The Toyota 4Runner has built a strong reputation for itself in the U.S. Most of it has been done out in the wild, blazing trails effortlessly and refusing to ask for too much maintenance during the intervals.
The reliability of these vehicles is legendary, as is the ease and relatively low cost with which they can be modified to make them even more capable off-roaders. Lift the suspension, add some more underbelly protection, change the shocks, put on beefier tires, and, with some driving skill on top, you're likely to go pretty much everywhere.
Not so much on a drag strip, though. You can't expect to have both with one vehicle. The closest you can possibly get is the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk, but then again that's a very expensive piece of kit, not to mention it has a limited ground clearance thanks to all the low-slung sporty-looking body parts.
If what this man did is anything to go by, you'd be much better off with something similar to his build. It's based on a 1992 Toyota 4Runner, but even though much of the appearance has been kept stock, the same can't be said about the powertrain.
What you're looking at is essentially a high-riding Mk4 Supra, minus the sexy bodywork. The SUV has a built 2JZ engine under the hood with a Garrett G42 turbocharger crudely sticking out of it. Don't think of the nice supercharger cutouts you might have seen on classic muscle cars or hot rods, all clean and nicely sitting down the middle – this thing is heavily offset to the passenger side and the hood looks like it's been cut with a set of dull pliers. However, it has a cool DIY vibe about itself.
Speaking of DIY, a lot of the modifications have been done by the owner – who kind of specializes in these sorts of things, so it's necessarily that surprising. Even so, he's built quite a machine that, with a flick of a switch here, a few turns of a screw there, can morph from a drag racing beast to a more than decent off-roader.
You obviously need to change the tires too, because it's no good going on a trail on drag radials just as it isn't taking the 33s to a drag strip. Other than that, the 2JZ-swapped 4Runner gets two built fuel tanks – one for regular gas and the other for race fuel – and a parachute that's fairly easy to mount and dismount.
The SUV has only recently made the jump from about 700 hp to 1,000 hp (via the Garrett turbo we talked about), so it hasn't had the chance to use the chute. Its best run so far was a 10.19 run over the standing quarter, which means we could see it dip into the nines at some point after a bit more tweaking.
As fast as the car is, watching it in action and listening to the owner speak about it, you can't help feeling it's more about having fun and surprising everyone than setting performance-related goals such as making it a nine-second vehicle. It would be nice, though, and it would make the 4Runner that much more "surprising".
"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie) Full profile
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