Donahoe Racing's FJ Cruiser and its pilot, Dylan Evans, were fresh off of a Class 3 win at the SCORE Baja 250. This machine handled all Moab's creepy-crawly trail sections with aplomb and zipped through the smoother parts with equal ease. The advantages of high-tech suspension, whether racing or not, were blatant. Off-the-shelf Nitto Terra Grapplers were used for the Baja 250 win but were swapped for a set of Nitto's Mud Grapplers for Moab. Aggressive tires offer an advantage on the rocks, as the individual lugs become "fingers" that claw their way over ledges. | 
The Dune Grapplers fit nicely onto our Walker Evans Racing wheels. Beadlock wheels allow tires to be mounted at home without any special equipment, provided you know what you're doing. The Dune Grapplers are exceptionally straight and true. The tires were run without having visited a balancing machine. They didn't need it. From creepy-crawly to extra-legal speeds, no vibration was detected. | 
Although the 35-inch diameter of our BFG Mud-Terrain tires offered great ground clearance, the 35-inch diameter meant that other aspects of chassis performance were suffering on our FJ Cruiser. Bumptravel, front and rear, was limited. There's a body mount at the rear of the front wheelwells that crowds the tires. Those body mounts had been trimmed, but our 'Cruiser's front tires still had a bad case of the rubs. In the rear, compression/bumptravel was limited by a 2-inch bumpstop spacer. The spacer prevented the tires rubbing out back, but the limited rear travel meant that things got ugly as soon as speed and whoops - even small whoops - were combined. Trimming the sheetmetal or using Donahoe Racing's FJ Cruiser fiberglass front fenders and rear quarter-panels yields enough clearance to run 35s. We wanted a quicker solution and one that was less invasive. We tried a set of 33s on for size. |
Two or two hundred miles off the beaten path? We're not telling. | 
Though they're smallish tires by '07 off-roading standards, the FJ still wears the 33-inch Nitto Dune Grapplers proudly. |  |
What's missing here? The 2-inch bumpstop spacer. Deleting the spacer was a great improvement to overall suspension performance. Two additional inches of bumptravel meant that it took a bigger jolt to fully compress the rear suspension and send the FJ's tail end skyward. When the rear kicks up, it transfers the weight onto the front end. Can you say nosedive? If you choose to run 35s and the rear bumpstop spacer, just be prepared to hit the brakes sooner when a smooth trail suddenly gets nasty. For all-around use, 33s simply fit the FJ's chassis better. | 
The flame pattern on the Dune Grappler sidewall is a definite eye-catcher. Fortunately, there's function to back up the form. The sidewall treatment gives extra protection against punctures and provides additional traction. Punctures are bad and traction is good, so the sidewall treatment looks great from here. | 
The Dune Grappler's tread is somewhere between an all-terrain and a mud tire. Its highway manners were exemplary: quiet and straight-tracking. Flotation in deep sand should be just as good, but more "study" is required for a truly accurate assessment. |
This short, steep climb is not far from Interstate 15 in Cajon Pass. The decomposed granite surface is both hard and slippery at the same time. I'd taken this hill one week prior using the 35-inch BFG Mud-Terrains, so replicating the same hillclimb with the Dune Grapplers seemed a fitting litmus test. The Grapplers conquered just as the BFGs had previously. For an all-encompassing test, these tires still need to go through the rest of the wringer: deep sand, mud, and rocks. For those whose primary terrains are pavement and hard packed dirt: Look no further. | 
The fire roads we traversed were hardpacked with a loose overlay, so cornering traction was essential. So far, so good. |  |