Intro and a question (1 Viewer)

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jewinthedesert

jewinthedesert

Joined
Dec 2, 2022
Threads
3
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Location
AZ
Hey everyone. Recently acquired my first LC (LX470) that was reasonably well maintained and quite heavily upgraded (at least it's further than I would have personally gone with a build). The unit needed tires right away so I went with 315/75R16 Nitto Ridge Grappler 10-plys. I'm on a 2" lift with Old Man Emu suspension and AHC of course deleted. Extremely small amounts of rubbing (tires are new) at full lock and only minor fender contact over bumps at speed). Anyways my question is more on the gearing side of things. I've speed trapped myself as being in the neighborhood of 15-20% over the speedometer readout on the highway. Additionally this 4 speed transmission is permanently hunting gears and I actually am losing speed going up steep hills on the highway.

Off-road it's great but driving it on-road to get to the off-road is nearly unbearable. I am actually considering selling it because I hate the gear hunting and overall sluggishness. I've come here to see if anyone can help and save me from getting rid of what I thought would be the ultimate solo camper / overlander / offroader. Thanks for any assistance you're able to provide.
 
Get gears.

My guess is you'll end up spending more than the cost of the gears (and install) to buy another truck, say with the later 5-speed, and then baseline it. So if your LX is currently set up the way you want it, you can have a set of diff gears installed for like 2k-ish. Or, do the transfer case. But, there are options.

Also consider, and this is still something I struggle with, that your truck just isn't going to drive like stock by the time we start modding them. Someone told me I was crazy for expecting my fully built truck to drive like a stock one. I'm slowly realizing they're right.
 
I never had it as stock, so I don't have that expectation at all. The places I like to go off-road to are 3-4 hours from me though and the highway drive to get to those places is what's currently killing me.

Got any recommendations on which gears / kits to look at? Currently at 35" on wheel OD, stock was 31.2". Not sure what gear ratio I'd need/want.
 
jewinthedesert said:
I never had it as stock, so I don't have that expectation at all. The places I like to go off-road to are 3-4 hours from me though and the highway drive to get to those places is what's currently killing me.

Got any recommendations on which gears / kits to look at? Currently at 35" on wheel OD, stock was 31.2". Not sure what gear ratio I'd need/want.
Click to expand...
You'd want to look in to 4.88s. I have them from Nitro Gear in my truck and they've been great. Running 35x12.50s for my trail tires.

There's also Sierra Gear, and I think Sumo makes gears for our diffs as well.

What year is your truck? If it's a 98 or 99, you'd want to prioritize getting gears in the diffs because your factory 2-pinion front diff is a timebomb with 35s and trail time.
 
jewinthedesert said:
truck is a 2000 LX470
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Should be the 4-pinion then. Not as high a priority for the sake of grenading. It can still happen, though. Ask me how I know..

But the gearing would be your answer for the purposes of your truck. You'll get the pep back without having to downshift so much.
 
Mathematically your 315/75's are 11% taller than the standard 275/70's (and a LOT heavier, no wonder it's become a dog). That is roughly the same amount that your speedo has been thrown off. Correcting your gearing by multiplying your stock 4.30 gears by 11% would put you at 4.78. Since 4.88's are commonly available that would be the solution as far as gearing goes.
 
Tons of physics involved in vehicle motion. The reason why it hunts gears is because you got bigger tires while the drive train is stock. I run 265 75 16, 10 plies and absolutely no complains and no issues with gears. What were the tires it had before? Did you still felt the same gear hunting with those tires?
 
Tire size and lift quality (OME nitro shocks) are playing major roles in ride quality.

They may have lifted it to the point there is no droop in the front end as well.

You can drop to a 33 inch tire and get rid of a lot of the gear hunting or you can regear as mentioned.
 
GTV said:
Mathematically your 315/75's are 11% taller than the standard 275/70's (and a LOT heavier, no wonder it's become a dog). That is roughly the same amount that your speedo has been thrown off. Correcting your gearing by multiplying your stock 4.30 gears by 11% would put you at 4.78. Since 4.88's are commonly available that would be the solution as far as gearing goes.
Click to expand...
I've never re-geared anything before. Thanks for the explanation on the math. I'm tracking.
 
AlpineAccess said:
Tire size and lift quality (OME nitro shocks) are playing major roles in ride quality.

They may have lifted it to the point there is no droop in the front end as well.

You can drop to a 33 inch tire and get rid of a lot of the gear hunting or you can regear as mentioned.
Click to expand...
You see the problem is that I'm stupid... and I only like to make things better (which really means worse) :bang:
 
jewinthedesert said:
You see the problem is that I'm stupid... and I only like to make things better (which really means worse) :bang:
Click to expand...

You sound like me. It's fun sometimes, right?


Easy way to think about the gearing: your 35" tire takes more distance to complete 1 turn than stock tires. That delta is corrected within the diff by running the different gears. As GTV said, the 4.88 would be almost exactly like you were running a stock tire, in terms of how the truck moves forward.
 
nissanh said:
Tons of physics involved in vehicle motion. The reason why it hunts gears is because you got bigger tires while the drive train is stock. I run 265 75 16, 10 plies and absolutely no complains and no issues with gears. What were the tires it had before? Did you still felt the same gear hunting with those tires?
Click to expand...
They were 275r75/16 BFG KO2s, which are a decent tire (I've had many sets on my old 2007 F250) but the compound doesn't hold up to the AZ street surface heat in the summer (exceeds 160F) and they end up becoming 30k miles a set. As for rotational weight, the chart showed 59lbs/tire on the KO2s that were on it and the Ridge Grapplers I've got on it now are 72lbs per corner, so I was expecting some issues. I prefer the tries that are on it though, so a re-gear seems like the answer.
 
MongooseGA said:
You sound like me. It's fun sometimes, right?


Easy way to think about the gearing: your 35" tire takes more distance to complete 1 turn than stock tires. That delta is corrected within the diff by running the different gears. As GTV said, the 4.88 would be almost exactly like you were running a stock tire, in terms of how the truck moves forward.
Click to expand...

My second profession is as a firearms manufacturer and I specialize in creating obscene things that shouldn't exist. It would seem that this "talent" is not limited to only that profession.
 
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