long story short unless you're looking at like doing 5+ inches of lift full exo cages and massive tires you should be able to keep up with your buds on the trail and make the jealous of how well it handles as a DD.....highly modified in this sport can mean anything to how most of our members trucks sit as they are to some $120k fully custom buggy that can climb Everest if so desired, i think alot of us here probably owned jeeps at one time and are here for a reason, i know personally i am, but then again i've also toned things down a bit over the years, it's all relative.
what kind of trails are you guys running, what are their set ups? this will tell us if it's worth you building your 4runner to keep up such as adding winch and lockers and the rest, or just buying a jeep and building that.....
a few things to be said on the benefits of the jeeps, they are cheap, you can pick up xj's all day long in the 1k~2k range that still run and aren't beat to crap..not yet anyways...so personally i never felt bad about just crushing those things into trees,rocks and whatever, the lift options are much cheaper as well, all in all , the jeeps are cheaper to run on the trail, more bang for your buck ....but on the other hand they suck balls for daily driving, you get what you pay for, the jeep jiggle,death wobble, whatever you want to call it is bound to happen, the electrics are crap, and nothing in it feels of quality , ifs is better for on road handling though weaker for trails, and in my every day life the 4runner succeeds far beyond that of any of my xj's,zj's, or wj's i have owned over they years...... i do miss the niner a bit though...
this question really breaks down to personal choice, personally i prefer not to have to fix my truck 3x's as much just to keep it on the road, and if you look at it members here have quite capable rigs and can go alot of places and still drive cross country without having issues and being comfortable .... i came to this forum and saw what some of the members where doing in their ifs 4runner's and decided if i ever needed to do more i'd just build a buggy....
again i don't know who you're trying to run with so i can only assume you're talking about some beasts , but I'm fairly certain in most cases if you fully build the 4runner it will "keep up" provided the driver skill is there as well...as that makes all the difference in the world....my only suggestion to buy the jeep is if simply you don't want to wreak the 4runner, other than that build what you got or build a buggy....just my pov however crappy it may be.
