2003 4Runner Limited 4wd V8 FJ tcased overlanding rockcrawling do-it-all build

As of 3/26/23:



Picked this up January 1st, 2020. 2003 4Runner Limited 4wd V8 with 280,343 miles on it at the time. Currently sitting at 330,000 miles.

 

XREAS suspension was collapsed in the front so I source 2019 Tacoma Bilstien front shocks, complete with springs and 2017 Tacoma Bilstien rear shocks. Ordered up a new set of Moog 2007 FJ rear springs. Fortunately, it did not have the optional rear ride height system.



Ride height with the collapsed XREAS system.



Ride height after installing the Tacoma parts and FJ rear springs.



Gained about 3" of lift from the XREAS system, tells you how bad it was. Rear stayed about the same, maybe got 1/2" lift with the FJ springs. Ride is night and day different too. Much better now.

This is all the shit I removed when swapping out the suspension. Front sway bar too.



Both inner CV boots were torn so I fixed those with OffRoad Solutions high angle inner CV boots.





I was finally able to take it out for some light wheeling to make sure everything was working right. It was but damn this thing needs a rear locker! Shit the Tacoma would walk through, the 4Runner struggled with. Shorter wheel base than the Tacoma, no rear locker and way less wheel travel. But I'm overall happy with it. It's generally not going to see the same kind of terrain the Tacoma does.



Paint on the hood was fucked up so I painted it flat black. Came out OK, good enough for this truck.



It had the factory JBL, non-nav head unit still so I swapped that out for an Android head unit and then changed all the door speakers and the subwoofer out for new stuff. Sounds better now and I have Bluetooth again. Also painted the radio/climate control bezel a satin black. Still trying to decide if I like it. Might redo it in a flat black or just wrap it.



Picked up a set of 2003 Sequoia 17" wheels for $150. They have slightly better offset than the stock 17" wheels do and I have a used set of KO2s in 285/70/17 that I'm getting next week. See how they fit then and if I need to do any trimming at all.



Also chopped the resonator off the end of the exhaust system. That thing hung down too low and didn't do anything but add weight.



More to come as I do stuff to it. Timing belt still needs to be changed and should be the last of the required maintenance that needs done still.

Plans are for front and rear bumpers from Coastal OffRoad, Modify or swap out the roof rack so I can use my tent on it, eventually lift it for bigger tires, a rear locker and I'm seriously considering a FJ transfer case swap to eliminate the electronic, prone to failure crap and give me twin sticks.

I was finally able to change the fron diff gear oil. 4Runners have the same issue as the Taco front diffs. The drain plug can be a total nightmare to get out. Fortunately for me, I have a welder and was able to fix the problem.



Gooped the new drain plug with anti-seize so hopefully there won't be issues next time I change the gear oil.

 

And if you were wondering, yes, I sold the Tacoma.

 

First

 

One of the first things I did, other than removing the stupid rock/bug shield from the hood, was clean the headlights. I was amazed at how well these cleaned up, along with the fog lights. I really thought I was going to have to replace them based on my experience with the Tacoma headlights, which I replaced.

Didn't get a before with all the lights faded and yellow but this is as close as I have. Driver side cleaned, all the others not.



Closeup of how bad the passenger side was. Driver's was the same before hand.



This is the drivers after cleaning.



And the end product after cleaning both headlights and fog lights. I later replaced the DRL/turn signals because the originals were cooked from the inside out, letting water in and blowing bulbs any time it rained.

 

I've also replaced the spark plugs since buying it. I think the old ones were Denso platinums but they were obviously worn.

These were driver side. Guess I cut one out of the pic, I did change all 8.



Passenger 4. Replacements, as you can see, were NGK Laser Iridiums. They seem to be working fine so far.



I've also replaced both the power steering hoses coming off the reservoir and cleaned the reservoir itself as best I could. Both OE hoses were rock hard and I was actually able to break the feed line from the reservoir to the pump (larger hose) in half by hand when I removed it. That line was replaced with OEM and new constant tension clamps. The smaller return line is 3/8" FI hose with the original constant tension clamps. That's the line that was leaking previously and cause a huge mess in that area under the hood. I still need to replace the shorter hose that feed from under the radiator support to the steel line that crosses in front of the radiator. It's also rock hard but not leaking.



