700hp, 40s, bypasses, tube chassis rock buggy build

yeah i hear ya. it matters though those little details will make the difference. Either way nice work! keep it up.

 

Did you go to Area BFE over the weekend?

 

No, so dumb. Spectators weren't allowed. The first time an Ultra4 race is remotely close (only 4 hours in that case!) and they dont allow spectators. I was seriously tempted to volunteer to get in, but the girlfriend didn't seem super into it so we just watched the stream.

They race at BFE again in April though right before EJS, so with some luck I'll be done and not broken too badly from Koh to race it. BFE is no joke though, some of the hardest trails out there, and I live by Sand Hollow lol

 

That sucks. Hopefully you can make it to the April race. I was in the stream for a bit, but it was a busy weekend for me, so I didn't get to watch a whole lot. I did get to watch a lot of the UTV race. Lots of sideways and upside down folks.

 

Now that the weather is cooling off and Trail Hero motivated me, I've been chipping away at stuff. The accessories are fully mounted and ready to rock. Had to get some socket head cap screws but she's ready to boogie and everything is turning over fine. I'm worried the idler pulleys aren't parallel enough to everything else but we'll see when it fires up.





All the coolant soft hoses are routed and in place. I also removed the LSA boost bypass actuator and will do something to keep it permanently closed off. From my reading the only down side is the engine will get "more wear" since it will constantly be making boost, where as normally boost is bypassed from the intake at idle and low throttle. The actuator is in the way of my top coolant line, and I really don't give a shit about engine wear since this isn't going for 200k miles, so delete and block everything off.

In my quest to get it running "soon", I need to plumb the hydro pump somehow so it doesn't burn up. Well may as well just fully mount the steering. Welded up the high steer that I've had laying around for 6 months.



I will be mounting the ram soon, but the Howe kit just comes with some short clamps that aren't tall enough to clear the gussets inside the hydro skid, so I ordered some steel billet and will machine new bottom sections of the clamps that are the correct height and then tap some bolt holes and weld them straight to the hydro skid. The stock ram clamps, and from the sounds of it most ram clamps, have the bolts in shear so by welding the bottom of the clamps the load path will be directly through the clamp into the skid. Additionally I have new ball joints that showed up, and will be ordering new 35 spline unit bearings and axles and all the other shit in the near future.

Moving on, I finished some welds on the front of the chassis and added the outer plates to the motor mounts and welded them in. Everything is first pass still, but I think it'll be good enough for mild partying before I tear the chassis down for final welding/sand blast/painting in the far future.



I started plumbing the fuel system today. I had bought a bunch of hose, and then realized that the reusable AN fittings I have need SPECIAL hose that of course costs a metric ass load. But I already have Fragolas fittings on literally everything, so I had to buy their special hose ($750 for 40ft of -10 and 20ft of -6). Lesson learned that the cool fittings lock you into using the special hose, not that it isn't nice, and I've already had a few spots where disassembling the fitting and trimming the hose back was nice, but in the future I think I'll go with crimped lines or premade stuff. Anyways, now that I have the special line for the special fittings, time to plumb stuff. A week or two ago I made brackets for the fuel filters, fuel pump, Y splitter, and regulator.













I've been looking for a nice way to route the hoses, right now it looks like I'll be machining some brackets I can weld straight to the chassis and have a little retainer plate and bolt to hold everything neatly in place.



I have a few more lines to run, and after that will plumb/install the steering and then she'll be ready to fire up. I have some ebay headers I'll use to fire the engine up, but they won't fit once I get the firewall in place but good enough to test everything.

 

The fuel, oil, and trans are all plumbed. I still haven't decided on a permanent way to mount the hoses since I'm pushing to get the engine fired up more than anything right now. I also haven't installed the fuel system check valve, but I have fittings showing up today to install that inside the fuel cell, this will maintain fuel in the pump after the engine is turned off so the system doesn't lose priming essentially. I might leave that off for now just in the event I need to pull the fuel lines that they're easy to dump back into the tank...







Another step to get the engine ready to fire is exhaust, I had ordered some cheap ebay headers awhile back which I'll use until I build the firewall and can build custom headers. Originally the ebay ones fit, but after making the cooling lines the passenger side doesn't fit so I janked this extended header together lol. I'll weld a 90deg dump off the collector and then add an O2 bung to one of them for the Holley to read. Those parts should be showing up today so exhaust will be ready.



