Member III
Hello, Friends!
I have only had my Rav for about 7 weeks now, but I have been kindof a test rat for a lot of various upgrades.
I am coming from a 2002 4Runner that was pretty kitted out for or collective hobby.
I sold it for some various plans my wife and I thought we were going to undertake (an Airstream travel trailer), but ended up getting into a new Rav4 when we decided to stick to regular life. My wife has a 2016 4Runner TRD Pro with a few mods (lift and MTs mostly), so I knew I could still play with that if I really wanted to get wild on the trails. But, I am honestly getting pretty excited to see what the new Rav will do!
[Pics forthcoming!]
So, here are some of the main things I've done:
1) ~30.5" Goodyear Duratrac tires (215/85r16) with a full-sized matching spare. 215-width is as wide as will [...kinda] fit in th stock location, and this is about the only 215-width size available in all terrain. They are quite tall, but only baaarely rub at the lower front lip of the front wheel wells at full-lock. It hasnt been enough to make me trim, but I suspect it will get worse when I take her to some trails. But, now I have 5 matching wheels and tires! Given the Rav's complete lack of sound deadening, they are indeed louder than I'd really like (these are about the most aggressive "all terrains" I have seen, and are as loud as some previous MTs Ive owned). They seem to also be the main source of fuel mileage reduction, having lost about 2 mpg or so (weight and friction). However, I am overall excited about them, and will surely love them once I get a chance to get some sound deadening in there!
Tight squeeze of that full-sized spare! I keep my batter jumper, jumper cables, and ARB tire repair kit in the wheel.
2) 16" Wheels. In this case, I am running 16x6.5" wheels; the narrower width is to accomodate the narrow 215 tires and still have some sidewall bulge for airing down. Wheel selection in widths less than 7" is very small, so I settled on some that I had to paint black myself, and then run hub-centric spacers to get an offset I wanted. The spacers are 38mm (1.5") rear, and 32mm (1.25" front), for total offsets of +4 and +10, respectively. I re-torqued them at 100 miles-they werent loose, but I was able to get a little grunt out of about half the stufs. I wanted 16" wheels to maximize sidewall, which aids in ride comfort (especially off road), and gives more room for airing down on the trails. I have about the same amount of tire sidewall as a factory 5th gen 4Runner.
3) Readylift 2" / 1.5" Lift kit, plus an additional ~1.68" rear lift from 25mm spacers made for the 4th gen Rav4. Yes, 4th gen rear spacers fit! I wanted the extra rear lift to accomodate the weight of my hitch, bike rack, tools, hi-lift jack, heavier spare, and recovery gear over the rear axle. Even lifting the rear ~3.2" over stock, I am sitting at about 2.2" over stock in the rear, and about 1.75" over stock in the front (air compressor and such). I also removed the anti-sway bars, which should also help a good bit with how she behaves off road!
If I could do it over again, I'd have used the 35mm rear spacers instead of 25mm, because Id like a bit more lift and the rear driveline angles are nowhere close to reliability limits.
4) Ceramic window tint and AVS window vent shades. The vent shades allow me to keep the windows cracked while parked with no exposure to rain or prying hands. Between the mild air circulation and the tint, I can get in my vehicle at 2pm here in Florida and it isn't more than 100 degrees or so inside, instead of the 120+ you'd expect. These vent shades are stick-on, as opposed to tucking into the window channel, but I dont even notice anymore.
5) Curt hitch + Bike Rack. The hitch went on very easily, and I was super happy with the ~$160 I paid for it. Seems to work as advertised. With the lift, it sits about 11" off the ground. Departure angle is moderately effected, especially with the rack, which is part of what inspired the lift.
I have seriously considered mounting a jerry can holder (or, well, making one) on the tire carrier. It has rated for 105lb and my bike is only 39ish (5" fat tires will do that lol), so I have some wiggle room. Of course, at 30+ mpg with a 14gal tank I still have pretty solid range, but it could be nice knowing I could stretch that to almost 600 miles if I ever really needed to.
6) I already mentioned my tools (I have done 4 full suspension jobs with what is in my vehicle's tool bag!), and recovery gear (a pretty comprehensive kit left over from my 4Runner). I have the hi-lift and shovel mounted on the roof, and just got the traction boards mounted up there tonight as well. Not sure the boards will stay up there permanently, but we'll see.
7) And finally, my air compressor. As often as I futz with tire pressures on my car and bike, I was really missing having a hard-mounted compressor like in my previous 4Runner (pictured above). Obviously, I have a good bit less room now⁷, but even after removing the compressor from the tank, I chickened out when it came to drilling holes in the body to run power to the rear. So, I mounted it under the hood! I'll have to come up with something a bit more permanent, but for now it's secure enough. It has juuuuust enough power without the tank to use my compact impact wrench to rattle off one lug nut at a time, but its still less tedius than turning them off by hand. And, it should refill all 4 of these tires in maybe 6 minutes or so. I built a 4-way spider inflator / deflator a couple years ago to make that part pretty simple.
I am going to experiment with doubling the hose length (20 to 40ft of 1/2" air hose) to effectjvely double the "tank" size to 0.4 total gallons between the compressor and tool. I had one lug nut (of 20) that wouldnt come off until I added about 5-10 ft/lb of manual torque with a wrench on the outside of the socket with an additional wrench. So I figure a small bump in air capacity might help with those first few taps of the internal hammer. If that shows promise but isnt a huge change, I might add a small 1/4 or 1/2 gallon actual tank under the hood as well.
I'm going to take her out to some trails this weekend, so hopefully everything goes well!