Found out that you need to clean the throttle body, if not previously done, whenever you disconnect the battery for a while. I had cleaned the terminals on the battery and the truck wouldn't stay idling afterwords. Thanks to a tip on cleaning the TB from @Empty_Lord, I found mine definitely needed cleaning and that resolved the no idle issue.

 

More maintenance work. Pretty much all I have really been doing to the truck so far since buying it. Other than the radio install but I considered that a necessity since I only stream my music from Pandora and I needed to have hands free calling.

Replaced all the transmission ATF. The way I did it was a pain in the ass and only is really needed for the newer, sealed transmissions. Mine, being an 03, still has a dipstick and is not sealed. So next time around, I'm just gunna drain the pan and refill. Maybe drop it too and replace the "filter" that's in there.



Old fluid that came out. Probably original and had over 280k miles on it. Not horrible, not burnt smelling but definitely dirty and in need of a change.



New Valvoline Max Life ATF going in. Also running that in the power steering now.



I've also replaced the gear oil in the rear diff, no pics of that tho. Did the front diff today, once I had the replacement plug and the sacrificial Allen key that got welded to the old plug. The old plug wasn't budging, even using a breaker bar and then my electric impact. Just rounded out the hole. So I welded the Allen key in place and it still took me laying on it with the impact for a minute to get it to finally break loose. Edit - guess I posted this twice. Oh well.

 

Ya gotta love that 4.7.

 

I find it interesting that your 2005 Tundra has what appears to be a plastic intake where as my 2003 4Runner has an aluminum intake.



Come to Tucson and do my timing belt please. I really don't want to dig into it. I'm also going to paint my valve covers red. I've already done it in the Taco, I dig it.

 

Plastic intake is variable runners. Makes
More power, it’s on the Vvti 4.7
You can swap it on, it’s documented. Makes a bit More power. 12 hole fuel injectors are another nice mod I plan on doing eventually

 

Damnit! Now I have to start looking for one...

 

It’s neat looking in there.. there’s 8 mini throttle bodies that control runner length. More power down low and up top with it

 

Yup, I see that. Just found a thread covering it on IH8MUD. Doing my research now.

https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/aluminum-to-plastic-manifold-upgrade.1071841/

 

Congrats on the 4Runner! Looks like you are having a good time working on and wheeling the new addition. Enjoy it!

 

Bunch of stuff on order for the 4runner, all related to the engine and giving it a little performance boost.

Got a product similar to the Pedal Commander called the Sprint Booster. Guy selling them is a regular on the toyota-4runner.org forums and it has good reviews from other 4runner owners specifically so I thought I'd give it a shot.

https://www.burtmanindustries.com/zoomprod.php?id=4run_sprint_bstr

And after talking with @Empty_Lord and his recommendation to talk with Keith over at Dirty Deeds Industries, which I did, I have the following on order from a few different ebay sellers.

2006 4runner 2UZ plastic VVT intake manifold
2006 4runner 2UZ fuel rails (for the manifold swap, there is a slight difference in the fuel rails, requiring the change)
2006 Sequoia 2UZ throttle body, factory part # 22030-0F010 (difference in mounting from the ones used on the aluminum intakes)

Still need to get the new 12 hole injectors from Dirty Deeds to complete the swap. Going to do it all when I finally get around to doing the timing belt change, which is over due but not by a ton of miles.

This should be pretty much a plug and play swap. Shouldn't be any difference in the wiring for the throttle body. End results of the intake swap should be better low end torque and power than what the engine currently puts out with the non-VVT aluminum intake manifold. Also a little weight loss going from aluminum to plastic. The VVT plastic intake should flow better, similar to having the aluminum intake ported but a fraction of the cost of having that done. The throttle bodies are basically the same, just have a difference in mounting so won't affect the performance. The 12 hole injectors will give better fuel atomization with the 12 holes over what I believe are 4 hole stock. Better atomization should lead to a small power boost and hopefully slightly better gas mileage as well.

If you are curious about the swap and if it will really make a difference, I suggest doing your research on it. There are threads and discussions around the internet on it from 4runner forums to Tundra and Lexus forums. Bunch of Lexus guys have done the swap, bunch of Tundra guys have done it but I haven't seen many 4runner guys that have done it. It's a straight forward, simple swap that with the injectors price and some good ebay shopping, can be done for around $600 or less. I'm not doing any dyno testing so the only dyno will be my ass. I've driven the 4runner long enough that I should be able to tell if there is a difference. And hopefully the gas mileage will show a change too.

