in this thread you may post reasons why I don't want a 2000-ish 4runner
 

http://us.st12.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.c...2034_132220743
I want to daily drive it, and pull the miata to the track.

Don't you already have a different Miata for DD duty? If I had both a track Miata and a daily Miata, I'd buy a dirt cheap tow vehicle, i.e. not one I'd want to DD.

Yeah, what happened to the gold-digger filter?

my other miata runs great but its fucking beat, ugly, and I hate being stuck in such a little car all the time...but fuel is cheap. My subaru needs a trans. I'd like to give the ugly miata to my sister for her to make into a track car, I don't know what to do with the subaru.

I don't want 3-cars, I want 2. I don't want to get a shitter tow vehicle to insure monthly just to pull the miata a few times per year. I'm trying to resist the gx470 and get something reasonable.

I also want to take my miata to the track locally and a few hours away and know I'm going to make it home. I was thinking about driving up to Hallett for a track day, but its going to suck ass when I blow something up and I'm stranded 5-hours from home.

You're in Texas, why not a pickup? Talk about cheap insurance...

Well since you put it that way, I've always wanted a 4 runner, and all black rocks.

4 runner are great... My moms had one since '97 and still runs like a champ with 180k.

People will steal your cat. no joke.

too big, and trucks are too big to park downtown. I'm civilized. I need a girlfriend with a truck...and a great body.

The great thing about the 4 runners and Xterras(love mine) is they are built on truck frames, but not sized like them.

I won't say they drive like cars as it's a huge difference from the miata, but they aren't bad, and still useful.

because

a) black sucks to maintain and I will never own another black car

b) because the EARLIER 4runners had removable tops. boyee!

i won't do black again either...well, at least not another black car. :giggle:

What year is that/motor is in it?

The 3.0 sucks. Though, it might be from the generation just before that one.

define "sucks."

http://i17.ebayimg.com/01/i/001/22/8e/2555_1.JPG

eBay Motors: Geo : Tracker (item 170295095095 end time Jan-24-09 06:57:01 PST)


/Thread

White cargo van with "FREE CANDY" painted on the side. Should be right up Hustler's alley.

1. get another miata
2. 302 swap
3. use it to tow the other miata

I used to have '99 w/ the 3.4. It will pull a Miata, but not well. My trailer is light (1200#) w/ brakes on 1 axle and it had a hard time getting it going and getting it stopped. Also, the wheelbase is too short in my opinion. If you ever got in a bad cross wind, you'd wreck it all. I got a real truck ('04 2500HD 4x4 long bed extended cab) and would never consider going back. I wont even tow with our TrailBlazer SS due to the wheel base being short even thought it has more power than the 2500.

then I'm just going to get a semi-tractor to tow my 2klb car.

My 6-speed fell through, so I'm back to square one. I wish I had left this fucking car NA so I could drive it to and from the track and know I'm going to make it home and deal with all this fucking bullshit reliability garbage. God damn-it, holy shit!

4-runners are the shit. You can't go wrong. It will tow your car. Sure, a big fucking truck will pull a load better, but that 'yota will do fine. If you were pulling a 20 yd^3 dumping trailer to the pit to get red clay, I wouldn't buy that truck. But for a miata, it's fine.

You track a car. That's part of the game.

I delivered cars for a wholesaler for years so I'm fine pulling big shit with a little truck, or a 52' 3-car hauler with a turbo diesel. I am concerned with the auto trans in the 4-runner though.

Seriously, almost all automatic transmission failures are from overheating. Just don't tow in overdrive and put a good size cooler on it. I run the one I posted on a my t-bird I built. It was ~400 whp and I never had transmission problems. Just have to keep that shit cool and it's fine.

Aside from being underpowered (~150 crank hp) the 3.slow V6 suffered from all-too-common head gasket failures. But Toyota stopped using them after '95 so you wouldn't be looking at them anyway.

