About LRDT

Who we are

Erik Menches lives in California and drives the lead truck on the trip, a Toyota FJ Cruiser. He designs trail and off-road map apps for a living, at Gaia GPS and before that onX Offroad. He has owned and worked on an FJ Cruiser, an Isuzu Trooper and a Jeep Wrangler JK, and the FJ’s seat swap and drawer system are written up in the Logbook. He builds this site, the Build Planner included.

Nate Smith lives in Maine and drives the scout truck, an Isuzu Trooper. He works for the U.S. Navy, and his one-day Trooper bumper build is in the Logbook too.

The name comes from the Long Range Desert Group of World War II. Questions about a figure, a part or the trip go to [email protected].

Where the figures come from

The Build Planner covers 261 trucks, SUVs and vans. Their factory figures, from dimensions, angles and ground clearance to gearing, tires, weights and ratings, come from the maker’s own documents wherever we can find them: brochures, spec sheets, press kits, owner’s and service manuals, body builder guides, and government data such as EPA fuel economy and type approvals.

Every figure is filed with the line it came from, quoted word for word, and the address of the page or document it was on. A figure we can’t tie to a printed source or a credited measurement doesn’t go on a spec sheet. Each spec sheet links its main source at the bottom.

Makers rarely print wheel travel or ramp travel, so those come from magazine ramp tests and from owners who measured their own rigs, each one credited. Wheel fitment (bolt pattern, center bore, factory wheel sizes and offsets) comes from wheel fitment databases, and each spec sheet’s Wheels table says so.

The parts in the tools, like lift kits, shocks, armor, racks and tents, come from the part maker’s own pages and catalogs, and each part shows where its figures came from. Retailer listings often disagree with the maker, so we don’t take a figure from one when the maker prints it.

We research in rounds, a set of rigs and fields at a time. The spec sheets’ figures are as of Nov 10, 2026, the last day any of them changed, and the gaps still open are listed on the Wanted page.

How figures are marked

• Unconfirmed means the figure came from a copy of a maker document on another site, or we haven’t matched it to a factory document yet. It keeps the mark until we check it against the maker’s own copy.
• An asterisk means this rig or trim has no published figure, so the page shows a sister trim’s or rig’s, and the asterisk says which one and why.
• Not published means nobody we can find has printed it. The page leaves it blank and says so, and the figure goes on the Wanted list.
• Worked out: tire height, speedometer error, RPM, angles on a lifted rig, clearance, link geometry, brakes, fuel economy and power are our own math from the figures above. A rough figure we had to assume stays off the spec sheets, and the calculators flag it wherever they use one.

Real rigs vary with options, wear, load and tire pressure. Check a number against your own rig before you buy parts, cut, lift or regear. The terms cover the rest.

Owner figures and corrections

The Wanted page lists the figures nobody has published, rig by rig: wheel travel, ramp travel (RTI), and the payload and axle ratings on the door sticker. Anyone can send one from the rig’s spec sheet, as a measurement with how it was taken, the numbers off the door jamb labels, or a brochure or magazine page.

We check each one against the photo or the method sent with it and against what’s already on file before it goes on the site. Accepted figures go on the rig with the sender’s name if they want the credit, and the first accepted figure for a gap earns a sticker pack (US addresses for now).

If a figure on a spec sheet is wrong for your rig, send the page or a photo from the form on that spec sheet, or by email, and we’ll fix it. Payload and axle ratings change with trim, cab and bed, so a door sticker that reads differently from ours gets added as its own configuration.

How the leaderboards rank

The leaderboards rank every rig as it left the dealer, on its best trim, from the figures above. Ties within 0.05 share a place, and a rig with no published figure for a board sits that board out. Each board shows the date its figures last changed.

This page was last updated November 10, 2026.