I've been working on the steering quite a bit. The biggest limitation to starting the engine is the steering pump needs to be hooked up, since I have a serpentine belt I can't disconnect it and need fluid flowing into it to avoid burning it up. So at that point, may as well just hook all the steering up permanently since I can do that now (versus the final headers that need a lot of prerequisites). I ordered the aeroquip hose and fittings which show up Friday. In the mean time I've been mounting everything else. I went through a lot of mounting ideas for the ram, but ultimately decided to use the stock Howe clamps because they got the geometry correct with the Artec hydro skid and Artec high steer arms (which don't seem to line up together really which seems weird...). I chamfered the shit out of the clamps and also tapped them out to 9/16" and welded them straight to the skid.



This way the bolts are not in shear like the stock clamps are designed to be (apparently). So the bottom of the clamp will load up the skid through the welds, and then the clamp caps just bolt directly to the clamp.



Also on a fun note, a couple weeks ago I bought a lathe in Colorado. I've wanted a big lathe for a long time, and it's already amazing how useful it is! For instance it was faster and the most perfect finish to chamfer and clean these tubes on the lathe versus the normal way with a grinder.





7/8" heims from Ruffstuff, I turned the misalignments down on the lathe to fit the high steer and ram mounting widths. I considered making aluminum tie rods, but considering how small they are the weight savings/strength loss ratio didn't seem worth it.



Tie rods in. The skid of course needs to be clearanced (like I said, the high steer doesn't seem to align with the ram at all and they're both from Artec). I'll have to trim the skid, and then also the internal gussets for the skid don't fit the low profile ram mounts, so I'll have to cut out some custom gussets too.






But either way I'm stoked, the steering on the axle side is essentially done and now I don't need ratchet straps and janky makeshift tie rods to move the buggy around the shop. I'm hoping to mount the orbital and hydro reservoir this week, then just need to make the steering lines and put the harness in and it should be ready to start! I have break in and racing oil from Amsoil on the way too. I think stuff will start going faster once it's running, plus I want to know it works before it goes through another thermal cycle this winter and can occasionally start it and keep everything moving while it's cold out.

 

Bro, I need a tour of your fab tools.

Once I buy a house next year, my Christmas list is going to be a welder and fab tools.

 

I'm finally getting to the point where 1/3 of my budget isn't just tools lol. My first ultra4 I did I bought so many tools. Welder, plasma, tube bender, dies, grinders, extension cords, compressor, etc. Course I'm still buying tools, but at least the list of wants is pretty small now and none of it is "needs", and most of the expensive stuff has already been bought (though the lathe is an exception, and is the single most expensive thing in the shop I think haha).

Welder, plasma, grinder. Those can do most of the work, everything else just bumps the aesthetics and functionality and effort that last 25%.

 

I want an ESAB Rebel, but they be bank. I'm looking for a multifunction. What do you use?

 

The Rebel's are pretty tits, I've used one at KOH at the Esab booth. In the past I've heard multifunctions are shittier than dedicated machines, I don't know if that's still true. I have a little miller 211 mig which is still going strong (though the breaker was fucked and needed replacing originally, easy job though) and then an AlphaTig 201 which is a chinese Amazon Tig that's AC/DC (so can weld aluminum) and I've had no issues at all with that. The 211 was like $1100 (bought it like 4 years ago) and the Tig was $700 on Amazon and bought that a year ago. I've never used a multifunction machine besides the Rebel and just mig for that. I have no complaints with either of my machines though, and don't need anything more.

 

That's a lot more affordable than the 3k+ the Rebels go for.

 

All depends on your budget and what you want. I don't get the fanciest stuff, but I try to get tools that are one or two steps above what I plan to use them for so they exceed my abilities. I could live with a Harbor Freight welder without issue I bet, but I do a fair bit of welding so may as well get something a bit nicer, but not as fancy as a huge mig. Nice enough I'm not constantly fucking with the tool, but I'm just a dude in a garage so I don't need the fanciest and most optioned tools where I won't use/know how to use all those features.

 

The pic of your temp tie rod made my eyes cross. lol

 

Hahahaha, it worked about as well as it looked, but just had to let it roll vaguely straight and it kind of did that

 

Awesome build! Very jealous

 

IT'S ALIVE

 

Couple photos and notes from the past week; I'm going to the 1000 so won't be working on the buggy for a week and don't want to forget anything.

