Noobie building a 2021 trd off road

Hello all,

A few days ago i pulled the trigger on an army green 2021 tacoma trd off road YAHOOO. I will receive it end of june and take it to Alberta Canada in august.
My goal with it is to eventually be able to tackle difficult off road trails and lots of camping. For our first trip which will be 4 weeks long we will probably stick to easy trails since we are going to be solo and have limited experience. I live in Ontario Canada and this would be my daily during the winter only. My philosophy has always been a "buy once cry once" when it comes to things I know I will fully use.

I've been doing a lot of research and here is what i got for the build so far!
More to come as I continue to think through the build.
Hoping for some feedback on what you guys think! If the pictures are not useful i will delete them but thought i would include because as a noobie i thought it was nice to see the pics of products looking through posts since i wasn't as familiar as some of you out there.

Suspension:
Accutune mid travel suspension kit stage 3

https://accutuneoffroad.com/product...NgmiFxiLKcGIwTMibIPomwqFDFiQEG4RoCObEQAvD_BwE




Tires & wheels
bf goodrich KO2 285/75/r16 on the stock 16inch wheel

I used the resource below to choose the size but if anyone thinks these wont fit with the lift kit above please let me know
https://empyreoffroad.com/blogs/resources/the-ultimate-tire-wheel-guide



Armour:
Hi-line front winch bumper


CBI T3 high clearence rear bumper with duel swing out. There was an option for angled tire carrier, what is the advantage of that???



CBI rock sliders with DOM, kick out, powder coating




RCI full skid package + the gas tank skid (not shown)




Smityville gen2 x20 10,000lbs winch with synthetic rope and wireless controller

Shelter and storage

RSI smart canopy
They also offer a roof rack which seems good with 300lb dynamic load


Ikamper skycamp mini
Does anyone have experience with this? It will be my girlfriend and I so the mini should be comfortable? we have a golden retriever as well, i was thinking about getting the annex so he doesnt have to come in the tent, dirty it up and take up a ton of room. Did anyone buy this tent for 2 and wish they got the bigger version?



That is all so far. I know there is much more to consider from lighting, storage solutions, recovery gear, etc. More to come on all that! Happy to take recommendations as well!

I am learning so much and look forward to hearing some of the feedback from you guys!

Best,
Matt

 

Coiliover lift height and max tire size are not really directly related. Although a lift might reduce the frequency of the tire rubbing on the frame, body, suspension, it can not eliminate it because, regardless of ride height, the suspension must cycle through the same distance. As reported many times on this form, 285/75/r16 will more than likely require a CMC, light trimming, and a custom wheel alignment to completely eliminate rubbing. If you want a slightly easier route, you can go with 255/85/r16. Otherwise it looks great, but is probably overkill for your use case. Have fun!

 

Thank you for the reply gudu. I see what you are saying with the suspension cycling the same distance.
hmm I was hoping to avoid CMC. What do you have on your build and what kind of trails are you doing?

 

You could always do new wheels 16x8 with A nice 265/75/16 IMO. Still looks good on a 2” lift , Nice articulation no rub , but it’s not as cool as the cool kids running 285’s
just my 2cents

 

I have King 2.5 RR shocks (600 lb/in) , Medium Dakars, SPC UCAs, 255/85r16 Dick Capek MTs, Mobtown Sliders, and a TRD skid plate.

I have taken it to OHV parks and driven the black "most difficult" trails, but only the easier ones. Those trails vary between doable in my truck to challenging for a buggy, so I have to pick and choose. My profile picture is one named Money Talks and it cost me some money when I dented my passenger side door that day. The parks are 3+ hours away, so I am always looking for opportunities in construction sites, unused land, unplowed parking lots, and unplowed roads. There are also 4x4 events on private land on some weekends during the year. They attract everything from stock trucks/jeeps to all out rock bouncer buggies. I would like to try some wheeling and/or overlanding out west somewhere.

 

OR wheels are 7", where as BFG recommends 7.5" min for those tires over here.

You might consider adding all the weight, wheels and tires before the suspension install to get the ride height correct and alignment done only once.

4:88 or 5:29 gears will help with the weight and tire size, optional front locker will help tremendously with capability.

Also, check out hammer hangers, LCA gussets, spindle gussets, and coil bucket gussets for added strength and overall durability. Links here. I get into it a bit over here. GL!

