aemravan's build thread - project TacoRunner

[aemravan]

Early Christmas for myself

Now to figure out if the lens can be rotated 90 degrees or if I need to dab up an L bracket for these

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[aemravan]

That bumper looks amazing matched to the color of the 4runner. i likey likey. wonder if anyone has painted the hybrid the same color. stuck between which of the two to make, they both look awesome on our trucks.

Hybrid bumpers look decent in black. Not sure how a hybrid would look color matched. But with a. Solid bumper like the costal I love the color match look. Eventually I’m going to hybrid front and rear in black to shed some pounds. She’s a big girl as she sits now


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[aemravan]

We’ll , pods are on. Nothing a little dremel could fix to rotate the lens 90 degrees and mount the pod sideways.

Not AS bright as I expected for $299 but and awesome improvement for sure. Plus the added benefit of running these on the road and not blinding people because the vertical cut off is amazing.

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[aemravan]

After all that talk of not running led bulbs and not upgrading the headlight bulb in favor of powerful fog lights, I decided to give it a try anyway and am pleasantly surprised at the cutoff and spread with this amazon special.

Still need to road test them.. but the garage door test so far is promising lol

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[aemravan]

2023 is a wrap! Wasn't a super large modification year... actually, I think in 2023 I spent more time undoing some of the mods that I did the year prior lol

Onto 2024 and what ever possible mods that it may bring next!


Spent New Years down in Carolina beach and driving out on the sand a few times was the extent of my "offroading" to close out the season, but no complaints here. The rig is running pretty damn good. I am, however, finding that the softer Dobinson progressive springs i swapped in the rear to reduce some of the rake I ended up with after removing the RTT is borderline too soft..

Under even partial throttle, I'm squatting a good 3-4 inches, full throttle probably goes a solid 6" , to the point where my front wheel unload enough to literally squeal on dry pavement lol. I'm considering throwing the heavy springs back in.. but I don't want to raise the front and chew through CV axles and have no downtravel left.. so my recent (likely dumb) idea was "hey! what about a drop bracket setup??"

the procomp fj drop bracket kit is a 6" lift kit, retains factory-like geometry, and could probably run the current coilover in the lowest lift setting to match the rear .. maybe? I probably would have bit the bullet and ordered it already, but the biggest thing is the LC200 rack I'm running with the custom outer ends lol. I certainly don't want to have to convert the drop bracket knuckles to run the double shear 1" hardware like I did with mine....

Anyone want to buy an LC200 rack with custom outers and reinforced doubleshear steering factory spindles???

 

[awhitney1]

You still have the rear TK1 rear sway bar or have you removed it?

 

[aemravan]

You still have the rear TK1 rear sway bar or have you removed it?

I ended up removing the TK1 rear bar and selling it in favor of a slightly stiffer OEM type bar that I put back on with some extended links. I also ended up reinstalling the front sway bar as well.. got tired of swaying and surfing on the road since I very rarely go offroad where I need all the articulation

 

[aemravan]

So for my next trick, I will make my LC200 rack swap project disappear! In my attempts to further undo some hard work I think I pretty much committed to going back to a factory rack since I don't foresee myself actively wheeling this rig outside of random overlanding trips.. The drivability aspect isn't an issue... I just feel like with the amount of street driving I do on a daily basis I should probably take benefit of slightly increased tire wear ..



Got one of the members picking this up in the March time frame along with my modified knuckles in return for his factory/gusseted spindles and throwing in a factory rack...



BUT, I have just about decided (and even almost placed the order lol) to go with some 37x12.5x17 tires with some new beadlock wheels in place of my current wheel/tire setup.. Keep seeing a local 5th gen on IG with a badass setup on 37's and finally confirmed that he's running factory LCA's, no long travel.. and basically a relocated body mount and a firewall tub. So.... that's my next endeavor come March probably..

 

[aemravan]

God damnit … I done did it again .. came across something on Instagram , messaged a guy .. got the itch.. stayed up too late and made another god damn irresponsible purchase ..

If anyone is familiar with the Milkwagon 5th gen 4runner .. it’s a local rig that’s on 37s that also sees some off-road action .. found out he’s on factory length arms with basically I have done with the exception of a firewall tub … he’s running 37s ….

Long story short , If anyone wants a set of 5 wheels with 35s they’re going up for same and I have some sheet metal to source …

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[4RunnerAquasport]

We should start a modified T4R owner support group......

 

[aemravan]

We should start a modified T4R owner support group......

