Southern Utah Dirt

[DAA]

That's brilliant! Kind of like how the old manual and automatic locking wheel hubs used to work.

I like mine even better than the push button disconnect on the JK's like Randy's. Mine is an after market dual rate sway bar. Since I already had onboard air I could have set it up to be push button, but chose the manual version for greater simplicity. So, I do have to get out and flip a lever to "disconnect", but it's literally a two second operation. And I can leave it disconnected at any speed or transfer case position.

Like Randy said, it helps significantly to smooth out the ride on rough dirt, so I disconnect every time I leave pavement, even if I'm never going to put it in 4WD. I usually air down my tires too, not because I need the traction, but because it makes such a huge difference in ride comfort.

The beauty of the dual rate sway bar system is that it doesn't actually completely disconnect. It has an "offroad" rate inner bar that couples to an outer bar for a stiffer than factory onroad rate. Having a sway bar still connected, but with significantly lower stiffness than factory, conveys pretty much all the advantages of disconnecting - the sway bar no longer limits articulationl. But maintaing "some" resistance and keeping the chassis direcdly connected to the front axle maintains most of the advantage and safey of a sway bar at the same time. It helps with balancing traction front to rear and keeping both axles working well togehter, and avoids "unloading" the front end on steep climbs. It also very noticeably reduces the tendency of the body to "get tippy" in off camber situations compared to being fully disconnected.

When connected, the rate is actually stiffer than factory and conveys all the advantages of a stifer swaybar like the ones ricers put on their fart can rigs - flatter cornering, less body roll etc.

Dual rate is the only way to fly, IMO...

- DAA

 

[Aldaron]

Before langutah accuses me of not really getting my new 4Runner dirty this weekend, I thought I should post some proof

I appear to have not taken many pictures of the truck, but here's one that shows my fingerprints on the dirt.



My impression of the 4Runner so far:

It felt much smoother on the washboard road than the Xterra.
The interior was sealed much better from the dust and dirt outside.
The bigger fuel tank is nice with a longer driving range.
I wish there were more storage places around the driver. The Xterra had a couple of places where you could stow things like snacks or a GPS...the 4Runner doesn't have enough stash or storage locations for those types of things.

Overall, I love it. Still no buyer's remorse! The lack of dirt in the interior after over 120 miles of dirt roads compared to the Xterra was really nice.

 

[Artemus]

Before langutah accuses me of not really getting my new 4Runner dirty this weekend, I thought I should post some proof

Overall, I love it. Still no buyer's remorse! The lack of dirt in the interior after over 120 miles of dirt roads compared to the Xterra was really nice.

But did you engage the KDSS and the Hyperdrive laddie? Nice truck and nice reddish dirt. Don't forget budgeting for the BFG All Terrains. Thanks!

 

[Aldaron]

I didn't use any of the extra 4x4 features on this trip...I doubt it's far off, though!