Got some 97 octane gas, which I put 10 gallons in the fuel cell. I'm not sure I need 97, I should have around 10.7-10.8 compression which is around LS3 levels and people run those with LSAs on pump gas, but I figured better to be safe and eliminate that variable for when I first start it.



This is what my janky exhaust on both sides looks like. Drivers side has the O2 sensor. In the gauge setup there's a selection for left and right afr, I'm not sure if I can add another O2 sensor, I thought that was limited to the Holley Dominator and not the Terminator X that I have but the software seems to think I can. Might do that down the line. Once I get the firewall built obviously I'll have to make custom headers. These are actually a lot quieter than I thought they'd be, I've only taken the engine to 4000rpm once and she was definitely screaming but with helmets/headsets and behind a firewall it'd definitely be okay. I got a video of revving it up and of course the audio was flattened out so it sounds the same the whole time -_-



I'm running Amsoil Break-In oil and have 10w-30 dominator racing oil ready to replace it. Their literature is slightly confusing, sounds like it can break the engine in within 30 minutes but they advertise to run it for a few thousand miles? I'm thinking I'll leave it in until I tune the engine and then swap it out. The transmission just has cheap valvoline atf since it's essentially stock and I expect to replace it eventually. The atlas has Redline extreme shock which came with it.



Obviously the wiring is a complete cluster. To make matters worse some of the plugs are on the wrong side of the engine since the LSA has different locations than the stock intake obviously. The fuel pressure plug flat out can't reach unless I unplug four other sensors. I ordered extensions for the fuel pressure and MAP which is hopefully all I need. I think it should be easy to pretty it up. Biggest concern is the VSS off the atlas is literally right below the shifters and above the output flange, so that will need some creativity to keep the harness safe.



Mockup location for the steering reservoir. Not a fan of having it here, but it needs to at least be this height and since the chassis dips at the windshield this is arguably the most protected location since it's the highest point of the hood. Also best routing of the hoses. I'll have the fluid cooler and the supercharger intercooler mounted above the winch. Probably add a little bar or just the shock cross brace to protect it in a rollover. The reservoir didn't come with any mounting hardware, and I drew up both a plate and a billet mount in CAD but have yet to really decide which route to go, probably do the billet mount since a plate mount sounds ugly but that's a lot more work so I didn't do it yet. I have all the hoses and most of the correct fittings (couple I want to change out) for the steering. I ended up just ghettoing it together with the orbital looping back on itself and the reservoir hooked up the pump wouldnt starve. Next step is mount the reservoir and orbital and then the steering will be done though.



Here's my janked battery setup. I have a starter switch, a trans switch, and ignition. It's actually simpler than I thought it'd be so it should be easy to simplify everything into the chassis. ECU will be mounted behind the dash I'm thinking and the battery will be behind the seats.



Finally engine notes and observations. First I about had a heart attack since I couldn't build oil pressure. I wanted oil pressure, then move the harness so I could read fuel pressure and make sure I had both, then hook up the coil packs. I cranked the engine for like a minute and no oil pressure. I read stuff and watched videos, pulled the oil cooler lines, pulled the filter, added another 3 quarts of oil (it had 6 quarts since it's a 6quart pan, but then has a rear mounted oil cooler, the pan is aftermarket, the dip stick is aftermarket, I had no idea how much it really needed), pumped as much oil into the pump priming port as possible, etc. and FINALLY I cracked the oil cooler line at the base and it was starting to get oil. Turns out to get oil pressure it has to pump oil through the entire 20ft of oil cooler lines. Of course I had lubed the shit out of it with assembly lube when I built it, but that was like 7-9 months ago. Huge relief when it started showing pressure.

Like I said I put 10 gallons of 97 octane in, I didn't touch the regulator but the system primed to 45psi right away. I've had lots of fuel issues in the past, so that was a big relief. No leaks anywhere.

Put the spark plugs in and plugged everything in and she fired right up without hesitation! I'm using one of the base tunes on the Holley handheld, no idea how close it is but it's close enough to fire up. Subsequently it had issues going, I ultimately set the throttle body to 5% open and it seems to consistently fire up now. I'm not sure if that's what I should leave it at in the future, or I can tune it to have the butterfly totally closed (I mean it did start the first time totally closed).