 

You’ll need a 700lb spring up front and a full leaf pack. With accutune, that’s going to be the rtx with option 3 if you’re going we a camper shell.

 

Have you ever built up a truck for offroad before?
If no, then my suggestion is to drive it for six months completely stock. Take it camping and do all the offroad trails you want. A stock offroad Tacoma will go much further than your courage. By then, you will know exactly what you need and what you don't need.

If yes, then you should already know what you need and not need our advice.

The biggest mistake new guys make is to build it right off the bat. They spend serious $$$$$ and find out they did it exactly wrong for their needs. Now they are stuck.

Build it right. Stock for awhile, then suspension and tires, then all the other crap.

Good luck.

 

First of all thank you all for the replies guys!

I am looking into all of your thoughts so it might take me some time to reply to all of this information!

I think what i am really after is maximizing my clearance with no body work mods needed for rubbing or anything. If from experienced off roaders this clearance is insufficient for most "difficult trails", then i would be okay to do the body mods. As far as tires are concerned i understand the clearance is proportional to the height of the tire right? so for

stock
265/70/R16
265(.7) or 185.5mm (please correct if this is not true, just learning about tires and such now)

Swapping to 265/75/r16 as you suggest would give me 265(.75) or 198.75mm or +13.25mm

swapping to 285/70/r16 would be 199.5 or +14mm

swapping to 285/75/r16 would be 213.75 or +28.75mm

swapping to gudu's 255/85 would be 216.75 or +31.25mm

Although it is hard for me to judge because i am 100% new to off roading, it seems like going 285/70 is a definite avoid if it would require any body work.
Gudu's gets great clearence but im not sure if you lose much capability with less footprint of the narrower tire.

if the 285/75 requires body work maybe going with the 265/75 makes the most sense?
I will search the forums a bit closer because i know this topic has probably been beat to death!

 

Correct. You don't lift to fit tires, you lift to get more suspension travel. When you lift your suspension will still compress back to stock so it all has to fit at stock height.

 

Wow what a great pic with your truck at the top there haha! that looks pretty challenging for sure hope it didnt break the bank to bad with your door. So would you say your tires were fine for that level of trail?

That sounds pretty good, more opportunities than i would of imagined. thats really cool. Nice thing with all those is as you mentioned the time. Hopefully you make it out west like you want! I'm learning how to use gaia gps so i can share my trail research and hopefully pics when i end up going.

 

I'm not sure I follow how lifting an IFS increases suspension travel unless you are referring only to up travel (at the expense of down travel) or to extended length coilovers (aka mid-travel). In my mind, the ride height adjustment I did front and rear was primarily to increase approach, departure, and break-over angles plus ground clearance under the front skid. I did gain a bit of suspension travel as well by using extended length shocks front and rear plus the SPC UCAs. With the addition of 33" tires I gained about 3" of total height and I definitely noticed the difference off-road and when getting into and out of the truck. The truck also got noticeably louder and slower on the road.

 

yes makes so much sense thank you guys

 

I was speaking of extended travel either mid or long.

 

Your definitely doing your homework bro awesome. Yeah you will need cmc I personally wasn’t going to do that

 

Note that 255/85r16 is a 33" diameter tire that doesn't require any trimming. By many reports it is the tallest tire you can get without trimming. IMHO, tire height is more important than width. Although width might help in certain situations, I think most people go with it for the looks.

Tire height gives you increased ground clearance, additional traction on certain surfaces, and makes it easier to roll over obstacles. Width helps with traction on certain surfaces.

Ronny Dahl on youtube has a video where he compares different size tires and talks about width. There are trade offs in his opinion.

 

I want to follow up on this because i feel like there is an important concept in here i want to get straight lol
when you say you increase your suspension in terms of up travel at expense of down travel that means that if you have an independent suspension with 10 inches of travel and you had a lift of 3 inches then you are just changing where the vehicle sits at equilibrium within those 10 inches. so if it sat at 5 now it would sit at 8 and so your uptravel goes up but ur down travel distance goes down. This doesnt sound so good if you are on rocky terrain dont you want a pretty good balance?

 

Yea that's great i need to look into that because i'm not sure how to balance the height vs width question so this really helps.

 

thanks, i'm enjoying the process quite a bit. It just really great to be able to talk to really informed people so easily, so thanks for your input!

 

Of course. You will definitely get the help you need and good luck. Look forward to seeing your build