Off-roading questions from a noob wanting to learn!

[Will_4R]

I am somewhat with Thai on this. I have a lot of fun off road and challenge myself and my 4Runner. I am entirely stock. I admit there is fun in doing and having (wheeling with) mods, and it also personalizes your vehicle making it unique.

I would rather spend the money getting out there than doing mods, so that is how I spend my money for now. To each his own, some can afford both, or prefer a bit of both. I rather maximize trail time, and until I feel my truck limits me, I won't do mods. Quite frankly I am not a good enough driver yet to really benefit. I also do lots of highway driving on roads trips. I want to maximize highway performance while maintaining the minimum requiered/desired off road perfromance. Some prefer the opposite. For me, stock is pretty much the right comprimise, except for tires. I did the rear breather mod because it is cheap and has no real downside. Big tires, lifts and armour come at price.

Because ATAC is so good, the locker shouldn't be needed until your driving skills are there to match it. Not much downside to sliders, other than the extra 100 pounds or so of weight, but I find the rocker panels on the 4th gen pretty high compared to frame/undercarriage, so maybe not as useful as on other rigs.

 

[fourwd1]

Thanks for all the feedback - what is a locker? a gear locker?

The quick version -
The stock differential on 90% of 4WD trucks is open. That means that in a poor traction situation, power is sent to the wheel with the least traction. So when you have one wheel in the mud or in the air and the other is on solid ground, the one in the mud gets power, not the one on solid ground (just the opposite of what you'd think). A locker connects both wheels solidly together in the diff, so power goes to both wheels all the time. But that can be a pain on the street. There's also many types of lockers, some more street friendly, some more for offroad.

A lot of newer 4WDs use electronic means to obtain similar results, your ATRAC, VTRAC, etc, etc. My Trooper has a torque-on-demand system that's great. When I bought it in 2000 Toyota couldn't come close.

My truck is equipped with selectable lockers front and rear. Selectable lockers can go from fully open to fully locked at the flip of a switch. I can be in 2WD, lock my rear diff, and go places people in 4WD but with open diffs can't go.