Now onto "issues". There were a handful of coolant leaks. Amazingly all but one of the 14 hose clamp connections held fine. The one straight off the pressure side of the water pump eventually burst. I ended up double clamping it since I didn't have any tighter fancy hose clamps. The radiator drain valve leaked and needed to be tightened down. And then a fitting for the vent line that I welded to one of the cooling tubes has a pin hole leak. The steam vent lines actually work out well since they're the highest point on the engine so I can crack those to get air bubbles out at the engine.

The engine warms right up, I added a thermostat by welding a housing to the first cooling tube, so it's water pump, rubber hose, then into thermostat housing and first aluminum tube. It appears (feels) to be working correctly. I have a 160 and a 180 degree thermostat, for now I just have the 180 in. Though this leads to the next issue, at idle the engine gets pretty hot. There's lots of possible reasons for this (and by hot, I mean it hits 220 and then I shut it down). If I rev the engine the temperature seems to fall too. I had a shop fan sitting on the radiator pulling air through, so that's not a lot of airflow but the cool side of the radiator is also considerably cooler than the hot side so it's doing a lot of work however more airflow could help. I'm also not sure all the air is removed from the engine, seems like every time I crack the vent line there's some air let out for a few seconds before coolant comes out. We also know the cooling system isn't holding pressure since that one weld isn't fully sealed. I could also remove the thermostat, though I think that's as likely the issue as the radiator not having airflow since the thermostat is obviously open.

Other issues, the oil cooler lines to the oil pan don't seem to be sealing. It's a lingenfelter oil cooler adapter and all new AN-10 fittings so not sure what the deal is there. I tightened the shit out of them and it's still dripping a bit.

I had the serpentine come off twice, but I moved the belt to the rear grooves on the supercharger pulley (it's a 6 groove belt but an 8 groove pulley) and it hasn't come off since. I'm actually amazed it worked at all, and now more amazed it's still working at all considering all the accessory hook ups I made and welded and I'm sure are a few degrees off of parallel with each other. Time will tell if the rear groove solves everything.

The ecu is obviously trying to learn and I've only run the engine for maybe 15 minutes total, but it wont hold idle so far. I'm not sure if it's getting blower surge or its a combination the cam. The rev up frequency is probably every 3 seconds or so it'll rev up to like 1100rpm and then the ecu tries to compensate and it drops to like 600rpm and then revs back up. I'm sure I can correct this in the tuning but not sure how to do that yet.


I think that covers all my mental notes from yesterday of things that need to be addressed or concerned about. I've taken the engine to 4000rpm and she sang the whole way. I'm really stoked how well it seems to be working. This was the first v8 I've really delved into, and I tore it completely down to the crank and everything besides the rotating assembly and block is new so it was an adrenaline rush the first time it roared to life. Hopefully it stays together!

Next up is dialing in the engine a bit more so it's happy and I can let it run for a long time without issue, then finalize steering, then it's onto interior, brakes, and driveshafts and she'll be ready for some test drives! Lots to do, but they all feel easy compared to getting this done!

 

Been traveling for the last ~6 weeks for work, so haven't even been home to touch the buggy since Thanksgiving really. But, with some luck I'll end my spree away from home later this week and be heading to KOH. Anyone from here going? I'll have the Can Am and Tundra, no buggy needless to say. I'll be running around pits on Friday with the Tundra for my friend racing a Samurai in 4600, and maybe prerunning with her earlier in the week. COVID kind of threw a wrench in KOH, but I'm stoked it's going on, though I have a lot less friends going than previous years. Anyways, hopefully buggy progress will start happening again, in the mean time I've been wrenching on other things



@GravityGear @4RunnerKid @pickeledpigsfeet @realtorblake @ColoradoTJ @papasmurf @Stewie @14burrito

 

Sadly no, but assuming we're talking of the same person, that fellow Staff member will be codriving (for all of it I think?) and what was the shared job of the two of us last year, is now resigned to just me and my much less suspensioned out Tundra to perform--ie outrunning the race car to each pit and delivering parts and tools, so that should be fun

 

That's assuming it will be there, it's currently at a transmission shop getting a fully built IPT trans installed after I burned up the original one being an idiot at the 1000 but one way or another I will be running around. I take it you won't be there?

 

Rocket scientist, bad ass. Broke my foot last month so I wont be there. My kid mentioned it in passing and will likely take either my yota or his sammi. None of my wheeling friends are going as they are all hurting financially due to the covid shutdown here in Ca.

