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

Whos the irate?

 

Orange buggy...

 

There's no point in tagging the orange buggy since he doesn't have an account on this forum if that's the questions

 

I think that they just wanted to know who they were.

 

Man all I can say is WOW!!!

I have been wanting to do this for so very long but after the divorce (long time ago which is why I moved to AZ) and losing everything then starting over things came to a complete stop. Long story short reading through this is what I have been experiencing with timelines on parts, etc. and figured it would take at least 1-2 years to get things done and etc. so at 60 with retirement 2 years away I cannot see myself getting something to have fun with all ready for the old man. All but a dream and I read the entire thread this morning (off work) and just lived my dream through you. Thank you and I am very impressed with your skills!

 

Thank you sir! I think you should consider the opposite though, unless you have some big plans that take a lot of time for your retirement, then you'll have lots of time to watch some Youtube and practice building stuff and learning! Don't need to buy everything in one go, just sprinkle some tools into your arsenal and some parts here and there when it comes to something you can't make yourself. Food for thought, but you have a few decades to go about making it happen

 

Thanks for the words of encouragement but with health issues I do not see decades of time on my side.

I have watched the Matt's Offroad Recovery and all the other channels he helped build for his friends/relatives for many years now. I LOVE Paul and the boys at Fab Rats and watch every single video that they put out. I call mistakes before they happen and watch them true later. Sometimes I am not sure of it is for the show or if folks just like doing things over and over but that is a pet peeve of mine.

I take my Tundra and the wife takes her 4Runner and we hit Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, etc. a lot. We are heading up to Montrose (first stop) here in a month from now. We will be there, Grand Junction then Pagosa Springs for a month. We stop in and see Matt and the crew in Hurricane since they are always someone there. I have a picture of me standing in front of the MoorVair and that thing is really cool, just too much wheel base for me. Reminds me of the Tundra. LOL

Keep up the good work my man!!!

 

Well if you ever want to go for a ride when you're in Southern Utah, let me know Hurricane is a 40 minute drive from my shop.

 

If you have questions, I maybe have answers! This is the third rear mount radiator setup I've done, so starting to figure out the tips and tricks.

The 42s are dope! I'd like to get some 42s eventually, though really any sticky 40+ would be fine, and I don't want to go to a 20" wheel so that cuts out a fair chunk of 42" options. Though so far I can't complain with the Procomps, despite having been the cheapest 40s and being DOTs. I'm sure there's things where they'll be the limit, but between being a drag axle and all the other variables, I think these tires will take me pretty close to the limit of the rest of the chassis.

 

Yes sir, it gets WARM in Sand Hollow. Had my Tundra in there the last time we stopped to see Matt.

 

The buggy is actually pretty awful for rollover protection, which is directly a result of poor planning like most of the chassis. While the radiator and fan shroud is below the plane from the top of the chassis/top rear of the chassis, it's not by much---if there was a rock it got laid on it'd probably ding the fan shroud. I've thought about adding "fins" or "ears" off the D-pillar that would act as a high point to try and protect the fan shroud and double as a chase bar/number plate mount. In the case of the Hilux, which has a very similar setup, the radiator is much more vertical so would be totally fine in a rollover: https://www.tundras.com/threads/550hp-2jz-1978-hilux-build.103614/page-5#post-2816352

On my first car it had a full body and I had the radiator vertically mounted in front of the rear hatch/spare tire so that was fully protected too.

The LS temps have been fine so far, if it gets over 210 it's rare. That's with both fans on the high setting. As far as crawling it'll run down to 180-190, going fast and getting into boost is when it'll warm up. The LS apparently runs hotter too so the temperatures are well within the norms. This engine is a 5.3 and seeing around 10psi in Sand Hollow, for comparison the Hilux has a smaller radiator with a single fan (same Ford Taurus fan) and if I'm driving under 70mph or so I can run it on the low fan setting and it'll stay below 190 (though that's a 3.0L engine with no boost currently).