The 3.4 V6 makes enough power and is reliable enough that is has even become a pretty popular swap for earlier 2nd gen and even 1st gen 4runners. I have an '85 myself, with the venerable 22RE. 116 hp pulling 3800 lbs FTL. But it kept me out of speeding tickets when I was younger.

If you're towing several hours in each direction you need something that has the power to climb hills, and good brakes when you come back down. The 4runner will be suboptimal in both areas, has a fairly short wheelbase as previously mentioned, and also a somewhat narrow track width. When towing a big load, that dog will be subject to getting wagged by its tail so to speak. For shorter trips or infrequent towing it will work fine, and the 4runners are still built in Japan so it should be reliable as hell. However if you will be towing frequently I'd seriously consider a V8 truck. Good used ones should be easy to come by in TX, and gas won't get up anywhere near $3/gal in the near future so you won't go broke driving it.

I love my old 4runner and don't consider myself a fan of American SUVs. But I will say that my dad has a '96 Tahoe that he uses frequently (up to 20 weekends in a year) to tow his RX-7 to the track and it has been extremely reliable (the Tahoe, not the RX-7 ;) ). He did upgrade the brakes and swaybars so it has better road manners than GM originally gave it, but it tows like a dream on the highway.

I tow my car roughly 8-10K miles a year, I didn't want to chance it with a truck that wasn't up to the task in my opinion. Those of you who say it will work, have you ever towed 3400# with a 4runner? I could never relax towing with that thing. Now I set the cruise on 75 and never worry with the 2500. Sure the 2500 is overkill, but heck with the truck market like it is now, you can pick up nice early 2000 3/4 ton trucks for 6-8K.

Attachment 208916
lol
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its going to be awesome to drive it every day and park it here:
http://www.photohome.com/pictures/te...-dallas-4a.jpg
at midnight on a friday night.

I only use the truck for towing. It is a '04 w/ 54K miles and nearly all dragging a car and trailer. I have a BMW for the daily grind.

Throw a good cooler, good brakes and possibly a shift kit on it. Then get a tandem axle trailer with brakes and the best load distrubution hitch you can afford.

The car is undrivable, fans don't work, its going to blow up transmission, and I'm pretty much over it and just want to relax. I knew I never should have wasted my money on this god damn bullshit shit...again.

My broham has a 98 3.4 V6. It's a good car but gets really poor MPG. I believe it gets 16 MPG on the freeway, around 12 on the street. I'd consider that as my main gripe about this car.

BTW, all Toyota inline 6's have the headgasket problem.

Not JZ's

Which can be fixed by re-torquing the bolts IIRC. :giggle:

Undrivable...what's up with it? Last I heard you were looking to put in the EGT and fix the LC1. Something major come up? The fans are an MS issue, no? If so, the MSPNP is under warranty, no? And what makes you so sure your trans is going to blow up? Is it making noises, or just your paranoia? I find it hard to believe you'll be busting transmissions out on the track anytime soon...you'll have to take it fairly easy and relearn the car with so much more power. What's with the current freak-out?

lc-1 was reset, free-air, over and over, and the AFR's still read 10.0:1 when the dyno sheet says 12.4:1 post cat (Ituner expected .4 difference)

the turbo glows red for like 10+ minutes after zipping around town. I think I fucked up mechanical timing and I'm going to fix that tomorrow (but everyone who's driven it thinks its fine). Spark table looks normal, so i can't figure this shit out, hence the need for EGT.

MAP signal is spikey and triggering enrichment, no matter what I do. I am going to try the mig-wire restriction next. After that, well...what else is there to try?

The fan will probably should not be warrantied because I had the fans jumped for the "dual fan mod." I can take pin r1 to gnd and the fans work, ms is not switching them on...because I obviously fucked it up.

Just like my last turbo car, I've pretty much ruined a good car...only I loved this car more than people. lol $15k down the shitter, again.

