very narrow it's one lane there is no passing whoever's got the better optional backup to the nearest kind of double wide area where they can pull off and let the person who's got the more treacherous drive past them within a few miles is apparent why people love over landing the views were insane it totally justified all the money dumped in the trucks all the time taking off work to take the trip i get why people do this after we finally made it to the top we had the chance to finally soak it all in just a group of friends on the top of a mountain after taking some shots for the gram it was time to start our descent well we peaked we're on we it's all downhill from here you know quite figuratively and literally oh my god we're peeking oh hey cute boy hey buddy hey you cute book oh bye-bye uh so far honestly the truck is feeling super good but it's not been gnarly enough to like need to engage our lockers i could see maybe if it was wet if it had just rained but we've got great dry conditions and it's been pretty easy going i really love low truck i think i can take it home right now and be super happy with this as a daily driver there's not a lot that i envy about high truck to be completely honest behind besides those air lockers like this is just a super solid truck and i gotta say this trip has been really fun and i'm just happy to happy to be here which modification would you say is the least critical that we've made so far i'm gonna have to say recovery gear it's a bold bold pick but that's because we haven't had to use it yet correct we have not had to use it and tomorrow i might be eating really wrong yeah eating my words yeah we'll know if the editors play that line in black and white all in all imogene was a really great way to get warmed up and neither truck seemed to outperform the other however the differences would begin to show themselves on the trail we faced the following morning we rolling out roll out like ludacris that was a dumb joke that's okay man all that matters is if you think it's funny i'm so tired let's do it here come the crawl daddy's crawl daddy's crawling the gypsy gulch was immediately a more challenging trail whoa where'd that come from the rocks were bigger the trail more narrow and the terrain more rugged right off the bat just straight into the crap so we've done the tires to 15 psi aaron you've already turned on the e-locker yeah already getting kind of serious this would already uh give eddie's lifted miata some trouble right here i think so that's kind of the benchmark the qc gulch is a six and a half mile difficult trail connecting you ray to silverton you definitely need good tires you need high clearance lockers and you probably want a winch this is not an easy trail there were tons of signs warning us not to go any further basically you can't get an ambulance beyond this point how'd you feel at that point i don't know as a heart patient i was a little bit like i don't know i kind of like having ambulances around at this point we're feeling pretty good about our trucks we're learning we're turning into real professionals imogene had served as a nice confidence booster so while tipsy is definitely a harder trail for the first half we felt like we knew what we were doing crawdaddy's crawl this is what we do oh nicely done aaron that was awesome a little momentum right that was so smooth yeah get that undercarriage nice and cleaned up okay then we came to a fork in the road and this is where the real off-roading began we're literally at a fork in the road you can choose the easier path but you can choose the more difficult more rewarding path where are we going james we're going to reward town right here it says uh experienced drivers and modified vehicles only extreme road ahead recommended high clearance four-wheel drive winch and lockers sick well we've got some of those things aaron i wonder i've never seen a sign quite like that i've never yeah i'm to be so specific and lockers stay right right right right right no that's it lost it lost it as you've probably noticed we also had a production vehicle with us not only was it nice for carrying our camera gear it also gave us a chance to show off high and low trucks traction boards nice i'm not sure if this is really the ideal situation for these but it's probably the easiest thing to try so we're gonna try it okay make sure yeah right side up these do have a right side up and wrong side down type thing so luckily it says this side up just got to read it okay let's give this a shot all right okay whatever run over them yeah that was pretty amazing shortly after the fork load truck tried to take a challenging line and ended up getting just a little bit stuck uh low truck is beached on what appears to be a very large boulder for a second we had a little bit of a tip scare yeah let me try all right we're gonna try again just a different uh route over this rock oh yes so my left tire kind of aiming for that like right angle cut and right tire just inside of that crack oh i'm gonna call in the front locker and hopefully it'll be able to pull us right out of this yep dude that's front locker baby front locker only we all continued our slow ascent until we reached the wall this would be the ultimate obstacle every modification we've made this season will be put to the test a 21 000 build versus a 45 000 build how would they compare so we made it here the wall we got high truck going first since it is the most equipped most kitted out and we got the winch so once we're at the top if low truck needs it we can winch them up we got the tools we're going to put them to use just like that you're in low gear yep and that was all the beans we're running into an unforeseen problem we don't have enough beans we don't have the beans i'm enough power to tow all of our crap up this hill i'm literally putting my foot on the ground all right i think uh it might be time to use the old winch i trust everyone that i'm with a lot more than i trust myself all right everybody ready oh yeah you want to clear out a little keep it straight more straight yeah now a little bit left yes what's after that i don't know is that a clip maybe are you dragging me off a cliff i mean i want i don't know you son of a i know you've had it out for me ever since i since saved you from ohio keep it coming baby all right e-brake e-brake back up and give a little momentum well getting momentum is really difficult when you can't move yourself forward all right this is a suggestion i mean i i agree but we can't get any momentum all right so the problem high team is facing right now is that they winched all the way up basically the top very good job very impressive but where they stopped was right at the edge of a like a crest a crest yeah so like when it came time for james to give it the beans and get on over it uh just didn't really have any momentum yeah perfect just like that keep going so now job is gonna maybe back the truck up a little bit so james can get just that little bit of momentum he needs to get over that ledge and hopefully conquer this mountain okay i think that'll work forward go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go