A couple of months ago I decided I wanted to have a slightly bigger vehicle as my daily driver and had always liked the looks of the first generation RAV4. So yesterday I purchased my first RAV4. I found a higher mileage 96 2door AWD with a manual transmission. This met almost all of my criteria of what I wanted in a new vehicle. I am thinking about doing some modifications to it after I finish my V6 MR2 project in the next couple of weeks. I plan on lowering the car but I don't see any coilover suspension options. Does anybody know of one that is available? What are some common modifications that people do to these cars? I know the 3sge Beams and 3sgte swaps are common and I wanted to know if these can pass inspection in states that use obd2 for the inspection? If not what common engine swaps do people do that can pass obd2 inspection? I will need to register the car in North Carolina in the next year if anyone lives there and can let me know if these engines swapped in the car can pass inspection. I will be daily driving this car for a while and I know it's going to need some maintenance to freshen up some things before getting into any big mods. I have noticed a slight thud noise coming from the rear end and it may be the differential when I begin driving from a stop and a higher pitched whine coming from the differential when I'm in reverse. I'm not familiar with these cars or vehicles with AWD or 4wd. Thanks for any help that you guys can give me.
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First time owner Rav4 build
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First of all, welcome to the forum. I'm mensajero.A couple of months ago I decided I wanted to have a slightly bigger vehicle as my daily driver and had always liked the looks of the first generation RAV4. So yesterday I purchased my first RAV4. I found a higher mileage 96 2door AWD with a manual transmission. This met almost all of my criteria of what I wanted in a new vehicle. I am thinking about doing some modifications to it after I finish my V6 MR2 project in the next couple of weeks. I plan on lowering the car but I don't see any coilover suspension options. Does anybody know of one that is available? What are some common modifications that people do to these cars? I know the 3sge Beams and 3sgte swaps are common and I wanted to know if these can pass inspection in states that use obd2 for the inspection? If not what common engine swaps do people do that can pass obd2 inspection? I will need to register the car in North Carolina in the next year if anyone lives there and can let me know if these engines swapped in the car can pass inspection. I will be daily driving this car for a while and I know it's going to need some maintenance to freshen up some things before getting into any big mods. I have noticed a slight thud noise coming from the rear end and it may be the differential when I begin driving from a stop and a higher pitched whine coming from the differential when I'm in reverse. I'm not familiar with these cars or vehicles with AWD or 4wd. Thanks for any help that you guys can give me.
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1. Does anybody know of one that is available? Yes, you can do the lifting (here) or the lowering of your RAV4. The lowering look no further then H&R. If lowering, use the Bilstein Sport Shocks with the H&R.
2. What are some common modifications that people do to these cars? You can do the turbo in this engine (3SFE) or the 3SGTE engine which will drop in like a glove. OR, you can do the V6 engine .
3. Regarding the "thud" I guess its the rear mount. You can look it up here, everyone who has a AWD have this slight problem.
4. For other mods check in this forum a guy called Kidong. Even though he isn't active in the forum any more, he left a treasure of information.If you are doing the MR2 V6, it's look a lot like the RAV4.
Hope that helps, if you need any other information everyone here helps. :smile
*Professional driver on closed course. Do not attempt.
HAHAHAHA!!!!! My buddy who drove me to get it snapped a few rolling shots after I bought the car. They came out pretty good! I'm excited to get going on this project after I finish my MR2. It's definitely going to be a cool daily driver...although the gas mileage right now was 19-20mpg highway at 80mph...is this normal?
Welcome @jaeastep. These things suck on gas. I have had 2. A '96 and a '99......... The '96 looked like yours but auto trans. I modified the $h!.. out them. I didn't like the way they look stock...http://www.rav4world.com/forums/att...65347-show-them-off-rav4-pics-dsc03196-1-.jpg and http://www.rav4world.com/forums/att...92712-show-them-off-rav4-pics-dsc01557-1-.jpg
@RavRacer do you have a build sheet or list of mods anywhere that I can look through?
I have posted some pics with mods done. Not very comprehensive but at least you'll get an idea. Click on my profile.
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Guess not, I think he used a High Speed camera like in 1000+. I know a little bit of that here. :wink
So I compression tested my motor this evening and had 195 across the board which made me very happy considering the motor has 254,000 miles on it. My diff mounts were really worn out and had some sort of poly filler in them as a cheap fix somebody thought was a good idea. I replaced them with these:
Differential Mount (Rear) – Heavy Duty | DMGreentech – Rav4 Differential Parts and More
Differential Mount (Front) – Heavy Duty | DMGreentech – Rav4 Differential Parts and More
Differential Mount (Rear) – Heavy Duty | DMGreentech – Rav4 Differential Parts and More
Differential Mount (Front) – Heavy Duty | DMGreentech – Rav4 Differential Parts and More
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