 

Got a cheapy Win10 laptop off Amazon, $162.14 shipped. Received it today and am getting it setup. Going to use it in the garage for repair manuals and for tweaking shit on the 4Runner.

Acer High Performance 11.6" HD Laptop, Intel Celeron Processor, 4GB RAM, 64GB Storage, Intel HD Graphics, WiFi, Bluetooth, HDMI, Win10 Pro (Renewed)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Z5H9P6D

Waiting for the vxdiag tool thing to show up from China. Hope I don't brick the damn truck when I fiddle with it. Just want to turn of the DRL and change the remote fob to unlock all the doors at one click instead of the current 2.

Also received and installed the Sprint Booster to change the rate of the gas pedal. Thing works pretty damn good! And it's small too.



Plugs in between the pedal and the factory harness.

 

Received the cheapy laptop. Not a bad deal for the price really. It has Windows 10 Pro Education Edition on it, works just fine. Put it on the home network, installed AV, updated Windows and installed a few other programs like Notepad++, OpenOffice and Chrome.

Decided I didn't want to wait for the VXDiag tool from China and bought a cheap mini-VCI J2534 cable of Amazon that had next day shipping. Received that Saturday night. -

$49 Aidixun Mini-VCI J2534 Cable Firmware 1.4.1 for Toyota Techstream, Toyota Tis Cable,Techstream Software (Newest Version)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084P3WCJC

Installed TechStream v14.20.019 onto the laptop and found some drivers for the mini-vci. Techstream works fine on Windows 10 64 bit since the OS is backwards compatible with most 32 bit programs. The problem was not having all the drivers and such for the mini-vci cable. Windows installed a driver but there was no communication with the trucks ECUs.

Fought this all morning Sunday and finally found the correct information to get everything working. Part of the problem was that the Amazon seller hadn't sent me the software for the cable yet, which they were supposed to email me a download link within 24 hours. Still haven't seen that. But they do provide a QR code in the pictures on Amazon which did work and got me the download link I needed for the missing software. Once I had that, I followed the directions that are included, along with some other posts that I found on various forums via google searches. Finally got the cable working and TechStream was able to communicate with the 4runner.

Made changes to the customization settings that are available, like turning off the DRL, setting the remotes to unlock all doors with a single click instead of the double it had been and a few other minor changes that I found I wanted since the options were there. Everything was great until I drove the truck. VSC TRAC and VSC OFF lights were now on solid.

Spent another couple hours fighting this. Finally got it figured out with the help of @Empty_Lord and @Speedytech7. Turns out that there is a chance that whenever you connect ANY OBDII type device, including the mini-vci while running TechStream, it will trip a C1336 code. That means that the VSC TRAC system calibration has been undone and needs to be reset. Unfortunately, you can't do the recalibration using TechStream. You either need the fancy Toyota tools to do it or you do it manually using a couple wires and following a few steps that are provided in the repair manual. I used the couple wires method and was able to perform the zero point calibration, turning off the dash lights. All was fixed again.

TechStream is pretty cool, lets you set various customizations like I pointed out above and also check and verify the health of all the ECUs in the truck. There are several and each one can have it's own issues. I didn't have any codes on any of them, excepting the C1336 which took forever to show up. I had to have the truck running, TechStream hooked up and monitoring things and then move the truck a couple feet forward and back to get the code to finally show up. It will also come in handy for if I ever need to replace the brake master or vacuum booster reservoir thing, I think it's called the accumulator or something. TechStream can bleed vacuum off and reset the zero point calibration for that as well. Basically, it's a must have tool for these ECU laden, newer Toyota vehicles.

 

Intake with fuel rails showed up today. I think the throttle body is supposed to get here today as well.

Needs a good cleaning but it's in good shape otherwise.

 

Changed out the wheels finally. I picked up a set of 2003 Sequoia wheels off Craigslist for $150. They aren't perfect, a little rash on one and some chipped paint but they are much better than the fugly stock rims IMO. Little better offset too, they stick out a little further then the other ones.

Fugly wheels.



Much betterer Sequoia wheels.

 

@xtremewlr subbed! I have to either bypass my SAI or maybe doing the intake will make doing the pump more bearable. Those sequoia rims are primo!!