Lifted 4Runner Runs the Quarter with Supra Power Under the Hood
Seemingly ordinary ’92 4Runner runs deep into the 11s all day with a turbocharged 1JZ, fits the bill as the ultimate sleeper.
Based on the Toyota-Winnebago Trekker project of the early Eighties, the 4Runner has become the perfect SUV for those wanting something rugged, but in a mid-size package without the Land Cruiser price tag. On the other end, the Supra is synonymous with high-performance Toyotas, from its early days as a top-tier trim on the Celica, to the all-new fifth-gen stand-alone model picking up where the line left off in 2002.
Thus, it’s not often you’d see the two on a drag strip together. However, YouTuber Jesse Kleiber (a.k.a., BigKleib34) found both of them in a single, lifted 4Runner out making the rounds at Hot Rod magazine’s annual Hot Rod Drag Week, making a lap through Virginia, Maryland, and New Jersey. He just had to know what was up with that.
’92 4Runner, stock 1JZ,” said the unnamed owner. “Basic goodies, 66-millimeter turbo, 2000cc injectors, ethanol, Haltech computer, TH400. I’ve had the truck since 2013. It kept breaking, the three-liter, the original V6. Wanted to do something different, so I put a Supra motor in it.”
The lifted 4Runner spent the entire day making runs deep into the 11s, hitting its lowest mark early on at 10.88 seconds, the turbocharged 1JZ huffing and puffing along the way while moving the drag radials along. The owner says it makes around 700 horses and 640 lb-ft of torque, though the dyno believed it was making 680 lb-ft of torque, a number he believed was a bit “optimistic” for what he had.
“It’s making a lot of boost down here,” the owner said. “It’s a 17-pound spring that’s making 20 pounds of boost on the spring because of the air here. My target pressure is 29, 30 pounds, and that’s with very little duty cycle on the boost controller. That’s where it’s going. All the surging you heard was on the wastegate, that’s all it was.”
The owner adds that he doesn’t have much room in the output mapping for making the boost he wants to make, since the spring is big, and his target is close to what the spring can handle. Nonetheless, the 4Runner can run down the quarter as if it were a Supra, one lifted a few inches off the ground.
“The truck’s been everywhere,” said the owner. “We’ve been down to Vegas, towed a trailer with a bike in it down, there. Swapped tired, raced that track, drove it back home. It’s been all over the country.”
The 4Runner still has four-wheel drive, though the owner takes it out for drag racing to save weight. And despite the boost in power from having a little Supra soul inside, the SUV is “very tame” on the street, especially once the off-road tires are swapped back on.
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