snivilous
Senior Member
Since I like taking photos and writing about trucks, I figured I may as well start a "build" thread for my girlfriend's 2003 V8. There might be cool things that happen and figured it'd be a good place to compile stuff, instead of posting occasionally in photo threads.
My girlfriend bought this 2003 V8 in Utah for $4700 with 215k on it in November last year (2016). Considering it's a Utah truck, there was minimal rust on it when we bought it and overall in pretty good shape.
The owner's didn't know when the timing belt had been done, and definitely hadn't been done since they had bought it at 170k, so the first thing I did was the timing belt/water pump/etc, plugs, fluids, and just general up keep. I didn't really have any experience with the 2UZ, but I like the engine layout a lot more than my 3.4 in my 3rd gen. Once all the basic stuff was done, we started using the 4th gen as our camping rig. We did a 1000+ mile trip to Grand Junction and around Moab/Canyonlands:
We then did another 1000+ mile trip to Las Vegas to watch the Mint 400:
It's nice to have a truck that can actually do the speed limit vs my FJ40 which had been our previous camping rig! Having the V8, we wanted to tow my FJ40 home (the FJ tops out at about 65mph going downhill, no stereo, marginal heat, is insanely loud, etc.) so we ended up going home to CO to pick up my parent's trailer which we would then tow back to UT to grab the FJ40 at the end of the semester to tow home. Around this time, my sister rolled her FJ80 and was in need of a vehicle, so we ended up renting a U-Haul and towing my girlfriend's Santa Fe home to give to my sister. I decided to hit up Wheeler's Offroad and order new suspension for the 4th gen, with the idea that while at home for the weekend I could swap the 215k suspension out.
I shopped a lot, and eventually decided since the 4Runner isn't used a lot offroad, and my girlfriend would certainly never benefit from big shocks, we just got some Fox 2.0 with reservoirs for the front and rear. Even though the 4Runner wouldn't be doing anything insane, since I was modding it for her I couldn't just buy normal 2.0 "wimpy" (in my opinion) shocks! It ended up that Wheeler's Offroad didn't have the 2.0 resi coilovers in stock, so I just got the 2.5 non-resi front shocks and the 2.0 resi with compression adjusters for the back. Since we planned to tow a lot, I thought the compression adjusters for just the rear would be helpful. Additionally, since she didn't want a huge lift, I got some Icon springs for the rear off of Amazon. This would theoretically give her a ~2" lift all around, more shock than she would ever need, and the ability to increase rear damping when towing.
So we drove home, and in a day and a half my dad and I did the front coilovers, upgraded the front calipers, new brake pads, new sway bar bushings, new rear shocks, new rear springs, brake controller, and added a Rocky Mounts roof rack.
This was the end result:
It lifted it higher than I expected, but the old suspension was SUPER sagged out. And ultimately she really likes it, though she says she will bump up the tire size a little, though the lift is the perfect height to not make the tires look super small in my opinion. We loaded the trailer up and headed back to CO.
My girlfriend bought this 2003 V8 in Utah for $4700 with 215k on it in November last year (2016). Considering it's a Utah truck, there was minimal rust on it when we bought it and overall in pretty good shape.
The owner's didn't know when the timing belt had been done, and definitely hadn't been done since they had bought it at 170k, so the first thing I did was the timing belt/water pump/etc, plugs, fluids, and just general up keep. I didn't really have any experience with the 2UZ, but I like the engine layout a lot more than my 3.4 in my 3rd gen. Once all the basic stuff was done, we started using the 4th gen as our camping rig. We did a 1000+ mile trip to Grand Junction and around Moab/Canyonlands:
We then did another 1000+ mile trip to Las Vegas to watch the Mint 400:
It's nice to have a truck that can actually do the speed limit vs my FJ40 which had been our previous camping rig! Having the V8, we wanted to tow my FJ40 home (the FJ tops out at about 65mph going downhill, no stereo, marginal heat, is insanely loud, etc.) so we ended up going home to CO to pick up my parent's trailer which we would then tow back to UT to grab the FJ40 at the end of the semester to tow home. Around this time, my sister rolled her FJ80 and was in need of a vehicle, so we ended up renting a U-Haul and towing my girlfriend's Santa Fe home to give to my sister. I decided to hit up Wheeler's Offroad and order new suspension for the 4th gen, with the idea that while at home for the weekend I could swap the 215k suspension out.
I shopped a lot, and eventually decided since the 4Runner isn't used a lot offroad, and my girlfriend would certainly never benefit from big shocks, we just got some Fox 2.0 with reservoirs for the front and rear. Even though the 4Runner wouldn't be doing anything insane, since I was modding it for her I couldn't just buy normal 2.0 "wimpy" (in my opinion) shocks! It ended up that Wheeler's Offroad didn't have the 2.0 resi coilovers in stock, so I just got the 2.5 non-resi front shocks and the 2.0 resi with compression adjusters for the back. Since we planned to tow a lot, I thought the compression adjusters for just the rear would be helpful. Additionally, since she didn't want a huge lift, I got some Icon springs for the rear off of Amazon. This would theoretically give her a ~2" lift all around, more shock than she would ever need, and the ability to increase rear damping when towing.
So we drove home, and in a day and a half my dad and I did the front coilovers, upgraded the front calipers, new brake pads, new sway bar bushings, new rear shocks, new rear springs, brake controller, and added a Rocky Mounts roof rack.
This was the end result:
It lifted it higher than I expected, but the old suspension was SUPER sagged out. And ultimately she really likes it, though she says she will bump up the tire size a little, though the lift is the perfect height to not make the tires look super small in my opinion. We loaded the trailer up and headed back to CO.
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