Yes. And you can adjust the calibration, too.

FWIW: I found this tutorial for matching the UG speed gauge with a GPS gauge. I figure the GPS is likely the most accurate we have easy access to. Add in a calculator most of us have on our smart phones and bob's your uncle.

How to calibrate distance using a GPS and a calculator:

NOTE
This distance calibration method is based on using GPS speed.
GPS speed is most accurate when driving in a straight line at a constant speed.

Step 1: Add a speed gauge (e.g. on page 1 zone 1 of the Ultragauge)
MENU Gauge/Page Menu .. Select Gauge/Page .. Select Gauges Select Page 1 Gauges
Use UP & DOWN keys to Navigate to MPH or KPH
Press MENU. This will cause the cursor to blink.
Pressing UP or DOWN change the number to 1
Press MENU to assign the Gauge to that Page 1 Zone 1.
Leave the menu by selecting Back, etc
The Ultragauge should now show the MPH or KPH on page 1
Step 2: Grab your calculator and your GPS navigation device, get in your car and head for the motorway.
Step 3: While driving at a constant high speed for at least a few seconds note down the speed readings of the Ultragauge and the GPS.
The readings are probably different.
Step 4: Find a convenient place to stop, switch on your calculator and do the following calculation: GPS speed reading divided by Ultragauge speed reading.
Step 5: Adjust the "Distance cal." factor in the Ultragauge
Menu - Vehicle Setup - Calibration - Calibrate Distance
Note the distance value shown by Ultragauge and on the calculator multiply this by the factor found in step 4
Press MENU and press UP or DOWN to adjust the distance value to the calculated value.
Press MENU to store the updated distance value. The Ultragauge now shows the new Distance cal. value
Leave the menu by selecting Back, etc
Switch off your calculator
Step 6: Take another drive on the motorway and check if the GPS speed reading and the Ultragauge speed reading at constant speed are now the same.
Step 7: If necessary make fine adjustments to the distance calibration value until GPS speed and Ultragauge speed are identical.

Yeah, used all the time on motorcycles when swapping sprockets. Less often on trucks with gear ratio and tire size swaps.

-Charlie

Ahhh. Okay, so is the gold standard to use a gps to grab the speed? Basically how do I figure out how fast I am actually going so I can calibrate it...haha.

I used phone GPS to verify, but I calculated what the correction factor should be based on tire size.

Original tire size: 225/75-15 = 28.29" diameter
New tire size: 265/70-17 = 31.61" diameter

31.61 / 28.29 = 1.117x or about 12% bigger. I applied a 12% correction using the calibrator, and the speedo read the same as it used to (67=65mph actual).

Speedometer generally read just a bit high (for legal reasons), so that's where I left it. Often, odometers (and OBD-II reported speed) is nearly perfectly accurate.

-Charlie

GPS plus flat straight road. Somewhere that you can maintain a good constant speed. Preferably higher speeds if your area allows it. The higher the speed you can maintain the more accurate your reading will be.

So the 1996-2002 USDM 4Runners do not have the speed sensor that's located near the tip of the transfer case?

For the most part, no. Some of the early base models had no ABS, and they did get the speed sensor.

-Charlie

The other option to do this is to add a Tacoma speed sensor into the transfer case, and run a corrector.

This is what I did when I swapped to manual hubs, and a 8.4” Tacoma axle with my 63” Chevy leafs.


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I haven't been able to find a definitive answer but, after reading as much as I can find on these forums, I'm suspecting that for the 4Runner models that came with both the 15" and 16" rim sizes, the stock speedos are all calibrated for the base 225/75R/15 tire size giving the ones with 16" rims a low speedo reading.

Show in case anyone is curious I wanted to share...

About a year ago I literally spent countless hours trying to get things calibrated correctly until I finally came to the conclusion that recalibrating a 3rd gen is pretty much nigh impossible.

My speedometer sync's up perfectly with the 265/70R17's I have on my 4Runner right now.

Thanks for chiming in! I may save me the same countless hours as I'm kind of a perfectionist with stuff like that. One question though, can you tell me if/why the Dakota Digital device shown earlier in the thread was not a good option for you?

I've been thinking of using 265/75R16 tires instead of 265/70R16 size tires. That would mess up the speedometer an odo readings a little bit.

I have a base model 4runner with no ABS, is calibrating the speedometer any easier?

Your speedometer will be off by about 3 percent. In other words, speedometer shows 70 mph you might be doing 72 mph. This is assuming your speedometer shows the correct and accurate speed with 265/70R16 tires.