straight straight okay was that the winch that was the whole bumper high truck just broke their bumper off want me to get you off that joke i get it i am a lost dude i have no idea how bad it is but based on the amount of laughter it's pretty bad i just want to point out that as we said earlier the spotter's basically driving the car i'm just his hands all right well we've modified our look a bit might be problematic for getting everybody else up here now that we don't really have a winch one two three after we've come down from the shock of seeing that live in person my only concern now is what the hell are we gonna do i thought about taking the same exact route as high truck i might position us over just a foot i know that sounds like nothing but to me i think that's going to be the make or break amount of space to get us a slightly easier path and less restricted way up this this space right here see if it works i'm doing this for the humble driver who just wants a truck i can get over some big ass rocks right hand down i would take this time to try to get that diff locked if it's not it's locked 100 if it was welded welded it wouldn't slip but it's locked but we're still gonna have slip i mean less point of a locker is to lock the wheels together there's it ain't locked i think this lack of oxygen is getting everyone right it really is bro okay dude we got this come on momentum good left hand left left left left left left break good tits dude if we don't make it up we're gonna have to pull the recovery gear out go go go go go go go go they need to be careful about getting themselves sideways you're good yeah yeah yeah yeah are you safe no he is he's all right he's right oh dead no if we slide off i'm not killing eddie you know he's like you're gonna be he was down there i know but your path in general is problematic i think well what do you guys want to do well i mean i just you got to go straight up you're trying to take him sideways we're taking a different route obviously i know you just can't go sideways well i understand that but you know if we could back up is not locked i don't know if it's off or broke or what that's just the way the diff works though job this diff is a and that wiring harness we got does not tell if it tell us if it's on or off i know i'm telling you it's just it's just hard to tell and well it's off it's locked nolan i'm telling you oh my god i want you to come forward about a foot nice and easy good easy easy a foot did you unwind the wheel right now i i don't know i don't know where to let's try to go uh forward hard right first and then if that doesn't work i'll back you up all right we made it up under our own power way further than high truck did if it wasn't locked we wouldn't have made it half this far hey you're hard on the brakes yeah i'm on everything hopefully there's enough grip i'm gonna have to say recovery here tomorrow i might be eating my words nice and steady right hand down right hand down stop good work dude i'm so pumped that was sick it worked like charm yeah it felt really crazy that's forward a foot what's up yeah it's just enough it's like every little step it's a battle go ahead more more more more more more more and more more and more stop it god i can't see i'm looking at the top of a mountain over there forward right right right right right that was that was awesome dang boys you did it and under your own power nolan yes in honor of the land you are now the real silverback so so nolan does more expensive mean more better no i agree i think the most important thing is to go and do it yep in comparison to the cars that we built last season if you're on a track seconds milliseconds there's tons of people there's eyes on you you know how well you're doing the entire time yeah and every modification makes a huge difference now i'm not saying that the mods on the trucks didn't make a big difference but the focus should be on getting on the trail and having fun doing it for sure like spending more money on high truck didn't make it more fun to drive necessarily i had a blast every time we hopped in low truck it's just fun to drive something where a car isn't meant to be you know the views weren't any better from high truck low truck was able to do everything that high truck could do and more the camping experience wasn't that much different not that much different uh i think it's not about the parts no it's about the experience about getting out there with your friends and just like going on a an adventure you know like i mean i think that like off-roading is just as fun as like going to a track the speeds are way different but it's a dif it's a different kind of fun it's and i can't emphasize enough how nice the community was on every trail everyone was in it together whether it's pulling to the side of the trail to let you pass or if you're going over a big obstacle stopping and getting out and watching you and hyping you up that was awesome so nolan uh six thousand dollars worth of mods versus 35 000 worth of mods which truck are you going with oh low truck no question i know 1 000 agree yeah it's the best truck in the world i love low trucks so much it's a tough call do i love low car or low truck more i'm not really not a tough call for me at all low car is a piece of trash that's true and load truck is a great little brave gentleman so much the toyota tacoma top 10 vehicle ever made of all time no question i also want to remind everybody that we took a stock tacoma with justin e locker out to our test site and it did great yes you know like you don't even need six thousand dollars worth of stuff as long as you have a locker and four-wheel drive maybe some wheels and tires maybe a little bit of a lift you can have a really really really really really fun time in a truck absolutely and what's even cooler is everywhere that we went was public land we're paying for this stuff with our taxes and you just go out there and drive in it and sleep there who knew thanks teddy roosevelt this place is great thank you very very much for watching this season of hi-lo all the highs and all those yeah it was a great great time it's a great experience i had no idea that i would love this so much thanks to everybody who commented both positive and negative that's why we make these videos and to build a community and i just want to thank you guys so much for being part of that community and welcoming us into this new community of off-roaders uh because nolan we are definitely off-road guys now yeah for sure thank you very much hit that like button hit the subscribe button hit the subscribe button be kind i love you see you next time breathe in and out good mindfulness and controlled breathing are great practices for managing stress but you know what else is going off-road find yourself and share in the chillness with this new shirt find yourself flowers butterfly toadstool frog all around you all around mother earth and only 29.98 so much cheaper than thirty dollars available now at donutmedia.com go find yourself the chillest shirt we've ever made namaste my dudes namaste james what who said that you