Especially once my wife kicks me out .. luckily I can live out of this thing pretty comfortably for a while [emoji1787]


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[Inv4drZm]

If its any consolation, my brother with 39's and me with 37's were talking the other day and he said he thinks 37s are a good compromise 'in-between' tire.

How demented are we? Thinking 37's are a compromise between street and trail? :crazy:

 

[aemravan]

If its any consolation, my brother with 39's and me with 37's were talking the other day and he said he thinks 37s are a good compromise 'in-between' tire.

How demented are we? Thinking 37's are a compromise between street and trail? :crazy:

it's like I've been telling folks... 37's are the new 35's :cheers: lol.

But yes... REALISTICALLY speaking, just about every average Joe that isn't doing more complex wheeling/crawling can likely get away with even 33's and a properly setup rig and a good spotter... 35's are probably the absolute max that anyone in that pool would ever need from an actual usability standpoint.. the benefit I would get from 37's over 35's is probably 0... in fact, it's likely going backwards in performance due to limited total articulation and steering ability/streetability.. though I guess with some proper nip & tuck on firewall clearancing I can probably get pretty close... I just wont be able to very heavily modify the fender apron above to get total uptravel and limit it.. but.. how much cooler do 37's look on the 4th gens??? :thumb3:

I just hope the work I already did in the rear with chopping back the bumper near-2inches, and sliding my axle back about 1-1.5 will keep these from tearing up my custom wide flares from getting eaten up at full bump.

 

[Inv4drZm]

it's like I've been telling folks... 37's are the new 35's :cheers: lol.

But yes... REALISTICALLY speaking, just about every average Joe that isn't doing more complex wheeling/crawling can likely get away with even 33's and a properly setup rig and a good spotter... 35's are probably the absolute max that anyone in that pool would ever need from an actual usability standpoint.. the benefit I would get from 37's over 35's is probably 0... in fact, it's likely going backwards in performance due to limited total articulation and steering ability/streetability.. though I guess with some proper nip & tuck on firewall clearancing I can probably get pretty close... I just wont be able to very heavily modify the fender apron above to get total uptravel and limit it.. but.. how much cooler do 37's look on the 4th gens??? :thumb3:

I just hope the work I already did in the rear with chopping back the bumper near-2inches, and sliding my axle back about 1-1.5 will keep these from tearing up my custom wide flares from getting eaten up at full bump.

Somewhere in my thread there are pics, shortly after getting 37s, I cut the pinch weld out which weakened the firewall allowing a hammer to bash it in pretty far (as far as possible), then tack welded and seam sealed a thin metal sheet over top. Has worked great.

Bumpstop spacers everywhere, I still eat my front fenders on high speed bottom-outs but slow crawling is fine.

Rear tires rub paint off the door a little bit, need to space the axle even further back like you mentioned but mine isn't much further back than stock.

All this said I think 37s are still very streetable for our trucks and glad to see another 4th gen with them.

 

[aemravan]

Somewhere in my thread there are pics, shortly after getting 37s, I cut the pinch weld out which weakened the firewall allowing a hammer to bash it in pretty far (as far as possible), then tack welded and seam sealed a thin metal sheet over top. Has worked great.

Bumpstop spacers everywhere, I still eat my front fenders on high speed bottom-outs but slow crawling is fine.

Rear tires rub paint off the door a little bit, need to space the axle even further back like you mentioned but mine isn't much further back than stock.

All this said I think 37s are still very streetable for our trucks and glad to see another 4th gen with them.

Yea I remember looking through yours and seeing that. I'm actually after a complete firewall tub to get as much clearance as possible. I'll pull the interior apart and start chopping away until this damn thing stuff where it needs to stuff lol.

for bump-stops, my initial thought was to throw a small extension on the factory one (at least for the time being) to reduce 1/2-1" of up travel. I can't imagine coming anywhere close to fully compressing the shock under highway driving. I'll get that figured out after I can get them to actually turn and drive :heh:

 

[aemravan]

While the 37s are on the way I ran off for a quick 1 night we at the beach. Sitting through 40mph gusts this morning was worthwhile. Beautiful evening for some pics.

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[aemravan]

This morning did not disappoint. Took pictures for like 2 hours. Fort fisher is an awesome place for some off-road rig shooting.

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[speechless123]

looking good!

 

[aemravan]

Wall art anyone ?
For anyone interested, I got quick a few pics in on my flickr page in an album here: 2024.01.14 Fort Fisher 4Runner | Flickr

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[aemravan]

The tires can’t show up fast enough ….

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