On the buggy I went with what was seemingly the largest 3" Griffin radiator that was readily available and off the shelf. The core is significantly narrower than the two fans, in retrospect I wish I went with a custom radiator or a different brand that had a wider core. Each fan I'm using is about 18" in diameter. The Hilux radiator I picked specifically because it fit the Taurus fan shroud. Something like a 36-40" wide core would work well with this twin fan setup, though that's a pretty huge radiator too. Once I build my 6.7 stroker with the supercharger, we'll see if the radiator can keep up for extended running.

I'm using AN-20 lines for everything. I welded AN-20 bungs directly to the radiator, something similar is a far better bet than running some combination of rubber and hard line. Way less failure points and much simpler and more modular routing, albeit the price is steep. Ryan's buggy has a similar setup but significantly smaller lines it looked like. There are fittings called Wiggins you might've seen, which from my limited glancing appear to have an O-ring seal and there's essentially a clip that keeps the two hoses from falling off. You pull the clip and the larger hose slides off the smaller one. They're what's used for NASCAR, apparently they're fat bucks but I want to try those next time. The AN fittings aren't bad but they are hard to thread on and hard to feel confident you aren't cross threaded if you aren't perfectly lined up, additionally if you over tighten them they can distort and not seal, and the Wiggins you just slide the two hoses together and put the clip in and it's done (from my limited research).

The engine and the radiator both need a high point to bleed. On a LS this can be easy, the LS has steam vent ports on each head and my setup has AN lines for those vent ports and they are the highest point on the engine side for coolant, so it's easy to crack one of those lines and let the engine bleed out. Ryans SBC doesn't have an easy to access vent port (comparatively), on that last trip we cracked his main AN line to bleed the engine which works but is a little sketchy and harder to do than a small line. On the Hilux 2JZ I have this cluster fuck of adapters that is plumbed into the heater core and goes to a schrader valve which in my opinion is by far the best. You just press the schrader to bleed the engine and no need of wrenches and cracking fittings. The radiator side obviously needs the same thing, and should be the filler neck. Again, due to bad planning the buggy's radiator is at a very steep angle and is attached to the D-pillar, so the filler neck can't properly fill the radiator to the brim and leaves a big air bubble. The Hilux even though the radiator is angled can still get filled to the top---though I do jack it up on the drivers side to get all the air out. So on the buggy I welded a fitting to the true top of the radiator, so I can fill the radiator to the absolute brim even though that level is above the filler. This actually sucks ass because it means the radiator cap is below the top of the radiator, so there's no way to pop it and check the level, it's more like a "90% filler cap".

So what are the take aways from this novel?

-Engine needs a high point to bleed air, ideally this is easy to use
-The radiator should be fairly vertical, albeit it's possible it doesn't need to be
-The radiator whether via the radiator cap or other method needs it's own bleed port
-Airflow to a rear mount setup is inherently bad, if there's chance of ram air then great, but since the whole vehicle is in front of it I wouldn't rely on it so run big fans
-Generally fewer cooling lines the better, the more flexible the better, and good fittings that are simple and easy to work with should be a focus

And something that is not specific to rear mount, but I have inevitably always been forced to do with the rear mount, is I drill holes in the thermostat. Some thermostats already have this, others have the "jiggle valve" (which can just be cut out). But I never fail to have some cooling issue that needs to be sorted out (thermostat positioned weird, bleeding procedure) and by drilling some bleed holes in the thermostat you guarantee water flow through the thermostat before it opens and that will prevent a cold water pocket stuck on the thermostat and making it not open. On completely stock vehicles there are ways around this, coolant bypass routing or the heater core, but on custom cooling systems that may not be the case so having bleed ports to ensure there is always flow through the cooling system has always helped me and doesn't negatively affect the engine maintaining temperature (the bleed ports are usually a handful of 1/8" holes is what I do).

Bet you didn't bargain for the full snivilous novel, but you asked a question

 

I HAD a 6.0, but blew the ring lands rapidly (or maybe they were already blown). Got the 5.3 out of a Suburban which I got the whole truck for $300. The 5.3 was meant so I could build headers, but is now getting miles on it. The blown 6.0 got machined and I have a Texas Speed stroker kit laying here and AFR heads so someday in will get rebuilt into the 6.7, but for now it's just this old 5.3 "mock up" motor.

