Twenty miles of rocky trail in a dark green Tacoma

Nov 05, 2026 Last reply: 19 hours ago 3 Replies
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The hardest part of this one is the route itself. It runs twenty miles out and the same distance back, on a track rough enough that almost nobody else bothers with it, with rocks that bump you the whole way. The maker still went out alone and drove the whole thing, and from the footage the truck just walks over the dirt, ruts and loose rock on those dry grassy hills. That says a lot about how the rig is set up.



Underneath, the rear sits on Deaver u402 stage 2 leafs with Ride Shocks, plus Superbumps, as far as the maker recalls. Up front there are Solo Motorsports upper and lower control arms. Notably, there is no sway bar at all, which strikes me as a confident setup for a trail this rocky. The truck is lifted with large off-road tires on dark aftermarket wheels, has rock slider side rails, and carries a matching hard camper shell on the bed. Up top there is a full-length black metal roof rack with crossbars, and an LED light bar mounted to the rack's wind deflector. A rear corner mount and a TRD OFF ROAD quarter decal finish it off.



The footage comes from a DJI Mini 5 Pro, and it is the maker's first drone. It tracks the truck on its own and stays out of trouble while filming, from an elevated aerial view.



The open item is that this setup is a stopgap in the maker's own words: a conversion to long travel with bypass shocks is planned a few years out. Watching this trail, that next step looks well earned.


Running stage 2 leafs with no sway bar is the choice that jumps out at me. On a rocky route where traffic is nearly zero, giving up some flat cornering for extra rear flex seems like a smart trade. My view is it would feel unsettled on a paved commute, but for a trail like this it looks like exactly the right call.

Curious how the truck felt through the rough sections without a sway bar. Did the stage 2 leaf pack and the Ride Shocks keep the body settled in the constant rocks, or was there noticeable lean when the trail tipped side to side? Also wondering whether the automatic tracking on the Mini 5 Pro held a steady distance over the ruts.

If the maker ever wants closer footage, flying the Mini 5 Pro at a lower tracking height over those grassy hills could make the ruts and loose rock read more clearly on screen. Since the drone already keeps itself safe and follows automatically, dropping the angle a bit might be a simple change to try on the next run through there.

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