I have decided and after many months of planning and ordering parts today is day 1 of my 5th gen SAS build.

I already have a very capable vehicle as is but I want more. I could go about this differently and buy yet another vehicle but that is of no interest to me so here we go.

I dropped my 4R off at Budbuilt this morning with only 20,500 miles on the clock. I weighed the truck on a CAT scale with half a tank of gas and it was 3260# on front axle and 2740 on rear axle. Yesterday I removed my spare tire from the swing arm and some other things from back so actual weight should be about 6150#.

The significant parts started to arrive yesterday and the majority of the rest over next few days. Only parts remaining are the short lead time items.




Here we have the new axles, shocks, and bump stops.

From a high level here's the list of parts:

1. GM14 bolt shaved to 13 bolt front and rear from Wide Open Design. 72" wide, 5.13 gears, ARB locker RCV 40 spline axle shafts, 14" brakes, etc. These things are stout.

2. Howe Performance steering (semi - hydraulic) with double ram. will be using a saginaw steering box from Scout II in place of full orbital so not full hydro. This steering setup will give me 8,000 # of force available.

3. 16" Radflo shocks front and rear along with Radfo bump stops

4. Raceline Beadlock wheels

5. Mickey Thompson Pro XS tires - 40" x 13.5" x 17"

A bunch of links, rod ends, frame stiffeners, etc.

I will update this with a lot of pictures and videos as they become available. We should start and finish the tear down within a few days.

Once the tear down is complete I will have big garage sale on everything coming off:

1. complete rear axle with 4.56 gears and e-locker
2. front third with eaton e-locker and 4.56 gears
3. Front UCA's - total chaos
4. Rear total chaos links and pan hard bar
5. front and rear king 2.5 remote resi shocks
6. stock steering rack
7. FN wheels and 305 nitto's
maybe more...

crazy! can't wait to watch the progress on this

Sub’d

Interested in the suspension set up, possibly and wheels too.
3/5/7?

Watching with keen interest. I've been lightly tossing around the idea of SASing my 2019 as well, so I'll be following to see lessons learned and progress.

A couple of questions off the bat. What was your process of choosing an axle? Outside of the basics such as axle width, etc., what were your primary considerations when choosing an axle? What were some challenges and maybe compromises that you've had to make?

Standing by for pictures of build progress!

All great questions as there are not a lot of SAS 5th gens out there yet beyond t40R, 4runningmutts (instagram), and a few others.

Regarding the axles, I researched this topic for at least 2 months between junk yard rebuilds, new whatever, custom like Diamond etc. In the end the cost if a done right rebuilt with gearing, lockers, bearings, axle shafts, etc is not much less than new so I chose to go with brand new axles.

I'm in NC and my first call was to ECGS since they are here. After a few calls with them I learned they didn't have anymore 14 bolt diff's left since the foundry had closed so they were offering a D80 rear and 60 front. I strongly considered their setup as it already comes with the ABS sensors connected which should really be plug (splice) and play. I wanted a second option so reached out to Wide Open Design as I wheeled last year at Windrock with a Jeep they had built and it awesome. It's wasn't a trailer queen it was just a tough a very capable vehicle. In any case they had something like 14 or so more 14 bolt diffs left and had just sold a pair to someone with a 3rd gen taco.

ECGS has a document on their site showing the clearance of various diffs which helped me make my decision. A D80 from centerline of diff to lowest point is 6.75", while the mild shave on the 14bolt is 5.8" while maintaining the 10.5 ring gear, a heavier shave is available to yield 5.25" but the ring gear needs to get shaved to 10". Of course the D80 has an 11.5 ring gear. Getting back to the point the D60 from ECGS comes with either 6" or 5.75" with smaller ring gear.

My primary driver was clearance and strength of the entire setup. I really like that the Wide Open knuckle and C where designed to easily fit the RCV big bell axle. Both the Reid that ECGS uses and the Wide Open Designs are great, I just have the impression that the Wide Open ones are maybe a touch stronger. If they are good for rock bouncers they are darn sure good enough for a 4runner and really carry no weight disadvantage over other available knuckles and C's.

So it seemed like a no brainer to get the 14 bolt and the price was similar but Wide Open crushed ECGS on lead time. From order to receipt on Monday as I think 5-6 weeks. Now it must be said that RCV has a long lead time and I do not have the front axle shafts yet but should the end of August which is fine.

So, if any compromises, it would be lead time in the current market if you will. This was a much larger issue with suspension than the axles and got very lucky with Wide Open having a set of 16" shocks in stock where others were 8 weeks out and King was forever and a day. Back to the compromise if you will, in going with Wide Open, is the lack of the ABS sensor included. I do not see this as big challenge and will tackle it later. I do not see it being a big issue, despite the complexity of the Toyota system and what it's all linked to what it's reading and being used for is easy to get. I will get some F450 abs sensors and figure it out.

In terms of width we are planning on being roughly out to the mirrors with outside edge of tire. More important than width is the wheelbase which we are looking for at least a +12" with maybe a little more push forward than backwards but this is still in process.

existing tires are 305/70/17 and wheels are the FN with 4.5" of back spacing. I have a mild body mount chop and no issue with rubbing.

I will post everything for sale within a week or two maximum.

I went to see the axles for the first time today and all I can say is "oh my!". I was stupid and didn't take any better pictures. I will do this on Monday. The outer 47 spline F450 spindle is crazy so 40 spline inner and 47 outer. this will make for a lot of fun.

On Monday (5 July) the tear down will start and finish.

I posted everything for sale today and here are the links to both postings.

https://www.toyota-4runner.org/for-s...ml#post3652213

King, Total Chaos suspension, & 34" tires/wheels 5th gen Charlotte, NC

Last photo before going under the knife

I was about to ask about the sell off of parts. Now i know. Staying tuned to this for sure!

Now in place and ready to start tear down tomorrow morning.

Here's a very short video I made and edited on my phone of the end of day 1 of the build. Here is the end of cutting out the front crossmember in the front. In the end we have removed the entire IFS system and the rear axle from the 4R. I have over 4 hours of video from 2 gopro's on top of this. I will work through this content and upload it later this week. As always a big thanks to the team at Budbuilt. It was a great and productive first day. We removed the entire IFS system, front diff, steering system, entire rear axle, 4 links and panhard bar.

A very quick video from this morning of the new axles going into my 4R. These are the stout Wide Open Designs 14 bolt axles.