pfbz

Wanted to put a light bar on my 2011 FX4 SCREW EcoBoost.

Really liked the N-Fab design, but couldn't find one less than about $160 with slow ground shipping.

When possible, I like to buy stuff from Amazon with Prime shipping, as the prices are usually decent and free 2-day shipping is hard to beat. Amazon had the SmittyBilt light bar for $120 shipping, and it looked very similar to the N-Fab unit. So I ordered one! Wasn't sure it would work on the EcoBoost because of the intercooler, but another advantage of Amazon is easy returns...

This is what I recieved:


Unpacked.


Hmmm... That logo on the bar looks familiar. Guess what? SmittyBilt Bar is an N-Fab bar!



Those two large holes are the mounting point for the light bar. .


Detail of mounting bolt after installation. It comes close to the support for the intercooler, but does not interfere at all. You could also swap out for shorter bolts if you wanted.


Mounts up on an EcoBoost perfectly. No interference with intercooler air flow.


Looks great! Very sturdy once mounted up. Now I just have to pick my lights!

pfbz

Hmmm... I was just looking more closely at DesertDawg's SmittyBilt light bar pictures. Definitely not the same bar as mine! So my comments about fit and being an N-Fab bar might not apply to all SmittyBilt bars for the F150!

Desert Dawg

Your new bar looks good. Not sure why Smittybilt would have different ligt bars unless something changed slightly after 2009, but glad it fits without interfering with the intercooler.

tlw613sp

My "Smittybilt" light bar for the 2005 f150 has that same N-fab logo

WHITE_LOBO

I've been wanting to buy the smittybuilt but I read online that minor drilling is required. Any one know what exactly is drilled??

pfbz

No drilling on mine. Extremely quick and easy installation. See first post.

My only complaint about the N-Fab/Smittybilt light bar is that for my needs, rear facing tabs would work better, and the tab spacing just doesn't work well if you only want to run two lights. The two inboard tabs are too close together, the two outboard tabs are too far apart.

Tempted to grind off all the tabs and weld on two new rear-facing tabs half-way in between, but my welding skills will probably leave it looking a bit rough.

ajusa.com

Smittybilt makes NFAB and RPB products.

pfbz

I'm pretty sure it's NFAB that makes the Smittybilt and RPB... In fact the Smitty has the N-Fab logo's on it!

ajusa.com

Transamerican(4wp) owns Smittybilt and sub companies. RBP has Smittybilt build there product and is not related. Not sure if NFAB is owned by Trans.

pfbz

The Smittybilt light bar has the N-fab logo cut right into it, and is identical in every way to the N-Fab bar. It's hard to fathom Smittybilt building their own light bar, selling it under their own brand name/packaging/etc, but putting another companies logo on it instead of their own.

Could very well be that Smittybilt makes many products themselves and for others, it sure doesn't look like that is the case with the light bars.

This is the box my Smittybilt bar came in. Definitely Smitty packaging and part numbers.


This is what came out of the box. Definitely N-fab logo's cut into the metal, not Smitty's.



But as posted above, it looks like Smitty had a previous version of their light bar, NOT the same as the N-fab (and not as nice in my opinion...), but if I recall correctly, the same part number!