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Faster-4-Runner
Do you consider your 4Runner to be "fast"?
When I bought my 4Runner off the dealer lot in 2007, it had less then 10 miles on the ODO. It ran okay but didn't have great throttle response. It always felt like it was straining to get the RPMs up when accelerating. Around town I was averaging 18 MPG which isn't all that bad considering it's a fairly large SUV.
After about a year, I decided it was time for a change. The first thing to go was the stock muffler. I went to a local exhaust shop and had a Flowmaster 50 Series SUV chamber muffler installed. Needless to say the sound levels increased. The engine seemed to gain RPMs much faster when accelerating. Even the gas mileage improved slightly, up to 18.5 MPG.
The next improvement was to replace the stock air induction system with a Cold Air Induction (CAI) kit from K&N. A simple DIY mod, the CAI really seemed to "bring it all together" and opened up the performance of the 4Runner. The improvement in acceleration was significant with the engine no longer straining to gain RPMs. Mileage jumped to averaging over 20 MPG. On the highway, MPG averaged around 23.5.
I frequently "explored" the new found acceleration capabilities of my 4Runner. Seeing as I live the state of "Massholes", opportunities to challenge other drives to be the "first off the line" into a single lane are readily available, especially with anyone driving a 3-Series BMW. My son and I seem to have these encounters regularly to "spank" a BMW off the line.
Just this afternoon, my wife and I were on the way home from grocery shopping and the 4Runner was loaded down with weeks worth of food. I had recently replaced the stock spark plugs in the 4Runner with Denso Iridium and the 4Runner was running exceptionally well, averaging 21.8 MPG with better acceleration than ever. So as we pulled up to a light next to a newer, black BMW 328, I figured it was time for some fun. Sure enough when the light changed, the BMW driver hit the gas and tried to immediately pull out in front of us before the road merged back into one lane. I also hit the gas and the engine spun right up and the exhaust roared. We surged out ahead, then the BMW kept pace just slightly behind us, then he dropped back just as we had to merge into one lane. We'd almost hit 70 MPH is a very short section of road (speed limit 50, like that matters in Massachusetts). Needless to say the Bimmer pilot was pissed off. My wife of course said I was crazy but laughed just the same. I told her my son and I have a standing rule: "Never pass up an opportunity to spank a BMW".
While we're joking around about this, and I certainly don't expect I'd ever keep pace with a turbo 3 Series, but the question remains; Do you consider your 4Runner to be "fast"?
An even better question, what else have you done to your 4Runner to make it faster? My mods were simple and inexpensive, but I'm sure there's other things that can help.
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