Tires & 3.58 gears

Hi everyone, new member here. I recently inherited my fathers ‘98 Tacoma SR5 extended cab with 110K miles. It is fully stock with the 2.7L 4 cyl engine & 3.58 gears. Current tires are 225-75/R15 and need to be replaced. The truck is primarily a street daily driver, with infrequent gravel, dirt or off road use. I would like to go with larger tires to more fully fill the wheel wells and was initially thinking of moving up to 31’s, but everything I read suggests I would take a significant power hit with the 3.58 gears and I do not want to spend the $ to swap the gears to 4.10’s or something else at this point. What is the largest 15” tire I can go with without significantly zapping my power and acceleration? I have been flirting with 30/9.5/15 or 235-75/R15, or should I just stick with the stock 225’s? Thanks in advance for your insight.
Mike

 

With 3.58s and the 2.7, you’re not exactly starting with a ton of extra power to offset bigger tires. Go too big and you’ll notice it right away — slower off the line, getting passed more often, and losing that light, peppy feel the truck has now.

31s are really pushing it on that setup without a regear. If you want to keep some grunt, I’d stick with the stock 225s or maybe step up to a 30x9.5R15 (~30” tall). That’ll fill the wheel wells a bit without zapping too much acceleration.

If you ever want to run whatever you like, you could regear to 4.10+ for around $600-1000+ per diff. You mentioned that the truck is primarily a street daily driver? Yeah, I’d keep it close to stock and just enjoy it, man.

 

If you have a junkyard nearby and some good luck, and are mechanically inclined, a diff swap is doable on the cheap. I'm not saying it's "easy" but it can be done at home (source: I've done it). 4.10 gears are the most common in 1st gen Tacomas so they're relatively easy to find, but 4.30 is great with 31" tires if you can find 'em.

 

As much as I’d love to be able to put in 4:10’s myself, this is not something I am able to do, and sourcing out a regear is pretty cost prohibitive. Given this I will likely just size up to 235/75/15’s, or leap up to 30’s with 30x9.5R15’s.
Thanks!

 

One thing you can do is look for a light tire. Discount tire lists the weight of most tires for reference. The lighter the tire the less of a impact it will have on power. Of course it is still bigger diameter but weight makes a big difference too.