Toyota Gearing

Re-gearing your Toyota

There comes a time in an off roader's life when the rig needs to be regeared either for more power and slower crawl speeds or to get back power lost to larger tires.  Adding more power can temporarily make you forget about your lack of gears, but it is NOT a substitute for proper gearing.

In the chart below, I have highlighted the common stock configurations in red.  Areas that are bold are common gear ratios that people have used successfully with Toyotas.

Cells with a yellow background indicate better gas mileage, but less power.

Cells with a green background indicate close to stock ratios.

Cells with a red background indicate better power, but worse mileage ratios.

Celss with a purple background are tire sizes and gears that are commonly used in the Tacoma.

This table can be used to get a rough idea on gear ratios. The numbers represent RPM at highway speeds (65). For highway cruising and better mileage stay towards the yellow (2600 rpm), for daily driving the areas color coded green (2800 rpm) are best, and for better towing power or just more 4-low power use the ratios near the red (3100 rpm). These calculations are assuming a manual transmission with a 1:1 ratio. If you drive an automatic your RPMs will be higher, and the opposite is true if you have overdrive (your RPMs will be lower).

I have a 2001 Tacoma with an automatic transmission.  It came with 4.10 gears and 31" tires.  32's and the 4.10's were tolerable, but it was getting slow when I went to 33's.  With the 35's, the mileage was pretty good, but it seldom dropped into overdrive.  When I regeared to 4.56 gears, it put me back VERY close to the stock ratio.

Ideally, you need to know what gear ratio and tire size your rig came with from the factory so you can then work from there in finding the correct gears for your new tire size.  The stock gear ratio can be found on a sticker in the drivers door jam and looks something like this; "B03A".  The table below can be used to break that down into something more useful.

First digit:
A = 7.5" ring gear
B = 8" ring gear

Next two digits:

01 = 3:42
02 = 3:58
03 = 4:10
04 = 4:56
05 = 3:15
06 = 3:91

Last digit:
A = 2 Pinion, Open
B = 4 Pinion, Open
C = 2 Pinion OEM Limited Slip

Submitted by David Hale

 

Using the above codes would result in the following axle codes:

B01A	3.42	2 pinion open	7.5" ring gear
B01B	3.42	4 pinion open	8" ring gear
B01C	3.42	2 pinion posi	(OEM limited slip)
B02A	3.58	2 pinion open	7.5" ring gear
B02B	3.58	4 pinion open	8" ring gear
B02C	3.58	2 pinion posi
BO3A	4.10	2 pinion open	7.5" ring gear
BO3B	4.10	4 pinion open	8" ring gear
BO3C	4.10	2 pinion posi
B04A	4.56	2 pinion open	7.5" ring gear
B04B	4.56	4 pinion open	8" ring gear
B04C	4.56	2 pinion posi
B05A	3.15	2 pinion open	7.5" ring gear
B05B	3.15	4 pinion open	8" ring gear
B05C	3.15	2 pinion posi
B06A	3.91	2 pinion open	7.5" ring gear
B06B	3.91	4 pinion open	8" ring gear
B06C	3.91	2 pinion posi
Note: The following has not been verified:
BO7A	4.56 ?		2 pinion open
	3.42 (automatic) ?	2 pinion open
	3.91 (manual) ?	2 pinion open

 

If they are OEM gears you can check the color code on the end of the pinion.

Ratio Ring/Pinion Color Crawl:Ratio

3.42 ...42/12... Purple ...31:1

3.90 ...39/10... None.. ...36:1

4.10 ...41/10... Pink.. ...37:1

4.11 ...37/09... Orange ...37:1

4.30 ...43/10... Blue.. ...39:1

4.37 ...35/08... Green. ...40:1

4.56 ...41/09... Yellow ...41:1

4.88 ...39/08... White. ...44:1

5.29 ...37/07... None.. ...48:1

5.71 ...40/07... None.. ...51:1