Tire & Gear Size Help!/ It's kind of long but please read my situation
 

I need to hear some professional opinions from you seasoned off roaders please......I have a 5 inch lifted 89 sas 4runner and I am running 33s, at the time of buying my front & rear diffs the guy convinced me to run 33s & 5.29 gears, I do a lot of highway driving and am not to happy with my RPM being at around 3600 to 4000 range if I want to cruz 80 or so.......Here is the question, my detroit locked rear end went out and I have the chance to regear to 4.88s if I want but then I will also have to spend more money regearing to front high pinion. I will probably be into this for over 800 I imagine......Do you guys think it would be better to keep the 5.29 and buy 35 inch tires so I will have better cruzing speed on the highway? I am new to off roading but I want to set the truck up right for what I do, I like going on trails and doing some lite crazy things but nothing too extreme like rock crawling....I'll do a little but nothing too crazy because I know what it's like to spend a fortune building a truck only to roll it and have to start over. I was wanting to keep the center of gravity down as much as I can and that why I went with 33s and dont have a body lift.

What tire size would a professional driver prefer between the 33s & 35s for the type of wheeling I do? I'm wondering if I did go to 35s if I would have to do some trimming of the floorboards? If I get new tires I was wondering which tire is the best between the new BFG KM Mud tire or the new Goodyear mud tire with kevlar? Road noise is kind of a concern since this is my daily driver......Last question......I like the price of Trail Gears 130 dollar set of gears but do they break or are all gears the same and jest get put in different manufactures boxes?

If you took the time to read this I thank you very much, I am just trying to find the best way to set up my truck for the needs I described.

Thanks in advance for the help you guys can give me!

well, i've never driven on anything bigger than 33's...but here's my 2 pennies

with 35's..your really only about an inch or MAYBE 2 taller than a 33" tire...you will not have to do any trimming to fit 35's on your 5" SAS....

on the tire choices, honestly i've heard that the goodyear MTR w/kevlar is a FAR better tire, i've read a lot of reviews and heard nothing but amazing news about them...of course the KM2's are a really great tire as well.

and on the gears, just get the cheapest set, and then have them Cryo'd (er whatever..it makes em a helluva lot stronger!!:hillbill: )

and if your worried about your high COG, then get a set of spacers for the front and rear of your truck, it'll make it A LOT more stable....although offroad won't make A LOT of difference lol


sooo..to recap, get a set of 5.29's, get ya some 35x12.50 MTR's, maybe some spacers for a wider track width, or go with a wider tire..or a different backspaced rim..

im not a "professional driver / 4 wheeler" or anything... but i'll help :)

with a 5" lift you should be able to clear 35s, if you would like to run those. you might need to do a little pounding and cutting of the valance, if you have one. If I were you i'd run 4.88s with 33s. Im going to be doing 33s on my 4runner, but my truck is a pavement pounder / limited 4wheeler. I refuse to take my truck through anything ridiculous. but im going with a total of 3.5 front and 4 " lift in the back. that includes a 2" body lift. You could keep the 5.29s and go with 35s. it'll give you a pretty cool "aggressive" look and you shouldn't have to worry about the center of gravity. people on this website run 37+ and they dont seem to have a problem. Besides, if you aren't doing anything crazy, then you shouldn't have to worry about rolling or tipping over :) 5.29s and 35s should put you back at stock. I know with 4.88s and 33s you run about 2.5k RPMS on the freeway at 65 mph.

as far as tires? Im a BFgoodrich fan. so im gonna have to say the KM mud tire. it looks cool, performs well, and is a pretty good pavement tire, so i've heard. but its also loud, but not obnoxious.

Im not really familiar with "brands" of gearing. So I cant really help you there. maybe someone will chime in and letcha know which gears to get :)

if you go with 5:29s on your rig dont plan on doin 50 m.p.h. you could but it wont be comfortable. stock gears are fine for 33's imo 4:56 would be awsome if you wanted to go a little bit lower. i have stock gearing in my truck with 35's and im only planning on goin down to 4:56's be cause i need to be able to comfortably do 50. i could probly go with 4:88 but i dont think i need to,
on any chart you find it will say 5:29's for 35" tires or bigger
and i think they want 4:88's for 33"s ( i could be wrong on that, it might be 4:56's)
but imo i think that makes it to low for the steet and my rig is my daily driver so i need it streetable. just my 2 cents

with 5.29's and a set of 35's you'll be close to stock RPMS with 29's....idk what this guy is talkin about lmao

yes some people don't wanna run 5.29's for various reasons, but for the street...and 35's..they are the better choice LOL

5.29's for 35's and larger (5.71's if ya get em cryo'd lol)
4.88's for 33's
4.56's for 31's
stock for anything 31" and under

of course some people run 5.29's with 33's..some people run 4.56's with 35s..it's all personal choice..but for the best streetability then get some 5.29's

meh I have 31s with 4.10s. Wish my rpms were lower on the freeway, honestly. but I'll correct that with 33s and 4.88s. I want my rpms around 2.5k :D

my rpms with 31's needa be higher..although the cam helped :) lmao

My first thought when reading your post was why do you have a 5" lift for 33" tires? Assuming you want to keep the lift height then I would absolutely run 35" tires. The logic then follows to keep the 5.29 gears.

My rpms are higher w/ 4.88s and 33s than they were w/ 4.11s and 31s, so don't expect lower. If you want lower, go up a tire size w/o regearing - less power and lower rpms.