 

And that's perfect racecar looking mounting. You won't have an issue. The one other thing I do is build blast deflectors anywhere there's a coolant line nearby. If the radiator cap blows, AN fitting unthreads, etc. I make sure there is at least a plate between that and the seats. Having a bit of space between the seats and radiator so you can seal stuff off where you want and minimize airflow impacts would be preferable in my opinion.

 

Never seen that done besides on a BMW, so can't comment. Sounds like a good solution to get the blow out point away from the radiator to a more manageable location.

 

Does the reservoir not need to be higher than the radiator to fill it? I was picturing a fill hole on the radiator that got sealed up with a bung.

 

Thanks but I do know that.

It wasn't. I was just wanting to know who it was.

 

Didn't touch the buggy all week. Yesterday my friend with the orange buggy (rps1030 on irate @rockmup )came over and we decided to go out today. I fixed the fuel cell pass through that had come loose and was leaking, and then slapped some roof panels together with 1/8" aluminum and some hydroturf I had laying around from my jet ski. It pushed the little plasma table to the limit but turned out great, and I have some cut outs to grab the chassis for getting in.



Today we got up early and were rolling before 630 to beat the heat. Apparently we should've gone earlier by 5 minutes because this huge group was at the parking lot and left right before us going 5mph and appeared to head to the trail we had wanted to do, Chain Reaction (9). So instead we went to the adjacent canyon which is the trail Triple 7s (7). Kind of a boring trail I thought, but there was this fun optional obstacle near the start. I wasn't able to make it since my belly would hit, maybe with a different approach I could get it.





Weirdly at this spot, I could only go backwards so far before my diff would get stuck, and could kind of wiggle around and go forward but then run out of traction. In an attempt to back up I utterly crunched the rear diff cover which had already been dented last trip, and this time I poked a hole in it which started leaking.



Luckily I had a rag with me so used all my duct tape and some zip ties to make a diaper thing to plug it.



Orange buggys turn on same obstacle. Big ledges making those 42s look small!



We finished triple 7s, not much to note.





After that we went to a trail called Twister (9) that I hadn't heard of, and probably for good reason because it may of been the dumbest trail ever made. It was like someone selected every rock to climb over, didn't matter where it was, so there was no flow and instead the trail just made 180deg turns all over so you were supposed to climb every conceivable rock in this field of rocks. I referred to it as 87 turns trail. But there was a moment of fun, and where we thought the trail actually started but turned out to be the trail Red Dot (13). Which quickly went from "oh finally something cool" to "oh this isn't the trail we wanted, and explains why it's impossible". We lined up on it a bit, but it was so steep and smooth...well there's a reason that trail is a 13 and us in our fat drag axles weren't going to make it far, and in my case I made it about a foot and couldn't go further. Orange buggy made it a bit further before he lost traction.







And shortly after that we went a bit further down Twister, decided it was a dumb trail, and it was already getting hot so went back to the trucks!

Kind of a boring day, but at least we logged two more trails. I ordered proper diff covers, and luckily Ruffstuff is running a 4th of July sale so the timing actually worked out great.

 

I was gonna wait to update the build but I have too many photos to wait.

It got too hot after the last post to go wheeling at Sand Hollow, I think I took the buggy out once to give my father in law a ride but that was just leaving the house and some of the dirt trails around here. Since it was so hot I figured I may as well build the stroker engine I've had laying around for a year.



Not really any photos of this process, so voila it's built. This took about a week, plus some Summit orders since of course the LS2 style parts I had didn't work with the new LS3 style heads. The front and rear covers, and the lifter guides are stock Texas Speed 408 forged crank, K1 forged rods, Wiesco -15cc forged pistons, AFR LS3 mongoose heads, Brian Tooley Stage 1 supercharger cam, etc. Block is machined and the whole rotating assembly was balanced at the local machine shop. It also has a Tilden oil pan which I'm very excited for, it's about 2" shorter than my current pan, all steel plate plus a 3/16" integrated skid on the bottom, and has baffling and trap doors in the sump. I've been waiting to have this pan on before I put a chassis extension/skid to protect the engine.



