Build guides, real parts, and SoCal’s best fab shops — everything for your desert truck.
Every platform, one system-by-system build guide.
The tech that separates a prerunner from a lifted truck.
The definitive explainer — what makes a truck a prerunner.
Read →The heart of the build, and how travel actually works.
Read →True vs simulated — and whether you actually need them.
Read →Real budget, mid-tier, and high-end build numbers.
Read →Answer a few questions, get a real starting point.
Pick your donor, suspension, wheels, and add-ons for a live cost range by build tier.
Estimate My Build →Four questions on budget, priorities, and style — and we point you to the right platform.
Take the Quiz →Off-road apparel built for people who live for the desert.
The map of who builds what in the prerunner world.
Real prerunners, shop tours, and desert-racing coverage.
Which F-150 long travel kits actually exist for your year: Dirt King for 2004-2020 2WD and 4WD, Baja Kits 4WD-only including 2021+, and why Camburg has no non-Raptor kit. Specs and prices from the makers.
Tire hitting your upper control arm? It is usually the wheel, not the arm. Dirt King maximum backspacing for its UCAs on every truck it lists, plus the full-lock check and when to stop driving.
Your long-travel kit sets your wheel backspacing, not your truck. Every Dirt King kit's published maximum (4.5 to 5 inches on pre-2022 platforms), the offset-to-backspacing conversion, and why the 2024+ Tacoma is different.
Front fiberglass fenders mostly unbolt; bedsides mean drilling the factory bed skins off at the spot welds. The step-by-step install, bolt pattern, trimming, clearance, and why you paint last.
Bump stops control the end of compression, limit straps the end of extension. How to size and set up both - stroke and body selection, nitrogen pressure, CV bind, and strap stretch.
On a prerunner, exhaust is a packaging and survival problem before a power problem. Where to exit, where to put the muffler, and what tears off in the whoops.
A cab mount chop clears a bigger tire at full lock on a Tacoma, 4Runner, FJ or Lexus GX - but it only gets you to about 33s. Past that you need a relocation.
Ford Ranger long-travel kits fit 2WD 1998-2012 trucks only, and coil-sprung XLT versus torsion-bar Edge/Sport need different kits. Brands, fitment and prices.
The major desert brands skip the 1988-1998 GMT400 - Camburg starts at 1999, Dirt King at 2007. But OBS specialists sell catalog long-travel kits from about $3,600. The coil vs torsion-bar front end, who sells a kit, and what custom takes.