I have only had my Rav for about 7 weeks now, but I have been kindof a test rat for a lot of various upgrades.
I am coming from a 2002 4Runner that was pretty kitted out for or collective hobby.
I sold it for some various plans my wife and I thought we were going to undertake (an Airstream travel trailer), but ended up getting into a new Rav4 when we decided to stick to regular life. My wife has a 2016 4Runner TRD Pro with a few mods (lift and MTs mostly), so I knew I could still play with that if I really wanted to get wild on the trails. But, I am honestly getting pretty excited to see what the new Rav will do!
[Pics forthcoming!]
So, here are some of the main things I've done:
1) ~30.5" Goodyear Duratrac tires (215/85r16) with a full-sized matching spare. 215-width is as wide as will [...kinda] fit in th stock location, and this is about the only 215-width size available in all terrain. They are quite tall, but only baaarely rub at the lower front lip of the front wheel wells at full-lock. It hasnt been enough to make me trim, but I suspect it will get worse when I take her to some trails. But, now I have 5 matching wheels and tires! Given the Rav's complete lack of sound deadening, they are indeed louder than I'd really like (these are about the most aggressive "all terrains" I have seen, and are as loud as some previous MTs Ive owned). They seem to also be the main source of fuel mileage reduction, having lost about 2 mpg or so (weight and friction). However, I am overall excited about them, and will surely love them once I get a chance to get some sound deadening in there!
Tight squeeze of that full-sized spare! I keep my batter jumper, jumper cables, and ARB tire repair kit in the wheel.
2) 16" Wheels. In this case, I am running 16x6.5" wheels; the narrower width is to accomodate the narrow 215 tires and still have some sidewall bulge for airing down. Wheel selection in widths less than 7" is very small, so I settled on some that I had to paint black myself, and then run hub-centric spacers to get an offset I wanted. The spacers are 38mm (1.5") rear, and 32mm (1.25" front), for total offsets of +4 and +10, respectively. I re-torqued them at 100 miles-they werent loose, but I was able to get a little grunt out of about half the stufs. I wanted 16" wheels to maximize sidewall, which aids in ride comfort (especially off road), and gives more room for airing down on the trails. I have about the same amount of tire sidewall as a factory 5th gen 4Runner.
3) Readylift 2" / 1.5" Lift kit, plus an additional ~1.68" rear lift from 25mm spacers made for the 4th gen Rav4. Yes, 4th gen rear spacers fit! I wanted the extra rear lift to accomodate the weight of my hitch, bike rack, tools, hi-lift jack, heavier spare, and recovery gear over the rear axle. Even lifting the rear ~3.2" over stock, I am sitting at about 2.2" over stock in the rear, and about 1.75" over stock in the front (air compressor and such). I also removed the anti-sway bars, which should also help a good bit with how she behaves off road!
If I could do it over again, I'd have used the 35mm rear spacers instead of 25mm, because Id like a bit more lift and the rear driveline angles are nowhere close to reliability limits.
4) Ceramic window tint and AVS window vent shades. The vent shades allow me to keep the windows cracked while parked with no exposure to rain or prying hands. Between the mild air circulation and the tint, I can get in my vehicle at 2pm here in Florida and it isn't more than 100 degrees or so inside, instead of the 120+ you'd expect. These vent shades are stick-on, as opposed to tucking into the window channel, but I dont even notice anymore.
5) Curt hitch + Bike Rack. The hitch went on very easily, and I was super happy with the ~$160 I paid for it. Seems to work as advertised. With the lift, it sits about 11" off the ground. Departure angle is moderately effected, especially with the rack, which is part of what inspired the lift.
I have seriously considered mounting a jerry can holder (or, well, making one) on the tire carrier. It has rated for 105lb and my bike is only 39ish (5" fat tires will do that lol), so I have some wiggle room. Of course, at 30+ mpg with a 14gal tank I still have pretty solid range, but it could be nice knowing I could stretch that to almost 600 miles if I ever really needed to.
6) I already mentioned my tools (I have done 4 full suspension jobs with what is in my vehicle's tool bag!), and recovery gear (a pretty comprehensive kit left over from my 4Runner). I have the hi-lift and shovel mounted on the roof, and just got the traction boards mounted up there tonight as well. Not sure the boards will stay up there permanently, but we'll see.
7) And finally, my air compressor. As often as I futz with tire pressures on my car and bike, I was really missing having a hard-mounted compressor like in my previous 4Runner (pictured above). Obviously, I have a good bit less room now⁷, but even after removing the compressor from the tank, I chickened out when it came to drilling holes in the body to run power to the rear. So, I mounted it under the hood! I'll have to come up with something a bit more permanent, but for now it's secure enough. It has juuuuust enough power without the tank to use my compact impact wrench to rattle off one lug nut at a time, but its still less tedius than turning them off by hand. And, it should refill all 4 of these tires in maybe 6 minutes or so. I built a 4-way spider inflator / deflator a couple years ago to make that part pretty simple.
I am going to experiment with doubling the hose length (20 to 40ft of 1/2" air hose) to effectjvely double the "tank" size to 0.4 total gallons between the compressor and tool. I had one lug nut (of 20) that wouldnt come off until I added about 5-10 ft/lb of manual torque with a wrench on the outside of the socket with an additional wrench. So I figure a small bump in air capacity might help with those first few taps of the internal hammer. If that shows promise but isnt a huge change, I might add a small 1/4 or 1/2 gallon actual tank under the hood as well.
I'm going to take her out to some trails this weekend, so hopefully everything goes well!
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