The engine is lacking a couple parts that need to come off of the 5.3: the supercharger and fuel system move as one unit, so they'll stay integrated to the buggy so I don't have to crack any fuel lines. And then the water pump and accessories are all custom obviously so need to come off the 5.3 also. As it sits is as far as the new engine can get without pulling parts off the 5.3.

The plan WAS to swap the engine in last week. But there is a desert race hosted by BOR called Knolls which is west of Salt Lake City at the end of the month, it's actually the first race I ever did with my old 4500 racecar (6 years ago), and they are a small organization and mostly Utah people and super chill so a good place to get your feet wet and they'll work with you and help you get through tech and stuff.... so I'm shooting to take the buggy to that! All they really care about is safety gear, so in the grand scheme there's not a ton I need to do to make that race. But I decided instead of throwing my fancy new engine in, I will keep the ole 5.3 that has proven some degree of reliability plus if it dies I don't really care, as opposed to an unproven and expensive new engine that ideally gets tuned on the dyno.

I have a long list of stuff to do, but most of it are relatively quick and easy items. As of today I have two weekends left to get everything going! The single largest task was rebuilding the shocks. I had reached out to ADS and gave them all the specs and they sent me rebuild kits, new valving, and bypass springs to change everything. Four of the shocks were from my old 4500 racecar and four of them were brand new, so the valving in them was completely random so rebuilding them would set them all to a known baseline at least and hopefully make it ride a bit better (and refresh the four that were 6 years old). The ADS valving was very thorough, they included valve stacks for comp/rebound and specs for the valving for each shock, included bleed screws and how many per piston, included bypass valve spring changes and specs of which springs where, and even down to how many turns out the bypass tubes should have!



I started out machining some jaws for my vice to hold the bodies and shaft:



And then a bunch of pictures for anyone that's never taken a shock apart:











And all done!



I will say this was my first time taking bypasses apart, I had revalved some coilovers a long time ago and the coilovers are extremely easy. The bypasses are a bit of a bitch since there's all the tubes and getting the air out can be a pain. Not surprised if I completely messed up some of them, but it was fun! All the shocks looked good, and the new shocks I didn't replace all the seals unless something seemed wrong. There was one shock that had nitrogen in the oil so the IFP seal had failed, but that was the only shock that had an inherent issue and actually required a rebuild. The front coilovers are now coil carriers and all their valving was pulled. I haven't driven it yet, and I suspect there is not enough shock for racing, but I look forward to trying out how it feels and then going from there and upgrading the shocks if needed.

I also decided that I would shoe horn front bumps in somehow. It badly needed bumps, and even with improved valving I wanted hydros. Additionally I had delrin spacers on the shock shafts before to limit the up travel, so wanted to fix that.



I started out lowering the chassis as far as I could, and then started figuring out how to cram bump stops somewhere. And fast forward through some fabrication pictures:






Plenty of room around the steering filter



I convinced myself that blocking the engine in wasn't a big deal since it has to get angled up for the crank to clear that tube anyways.



Capped the bottom and the tube off. The whole thing is a combination of MIG and TIG which I've found to be the most efficient and looks good enough. I have a hard time welding two edges together with the MIG, so those interfaces are usually TIG and then if it's a big contact area I'll just hit it with the MIG to be fine. Considering the rest of the chassis is a nice 50/50 split of MIG or TIG it fits the theme.



The drivers side bumps directly against the truss over the differential. The passenger side I had to get a little creative and chop up the link mount and add a strike pad at the right level. The strike pad is internally braced and has a pass through tunnel on the bottom for the brake line.



Everything is super tight but seems to clear! I might get longer shocks in the future to use up that shaft that's showing. That shaft isn't totally useless though since it comes into play when flexed.



Drivers side is even tighter. I will move the power steering lines, probably run them under the skid brace to make sure they can't get squished.



And its first time sitting on all proper bump stops! I wish this was ride height, it looks so cool slammed.



I also threw some reservoir brackets together using the shock jaws and a piece of delrin to form them which worked really great actually.



