Re-gearing to a larger gear set is beneficial to any truck. It allows you to run a larger tire size more effectively and generally improves your overall experience behind the wheel. When you push the limits on tire size on a Tacoma (or really any vehicle), you will lose things like power, torque, responsiveness, and MPGs. If those are important to you, then upgrading is a big part of the solution.
Personally, I am running a 37″ tire to gain clearance for rock crawling and heavy wheeling, so I went with a 5.29 setup from Revolution Gear & Axle. If you haven’t heard of them, they’ve been in the industry for 40 years and have plenty of experience. With the recent closing down of Nitro Gear & Axle (a common option for upgrading) there’s been a big gap for options. Revolution stands out among the rest for several reasons, but this post will mainly focus on the benefits in general.
We will cover various benefits of going with a larger ratio alongside larger tire sizes, why you would want to do that, and what the cost will be.
Find It Online
- 2016-2023
- With 8.75″ Rear Axle (factory locker): Check Price
- With 8″ Rear Axle with Aftermarket Locker: Check Price
- With 8″ Rear Axle with Open Carrier (no locker): Check Price
- 2005-2015
- With 8.4″ Rear Axle with Open Carrier (no locker): Check Price
- With 8″ Rear Axle with Factory Locker: Check Price
We know this can be confusing, so don’t hesitate to reach out to Revolution directly to confirm fitment. They are super helpful.
Table Of Contents
How Larger Tires Affect Performance
When running a tire larger than 33″, you drastically increase rolling resistance and weight. That being said, I’ve run 33″, 35″, and 37″ tires on stock gears and really didn’t notice a terrible difference until I got to the 37s.
The stock Tacoma gear set ratio (on my 3rd Gen) is 3.91, which is generally insufficient for tires larger than 35″. You could even argue that the truck in under-geared from the factory, a big part of why we see the common complaints about power delivery and gear hunting. The two most popular options for an upgrade are 4.88 and 5.29 (there is also 4.56, different sets for 2nd Gen). The difference highlighted by those numbers is the number of rotations the gear set’s ring and pinion make to turn the axle one time.
By increasing the rotational speed, you decrease strain on the engine and axle components, increasing the MPGs and power. Compare it to riding a bike: the higher the gear, the easier it is to climb a hill.
A differential ratio determines how many times the driveshaft needs to rotate to make the wheels complete one revolution. Essentially, it’s the ratio between the number of teeth on the pinion gear (attached to the driveshaft) and the ring gear (connected to the wheels). A higher ratio means the driveshaft needs to turn more times for each wheel rotation, providing more torque for acceleration but potentially reducing top speed, while a lower ratio provides better fuel efficiency at the cost of acceleration power.
The higher gearing ratio will lower RPMs when driving daily, increase MPGs, and put less strain on the driveline and engine.
Signs You Need to Re-Gear
Some things you might notice if you need new gears…
- Sluggish acceleration and power loss
- Poor fuel economy
- Transmission is constantly hunting for gears
- Strain on engine and drivetrain components
Choosing The Right Ratio
Generally, it is recommended to go straight for the 5.29s. Other options, such as 4.88s, are great as well because the teeth are a bit thicker (and in a way stronger due to better contact), but they won’t offer the same benefits to lowering the amount of power used to rotate bigger tires or climb passes and hills. The higher the gear set, the easier it will be for the truck to move weight, climb, and drive daily.
If you live in a flat area or never plan on towing, climbing, or crawling, you could get away with running stock gears and tires as big as 35″ without noticing too much of an issue. That’s not to say you still wouldn’t benefit and see a big difference. But if you want to do those things listed above or crawl and wheel with a larger tire, the higher gear ratio is going to benefit you a lot more.
Benefits
In all honesty, and my personal opinion, as someone who ran stock gears and 37s, re-gearing is not a magical mod that everyone makes it out to be. This is not a bad thing, but you want to make sure expectations are reasonable. It’s less noticeable unless you’re climbing something steep or trying to go fast on the freeway over a pass. Yes, you do notice a difference the more sensitive and aware you are, but this won’t just turn your truck into fuel efficient rocket.
I recommend this if you want to save your transmission and other driving components, but only once you’ve gone to a larger tire size. Running a larger tire size and a bunch of additional weight in the truck without the higher gear ratio can result in transmission wear and tear over time.
Will your fuel efficiency improve? For sure. But we’ll save that for a dedicated post in the future to compare before and after. But technically, given enough time and miles, this mod will pay for itself in gas savings and your overall satisfaction behind the wheel.
Considerations & Costs
As far as installation, I would definitely recommend doing your research on where to get the work done because there are a lot of small details that can be missed. If you live in the Bay Area, CA, Shaffer’s Offroad did a fantastic job. If you can do it yourself, just be careful!
It is normally a minimum 10-hour job, so it is pricey. Parts can be bought at Revolution Gear & Axle, they make a fantastic product. All in all, I would say you will spend about (currently at time of publishing) $3600-5500 out the door. The parts themselves run around $1100-1400 (depending on your year and axle size, etc.) and the installs are usually anywhere from $2500-4000. This varies wildly depending on where you are and who is qualified to do such an install.
As someone who wheels pretty hard, I decided to add a front locker while we had the front differential opened up. Since I have a TRD Offroad, which came with a factory rear locker, I wanted to match my front with an E-Locker from Eaton. I would strongly recommend, if you wheel at all, adding lockers during the service to save time, money, and labor. Otherwise the costs just add up more and more.
Final Thoughts
Overall, the key benefits of re-gearing are lower RPMs, increased power, lower strain on drive components, and possibly gaining a couple of MPGs. I would encourage everyone to do this with any tire size larger than stock to simply allow for more longevity and health of the overall truck.
Feel free to reach out to Revolution Gear & Axle or Shaffer’s Offroad with any questions. Both companies helped me a great deal in setting my truck up in the best possible way for my needs and driving style.