Doesn't sound like anything to throw in the towel about. If the LC1 is pissing you off, you can try a cheap JAW or something. Or try to rewire it...make sure the grounds are properly done. I believe Joe has outlined pretty well a few times the common issues with mis-wiring the LC1.

My MAP signal isn't clean either, and it too is hooked into the FPR vac. line. Have you tried a vac. filter? I haven't yet, because really, it just doesn't matter that much. If your enrichments are kicking on before you like, change the thresholds. It takes some dicking with it to get it right.

If grounding the pin triggers the fan, it certainly sounds like something internal to the ecu. If you've parked the car anyway, send the ECU back to DIYA, and pay them to fix it for you. Their hourly rates are quite reasonable, and they'll fix you right up. I had to have them fix one of my screw-ups (well, misunderstandings, really) while adding a VTPS.

I know where you're coming from about not trusting the car. I don't trust mine really, either. But for no reason. It has never stranded me. And your setup is way less ghetto than mine.

Shit, I'm out of beer. Good luck.

I don't think the lc-1 is wrong. if it were runnin 10.0:1...would it even run? At cruise,the #'s were reasonable after the tune:
after the dyno tune my gauges pegged rich, but cruised at 15.1:1
I can take fuel out (had to with the new fuel pump) and made the boost #'s reasonable, and didn't have to adjust cruise because they #'s were reasonable. Is my cat converter really going to burn up 2 full points of fuel?

so if my tune were spot on from the dyno, then why was the LC-1 inconsistently innacurate?

The fuel filter thingy on the MAP didnt work last time, maybe it will now.

Identical situation here. Cruise at 14 or so, idles at 10.

I bought an AEM. Seems we have pretty similar issues (fan, LC-1)

Dude hustler this is what you need:

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540i touring - I couldnt find one so I bought the sedan, all I need to find is a tow hitch. 4400 lb braked towing capacity, and pretty much drives like a big miata.

I'll take it, with the m5 wheels of course. I almost bought an m5 about 1 month ago...silver with red leather too.

M5's are cool but not as much of a workhorse as the regular 540 M-sport, which is what I have. They are also very expensive to maintain. If you end up getting an E39, make sure you replace the cooling system with a heavy duty aftermarket kit. That's the weak link in these cars.

thanks, but I think I'm just going to sell everything and get a different car all together.

god you're so paranoid! You need to have sex with a woman every once in a while.

lol, I forgot to call you back because I was locking-in with the hottest chick I've seen in my life.

Terrible gas mileage, head gasket issues, not that great power.

Though, that looks like the generation after which don't have as many problems.

A friend of mine just had the original clutch replaced in his 2000 4-runner, 217k miles on the original OEM clutch shows that OEM parts are worth every penny. Oh, his DD is a 2001 M5, silver with black wheels. So fun to drive it when he lets me, instant torque out the wazoo!!

god you give up too easily hustler ... calm down and go through all your shit, i bet whatever is going on with your car can be fixed and the car is not ruined.

You don't want a 4-Runner because they are shitty tow vehicles. I wouldn't want to tow a car behind anything less than a full-sized pickup truck. If I tow my car, it's because I want to relax with the cruise set at 62mph, not struggle up hills and worry about crosswinds or other bullshit. I've towed my car behind my dad's '00 Suburban and it was perfect. I've also dragged it with my roommate's '95 Dodge diesel, before he doubled the horsepower and torque, and while it was a bit anemic up and down hills it was perfect otherwise.

If I had money, and I were in the market for a nice tow rig, I would be looking at a somewhat basic half or 3/4 ton truck, not some cheap shit half-SUV. I heard a story about a guy who grabbed an '08 F250 V10 with a 5-speed and AC for 16k out the door. MSRP was 24k. You can get a SMOKING deal on a nice-ass rig right now because nobody can give them away.

Or a nice used Tundra 4-door would be more than adequate, especially the new 5.7L