I love my auto, on the street it is mediocre,but livable. On the trail, it is fantastic. 1st gear and 4lo and you can get up to an obstacle, pop on the gas and walk right over it... Now they make adapters so you can use gear driven t-cases with gearing.

This is, of course, just one mans opinion and for every person who thinks the auto is good...there are 100 people who swear by manuals. Manuals are nice, but I've driven both and prefer the auto.

 

nothing better then bangin through the gears! ..... hehe yes my truck is a hotrod!

 

5 spd. FTW!!!

 

5 speed in this truck is a blast. If I had full size an auto probably but in a compact a 5 speed can't be beat.

 

If you're geared too high (4.10s and a 33in tire) you'll constantly be lugging the engine, which seems to kill the economy. Sure, you're wheels spin fewer times, but the engine is really working hard to turn over.

The lower the number, the higher the gear ratio, so with a 4.10 diff, the engine spins slower than with 4.56.

That number expresses the number of times the prop shaft spins for every turn of the wheels.

 

Also, unless you regear your diff when you put on larger tires, your torque converter will never lock up.

A torque converter takes the place of a clutch to ease between gears on an automatic. If the torque converter does not lock up, it is effectively like riding the clutch and always allowing a bit of slipping. This will ruin fuel economy further.

Here's some more info: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/torque-converter.htm

 

I have had both transmissions in 4runner with the 3.0. The 5 speed gearing is a better spread and it's .85:1 OD is much better for a small V6 (like the 3.0) that is the auto tranny's .71:1 OD. The auto's 3rd gear is equal to the 5 speeds 4th gear, 1:1. As you can see, the 3.0 is borderline holding 4th with the torque converter locked. Any increase in tire size over stock and you have problems. It's likely that back when the speed limit was 55mph everywhere, Toyota hoped that tall OD would boost mean fuel economy numbers. However, I think we can agree it was a bad decision overall.

Off road, I gotta say I'm liking the auto. You can crawl with it and shift without losing speed. On the road, well it's great for bad traffic but I miss the on road performance and MPG of the 5 speed. All autos from this older generation will knock 1-3 mpg off with the biggest hit being in city driving.

As mentioned, the auto will limit your tire size. Those who run the auto overgeared find the torque converter will no longer lock up and this causes serious heating of the transmission fluid. That will severely hurt mpg and decrease transmission life.

If you want 33's, as said 4.88's + 5 speed or 5.71's + auto are what you want. You can push the tire size on the 5 speed a bit and have the option of two more lower gear ratios, I would strongly suggest you don't do that to the auto.

BTW, autos didn't come with larger tires than did the 5 speeds, larger tires and lower rear diff gearing were options on both.

Frank

 

So I have a 90 4Runner 5spd, 3.0. Factory 31's.

Do I have 4.56 gears?

Nevermind...yup...G254 = 4.56 gearing.

 

Not so true -

5sp - 33, 4.88 - 35+, 5.29
auto 33, 5.29 - 35+, 5.71.

5.71's are just as strong as 4.10s (gearinstall.com). The little extra they offer from the 5.29s will nullify the losses with the auto (from what I have heard...I'm doing mine in a couple months and I will let you know).

 

You could certainly go with the 5.29's, they will leave you about 2% under geared. The thought behind the 5.71's is that the extra under gearing will make up for the over geared 4th gear in the auto.

Frank