Sean Estes

The right size tire for any truck is the one that fits at FULL COMPRESSION. This principle might sound foreign, but simply lifting a truck to clear larger tires is a flawed concept.

Superior Axle & Gear is well known as a manufacturer of top-quality aftermarket axle-shafts and gear-sets. Recently, we had an opportunity to tour the Superior facility in Los Angeles with Mike Denton Jr., who talked with us about what goes into designing an axle-shaft and then walked us through the steps involved in the manufacturing process.

Does this look familiar? Breaking CV's seems to be an unavoidable part 'wheeling an IFS truck. We've already destroyed three Tundra inner CV's in our long-travel Tacoma.

We've been working with various manufacturers and collecting parts for the last six months to assemble the ultimate Toyota-based rear axle. The stock axle housing will be discarded and our rebuilt Tacoma third-member loaded with 5.29 gears and an ARB Air Locker is getting reinstalled in a custom-fabricated Tundra-width housing from Front Range Off-Road Fabrication. We're also using a full-floating axle conversion kit from FROR along with 4340 Chrom-Moly 30-spline full-floating axle shafts from Superior Axle & Gear. All of the fabrication and installation work is being performed by WFO Concepts in Auburn, CA.

Gearing is the key to delivering useable power from an engine through the drivetrain and to the ground. In 4x4 trucks there are usually transmission gear ratios, transfer case gear ratios and differential gear ratios. Transmissions are an example of gearing that is easy for any driver to understand. Just imagine trying to start a vehicle in 5th gear or attempting to reach 75mph in 1st gear. Gear ratio selection must take vehicle speed and engine speed into consideration and is always a compromise between peak horsepower, torque and fuel efficiency.

Front Range Off-Road Fabrication, of Red Feather Colorado, is a company known for making Toyota truck products that address shortcomings of factory components. Their products are designed to fill voids existing in the aftermarket and help Toyota owners to build their stock vehicles into capable trail-rigs. Some of their 4x4 Tacoma specific products include twin-stick t-case shifters, U-bolt flip kits, full floating rear axle conversions and fabricated sheet-metal axle housings.

After months of trail-testing and hard use, we remain very impressed with the performance of the Total Chaos Fabrication long-travel front suspension kit. The only area we had a desire to improve was the balance between spring-rate and dampening for on & off-road use.

The stock heavy-steel pickup bed didn't fit into our long-term plans for the Trails Less Traveled Tacoma. We needed to mount longer rear shocks, store additional fuel and carry a full size spare tire. Our long-term plans also include relocating the radiator and two batteries to the rear of the truck for better weight distribution. We came to realize that there would be more compromises in keeping the stock bed than in removing it entirely; so we designed a lightweight utility bed-cage to make better use of the space.

In order to determine the final placement of the bump-stops, we had Chris at Rock Star partially disassemble the rear leaf springs so that we could easily cycle the suspension. It's important to locate the bump-stops on the same plane as the axle path in order to minimize scrub.