 

Ayyy! I'm trying to make it, but it's not looking good for me. I was going to pit for a 4700, but everything been so cray cray lately. It's so up in the air right now it's pissing me off.

 

I was planning to go... but trophy deer hunting in Mexico is consuming most of my time and money right now. Hope you have a blast snivilous! Can't wait to see the new mods on your buggy project.

 

Back from KOH, done traveling for the moment, time to make some progress! First off recap of the handful of days since Thanksgiving that I got to mess with it. All my overheating issues revolved around the thermostat, as of now I have this new thermostat mount welded to the water pump:



It uses 5 socket head cap screws (I destroyed the previous one which threaded onto itself since it galled up) and it's closer to the water pump since hot water wasn't able to get to it as soon where I had it before. Well that didn't quite fix the overheating, so I pulled the thermostat and it turned out it wasn't opening at all. I debated not running a thermostat at all, but the issue from running it seemed to be if I had even one cooling fan on it'd make the engine temp plummet, so my foreseeable issue would be either let the trans overheat and engine get hot or over cool the engine and cool the trans (those two radiators are mounted inline). I had a theory that I had a cold water pocket stuck next to the thermostat, so I drilled some holes in the thermostat to allow some bypass flow (theoretically a heater core normally does this) and that seemed to solve all my issues! So the issue with overheating the whole time was the thermostat was sealed up and the cold water couldn't get out of the way for the hot water to open it.

I've also tweaked the engine tune, I found a tune in Holley's software for a twin turbo LS2 which on paper is roughly the same as what my engine is, so I grabbed that tune and modified it and the engine runs great now. I still have it on break in oil, but it's probably run for two hours or more now and I've had it to 4500rpm with no issue. The last thing is the tensioner I've realized is setup so it has too much mechanical advantage and it seems like no matter how short a belt I put on the tensioner is too powerful and maxes out it's stroke instantly. I haven't fixed this yet, it's only an issue if the throttle gets chopped sometimes then the belt falls off. I can't really move the tensioner so I plan to try and extend the swing arm to gain more tensioner travel and also lower the tensioner force. I've also had the transmission shift through gears and the atlas working, so with all that said I decided it's time to call the drivetrain good, pull the janky wiring and headers and move on to finishing the rest.



First task is to finish up the steering, I made this steering wheel mount and im super happy with it. First time I've welded in like two months too!



I also mounted the orbital. Everything hydro wise is now done besides routing the hoses which is waiting on different fittings to show up. With the cab side steering done the next task is driveshafts which means moving the buggy from where it's been parked for a long time.





Now that it's on the lift I can cycle the suspension and figure out driveshaft routing. The front driveshaft determines the floor height and pedal placement which is why it needs to happen sooner rather than later. While it's up I worked on the ram mount and clearanced it a bit. None of the gussets that came with it work for how I have it set up, so I'll have to cut new ones.



I also started measuring for the rear driveshaft and very happy with how it's turning out. It's pulling 26.5" of travel with 2.5" of driveshaft plunge, and to pull full travel the double cardan will need to pull 35deg which seems doable. I'll have a local place make the rear, the front will be a bit more complex since I'll probably do an intermediate carrier bearing thing, kind of like a 3 section driveshaft. The front only pulls 14" of travel with 0.5" of plunge, so I just need to find the intermediate shaft I want.



I also ordered a full stop tech brake kit, it comes with new rotors, calipers, and pads for both front and rear. I've been researching brakes a lot so once that shows up I can measure the calipers and calculate the size master I need and then buy that. Busted Knuckle has a cool 9:1 manual pedal with Wilwood master that I'll probably get, but need to get the driveshaft mockup into place to know the pedal will fit in the foot area. Since the brakes will be full manual, I think they'll go pretty fast since it's mostly just running lines.

Once I get the front driveshaft and pedals in, then it'll be time to make headers. I was hoping there'd be an easy solution but I think I'll just be making them from scratch with a bunch of mandrel bent sections. I'm not sure if I'll stick with the front exit exhausts, that'd be nice for simplicity but there probably will be enough room to run everything to the back and even with my tiny mufflers I'm running out of room at the firewall fast. I'll cross that bridge when I get there. She's coming along! I might soon be able to drive around the block!

 

Man I’m really enjoying watching this build! Thanks for posting all of the info.

 

Almost NOT a lot Lizard. lovin it.

Are you making driveshafts or ordering?