Lately my 4Runner has been the recovery vehicle! I sold my 91 pu with a sas and have been kicking myself for it, but lately I've been the recovery vehicle for a few trucks. Mostly a 87 Ramcharger and a new Z71. I am very impressed with my 4th gen considering it's still pretty much a street queen. I can't wait to get it lifted! So far I havn't had any trouble in the swamps of North Carolina with my K&N aircharger either. I really don't plan on testing that too much as I will try to seal off any areas that it my end up intaking water from asap. How does everyone else feel about the offroad worthiness of the 4th gens, besides the terrible ground clearance? Also any word on any sort of snorkel? Pics soon to come!

 

I LOVE THE 4th GEN OFFROAD CAPABILITIES! I have 4" lift and am about to get 275s ... but even when I had 3" of lift and my 265 michelins, I still loved it off-road and only had difficulty in the deep, deep mud. Other than that, I was fantastically impressed.

Lift it!

 

Yep...the 4runner rocks offroad. It's definitely one of the most capable offroad vehicles you can buy right off the floor.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you're trying to say here. You ride through swamps? What do you seal off when you do that?

What about the ground clearance is terrible?

4Runner - 9.1"
Pilot - 8.0"
XC90 - 8.9"
Durango - 8.7"
Discovery - 8.2"
Grand Cherokee - 8.7"
Trailblazer - 8.0"
Pathfinder - 8.3"

 

as far as ground clearance, maybe he just means in comparison to previous generations of 4runners, the '03s and '04s have less.

mine doesn't.

 

it works, it runs... can't complain at the moment....

expect arb stuff by next summer if you're lucky.

 

More ground clearance on the 4th Gen stock would be nice, but it works fine stock. Obviously lifting it 2" or so makes abig difference.

The stock 4th Gen can clear 700mm of water, that's 2 feet 4 inches. If you change the airbox this will be reduce greatly, also the risk of it to "pick up" water. But I'm not planning to clear well over 2 feet of water soon with mine, so a snorkel might be a little extreme.

 

What I meant by sealing off where water can get in was, I installed a K&N intake and I think it is in a more vulnerable position to intake water especially from behind the headlight. I was just thinking of how to make it less likely to intake water. Any suggestions? Also, I am a rock crawler at heart but I joined the Marines and have been stationed in Jacksonville North Carolina. The only thing close are the swamps. I plan on venturing to tellico and uwharrie trails for my fix once I have a lift but they are 4 to 6 hours away. Does anyone know of any good fabricators out here that could maybe do bumpers? Also, has anyone removed their XREAS? Just curious.

 

Why did you waste your money on the Sport if you don't like the XREAS?
I love my XREAS, it makes the vehicle handle night/day better.

High ground clearance in stock form is a dinosaur. With both fuel economy(higher=bigger body to move) and litigation (higher=more damage to pedestrians and other small vehicles in an accident), don't look for Toyota to raise it vehicles in stock form anytime soon.

 

Way to represent the Yota's down east my man! I was just cruising through yesterday on my way from Emerald Isle to Wilmington. There are quite a few Z71's and such w/ the look, but not the stuff to back it up. Bring your rig up to Raleigh sometime and we'll get her right!

 

Why would you want to remove the XREAS? You can lift without removing it ...

 

yes you can lift w/ xreas but if you want to do alot of cool stuff, the xreas part of the suspension will be a big bottleneck

since the travel of those shocks will limit ya severely.

 

The XREAS is exactly why I bought the SR5 model. I figured it would not only be more expensive to purchase up front but also to maintain/modify. I just had my sr5 down at Ft Fisher, NC in the sand this past weekend and I was bottoming out all over the place; and I was going slow! Im definitely gonna need a lift.

The problem is my wife drives this thing everyday so I need to keep the daily drivability (to some degree at least). I dont want lift it twice (once with spacers and then again with shocks scrapping the spacers) but I would like to keep it inexpensive with the consideration that I will slip some slightly larger than stock tires in eventually too. It looks like I can get away with a revtech spacer kit from what Ive read here. (AWESOME SITE!!) Does anyone have any suggestions or otherwise opinions on what lift options I can install and leave the truck otherwise stock?

 

I got stuck on a curb at the mall I got help from a girl who offered to pull me off with her Civic

 

I agree, the XREAS does make it handle much better, but as Lance said it limits travel. Also the tubes along the frame rails make sliders a challenge. I suppose I didn't do as much research on the Sports as I should have before I bought one, but I also wish I would have got the V8. Oh well, too late now.
Wolfpack, thanks for the invite, I'll have to take you up on that sometime. I plan on getting the revtech kit here in the next couple months. How do you all think tubular bumpers would look on the 4th gens? Lance, what did you do with your airbag sensors on the front?

 

Morerunner,
The XREAS doesn't limit travel, it's the length of the shocks. On a non-XREAS, you can replace the shocks for longer ones to compensate for lift but can't with XREAS.

Sliders are not a problem as there are designs for XREAS sliders.

I think tubular bumpers would look great!

 

my airbag sensors are still somewhere

The airbag sensors measure deceleration and not instrusion but then again I could be wrong since I've also read that it's all mechanical and not electrical... Go figure..

Worst case scenario... I won't know until something terrible happens.... (banging on wood!!)

 

yeah, there are sliders for xreas ...

 

I understand that it is not the actual XREAS that limits the travel, it is the stock shocks since you can't remove them without messing with the XREAS. With a lift, to a certain degree, the shocks would act as bump stops limiting travel, which is hard on shocks. I would like to get the downey lift, but I'm not in a big hurry to mess with my warranty too much. I didn't know about the sliders. Who makes them. Are they somewhat accessable here on the east coast? Also, does anyone know any fabricators out here?

 

there are soon to be a couple products that are going to fix that lift v. stock shock travel problem ... and some new sliders as well. in the meantime, talk to ahriman here on yt.com ... i think he has some sliders but i can't remember if he has xreas or not.

 

I have sliders with xreas. And who says 4th gens don't have enough clearance?

Check out this previous post...
https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f2/my-4th-gen-rig-pics-32042/

That was all BEFORE I lifted it. The lift helps, but I've been on some pretty extreme terrain without it.

Since the lift, the only drawback was as mentioned, the limited shock travel. Waiting on NE for that fix...