This last year, I took my family camping in Utah and Colorado a lot in our little Honda Accord, and while following my cousin in his '09 Nissan Armada, it was clear that we were being held back by a car with low ground clearance.

Enter the ’03 v8 4runner Sport Edition. Currently it’s got 213k miles, recently changed timing belts and transmission servicing, and an old XREAS system that needs replacing.







After a lot of research, here are my intended build components for getting it ready to fulfill its potential:

Current plans:
- Bilstein 6112
- Bilstein 5160
- OME 895 rear springs
- JBA STD High Caster Upper A-arms

Future plans:
- TRD Pro 17x7 wheels
- Toyo Open Country AT2 255/80/r17
- Trimmed bumper mod (Pics of Trimmed Front Bumpers)

The suspension parts are coming in tomorrow, so I plan to start working on getting the 6112/5160s up with the UCAs in the next week or two. I’ll post pics as I make progress, along with details/gotchas.

Right on mate. Keep up to date with your build thread and it will take you places. Great start, can't wait to see where your build goes, both physically and geographically.

Nice truck!

Got mine 2 1/2 years ago now, my only regret is that I didn't get it sooner. It's gotten me to a lot of great places and introduced me to a lot of nice people.

Have fun with it!

Enjoy the process, I’m just starting and I love every little mod

Have an '03 V8 Ltd, did the XREAS replacement couple of years ago, it was not difficult, however, my system had no gas pressure, which I didn't know at time, but made it easier.
Be prepared to possibly replace your LCA alignment adjustment bolts/sleeves, etc. as they are probably seized from rust. Those are a pain! Try and break them loose during suspension replacement and if seized replace then instead of waiting for alignment people to tell you.
Enjoy!

Thanks for the heads up. In all my browsing threads, YouTube checks, etc. I've not seen this. I'd much rather do that with everything else taken off at the same time.

Time for an update.

I got the bilsteins installed with a 1" daystar spacer so that I could run ~3" of lift in the front, and still have some down travel available. I originally ordered 5th gen 6100s like an idiot and tried to install them before noticing. On asking if I could swap, they said no since I'd already started working on them. So I bought another set of 6100s, this time, for the 4th gen.

Initially, I thought I'd use some of those ghetto spring compressors to build the shocks, but not only did I start to fear for my life as I tightened those things, but the hooks hit the wider 6100 shocks and interfered with using them.

After some research, I found a youtube video showing how to release the lower control arm at the knuckle, mount the spring and shock into the housing, and use a floor jack to raise the lower control arm, compressing the shock assembly, allowing you to build it without spring compressors. Holy eff it was easy.

Final results looked like this:



My alignment was wayyyyyyy off, so I took it to the shop later to get a quote for new CV axles, brakes, and an alignment. They told me they needed to replace both axles and I put it off, due to the covid 19 thing swallowing up all my spring camping plans.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, and I took it in for an alignment, and sure enough the lower control arm cams were seized on both sides. They quoted me ballpark of $1500 -$3000 to get everything taken care of, mostly in labor for getting the cams removed and installing new arms.

I said eff that, I'm doing it myself, so that's what I've been up to the last few days. Turned out to be a PITA, as expected. I went through 25 sawzall blades to cut 3/4 of the bushing mounts out.

It took a lot of patience cutting with the sawzall, and at 1am this morning, after smashing my finger up pretty good between the control arm and knuckle, I finally got the darned lower arms out.

Yes, it sucked, but nothing can describe the feeling of accomplishment that rushed me when the arms fell out at last.

I'll be redoing the front rotors next, and then saving up for getting some OEM CV axles this summer.









Parts for this part of my story:
OEM Lower control arms
OEM brake rotors

@rothgyr just curious, what's the physical difference between the 4th and 5th bilsteins? Lower shock mount on the LCAs? Nice work by the way. Sometimes you just gotta be a pit bull.

Main difference is in the size of the bolt that seats the shock in the lower control arm. On on the 4th gen, the bolt is bigger, so it won't fit through a 5th gen shock.

Second difference is that the 5th gen is generally heavier, so it's tuned for more weight. If I were a pig headed can't-be-wrong kind of guy, I would have swapped out the bushings and installed it anyway, but I gave in and just went with what was designed for my truck.

The springs on the 5th gen shocks are stiffer - if I were going to put armor and some hefty skid plates up front, combined with the v8, I would have strongly considered that bushing swap.

Forgot to mention - I put in a diff drop kit from Toytec. I compared it with a RevTek on amazon, and the toytec seems to be way better. Aluminum spacers vs Nylon, added spacers for the skid plates, etc.

As I'm working on the 4runner, it appears that I'm missing a front skid plate. I'm open to suggestions on what to put there. I could go OEM, but I wouldn't be opposed to one of them sexy aftermarket ones. That diff drop is fugly.

Looking good, have almost the same truck but still deciding on what lift to go with. Noticed you mentioned something about adding a 1 inch spacer, was that in the front or back?

In the front. The OME 895s lifted the rear by an obscene amount, so I felt like 3" up front was necessary, and I've still got probably 1/2 an inch to an inch of forward rake still. Were I to do it again, I'd leave the stock springs in the rear and do between 2 and 2 and 1/2 inches up front. The CV angles were pretty weird, and if I had gone with under 2 1/2 inches up front, I could still use stock UCAs and save some money, at least until I decided to do an incremental upgrade. Something similar to this:



As is, I'm running 265/70/r17 tires right now, and they look weird being lifted so high. I'll have to upgrade my tires to 33s soon to keep it from looking dumb. I guess there are worse things though

Make sense, have to say I am actually a fan of a little front rake and think yours looks good! Was thinking I would keep the lift around 2-2 1/2 as you mentioned but I have one that needs to be updated anyways so Im going with the JBA. Will be watching your thread!

Let me check with my old roommate out in Salt Lake. I'm pretty sure I left my original skids out there when I moved back to Denver a couple of months ago. If they're still there you can have them for free while you decide on something else. If I remember right one or both of the little tabs are broken, and I have no idea if the hardware is in there. But hey, free.

Oh, wow, I would happily take you up on that. If it can be mounted, it's better than not having one at all.