I've been slowly building my 4Runner over the past couple of years, figured I'd start a thread to keep track of progress and photos, and also share/learn with anyone else. This is my daily driver. Write-up is below, but here is a list of my mods:

• TRDOR Wheels
• BFG KO2 tires - 275/70/17
• Spidertrax 1.25" Wheel Spacers
• Interior LED lighting Kit
• AJC Running Light Bezels
• Southern Style Offroad hybrid steel bumper
• Smittybilt 10K winch with synthetic line
• 20" Heise LED light bar
• Shrockworks flat sliders with tread plate
• Toytec BOSS Aluma Series 3" lift [700 lb springs, diff drop, bump stop drop, etc]
• Beautified Rolla Rack
• ARB twin compressor
• A bunch of other little stuff

Current Photo here, the rest will go in chronological order.







I bought my 4Runner early in 2017. I had a 2002 Chevy Silverado that I had been driving since I was 16, and the wife and I were expecting a little one. The Chevy has been good to me (still have it), but I couldn't imagine everyday life with a kid while driving that around. I wanted something capable, reliable, with enough room for a car seat, dog and everything else. I didn't realize then how much time, money, and effort would be going into this vehicle in the future (in a good way). There will be a few, "in hindsight" thoughts in here to help out anyone who is going down the same path I did.

Shoutout to my friends who helped me with some of these projects! Thanks Alex, Dustin, Trev

Here we are, bone stock, 24,000 miles on the clock. In hindsight, I may have bought new if I were to do it over again. You don't get much of a depreciation discount on 4Runners, and I could have bought one brand new with full warranty for a couple thousand more. That said, I don't really have any regrets, just something I think about from time to time.



The first thing I did was find a set of take-off wheels and tires on Craigslist from a TRDOR. I liked the look, and the price was right. In hindsight once again, I may have just tried experimenting with paint or plastidip on the stock SR5 wheels first to see how it looked... I have seen some members on this site go that route with success. Since the wheels came with brand new Dunlops, I figured I would ride those out until they needed replacement. I also performed the poor man's lift, AKA, running board removal. I'm 6'7", so I didn't need them, and my wife is tall too, so the running boards served little purpose other than to ruin aesthetics and decrease ground clearance.



The Dunlops didn't last long. I got a screw in the sidewall somehow after roughly 6 months of running them. I decided to just get a new set, and went with BFG KO2s in 275/70/17. I liked the aggressive look, they way the bigger size filled my wheel well, and I have had little to complain about both on and off road as far as performance. There is something to be desired when driving on ice or packed snow, but hey, they aren't full blown snow tires. At this point, we had just moved into a bigger house with a 3 car garage, so I had more room for modding.





Up next was a hybrid steel bumper. In hindsight, I would have gone with new suspension first... The weight of the bumper and winch caused my front end to sag about 1" below stock level, so it looked a little goofy to the trained eye. I went with the SSO bumper with a 20" lightbar cutout. I do a lot of night driving on backroads up in the mountains, and I have used that lightbar more times than I can count. Good for spotting deer in advance, much more effective than my stock high beams. I have been in 3 situations where the winch was needed, and it paid for itself after the first use (out in the sticks near Fairplay CO, stuck in a snow drift on Thanksgiving day). The winch is a Smittybilt with a synthetic line, and has worked as expected.









I needed to figure out how to get my licence plate mounted on the front end now, thanks to the wonderful laws of my home state. I didn't really like the flip-up winch cover plate holders. I searched around on this site and found exactly the solution I was looking for. A member here ( @Friggin Idiot ) had done the legwork on a magnet solution, which has served me well since I completed the mod myself. I really only pull it off when I'm washing the car, and it has stayed in place through some surprising conditions. I haven't had any trouble with the law regarding the downward angle of the plate, all good so far after over a year.



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