Not a lot of places to put the reservoir without changing the hoses, so these will do for now.





With the suspension sorted, the next task was to setup the interior. I've ordered a ton of parts, and first up is a bunch of stuff from PCI. I got their forced air and one of their UTV intercoms. I've had the fancier intercoms before but honestly prefer the UTV stuff since it's super simple with just squelch and volume. I also bought a Kenwood TM-281a off eBay which is the same radio I have in the Can Am. Additionally I bought a second Switch Pros which will primarily be used to run stuff that doesn't need a switch necessarily, like the supercharger intercooler pump, chase bar, etc.



Last night I started mocking up the center console. The switch pro on the dash was impossible to reach without pulling the harnesses off and same thing with the kill switch, so the first switch pro which controls critical functions will be mounted next to the seat with the kill switch immediately in front of it, and behind that is the intercom with the furthest forward knob being squelch. Additionally there is still room for the hand brake to get installed in the future between the shifters. The radio will probably get mounted behind the transmission shifter, which then leaves room for cup holders and some storage behind everything The dash mounted switch pro will be the second one I just got and control stuff that doesn't usually get switched on/off--essentially all the "race mode" functions. What is extremely cool too is both switch pro power blocks are mounted between the seats, and since all critical functions are isolated to one switch pro, in the event a power block or switch panel dies, all that's needed is to swap two plugs between the power blocks and everything will still work, so the power distribution at least is fully redundant. I don't expect that to be an issue, but I have heard of these solid state systems melting if they're pumping a lot of juice.



I am super excited with how the center console is coming together! I'll be able to reach everything strapped in by moving my right hand a couple inches. Which seems obvious to do, but I know I'm not the only one that has placed stuff and then strapped in and realized it's impossible to reach.

And that wraps up my progress to this point! Other things that I ordered and waiting on:
-Sabelt 6 point harnesses, and I just got TMR weld in eyelets and mirrors
-PRP window nets, which will be tight but should show up a few days before the race, I will be running buckle style latches on the top and bottom of the net
-A larger air filter and sock which will be tucked behind the winch
-More fire extinguishers and a fire suppression system
-Front limit straps

And there's a bunch of little fab stuff to do obviously. I need to finish the floors/rear panels, I need to make body panels, add a front shock cross brace, finish some welds on the chassis and cap the tube ends, and I want to mount a spare tire hanging off the back, etc.

The race is the 26th, so I have 2.5 weeks to finish the buggy to a raceable state! Needless to say, this is not meant to be competitive at all, I just want to enter in some races for fun. If the buggy can do 200 miles and find out some issues at a little Utah race that'll be awesome. There's a proper Ultra4 race in Havasu in October, so if this goes well I might drop the big engine and a new trans into it and see if I can party with the big boys!

 

Random dump of photos. I've just been grabbing photos when I remember but there's so much stuff that's gotten done there's a lot missing.



Rear axle brake lines I moved a bit so a bush or stuck can't grab them from the front. These will eventually be hard lines but not anytime soon.



Lots of work on the floors. The driver's side was insanely tight to the Atlas, so this awesome piece was created to buy every inch. The floors are essentially flat now, where as before they were close to the seat bottom to give clearance to everything underneath. There's lots of room (relatively) to access the mounting bolts.



The guy that will be codriving this race has been mocking up the body panels. These will be cut from 1/16 aluminum.



And then picture a spare tire hanging off the back too, and I think it'll look pretty nasty!



New air filter setup. Tucked between the engine and winch. Had one of those dust sock things on it. There's a bracket from the bump stop to the front to hold it too. Much nicer! The hood will probably go over the filter too, and maybe add some shielding around it from water.



The shoulder harnesses didn't align with anything, but the inboard could be mounted off the shock tower so I just did a little post for the outboard shoulder harness. The harnesses are FIA 6 point Sabelts and pretty sexy.



I also got some fire extinguishers and fire suppression. My plan was one fire suppression, then a 10lb floor extinguisher for the passenger and 5lb on the roof. But it turns out what I thought were 10lbs in the shop were 5lbs (on the left), and the new 10lb is actually huge and no way will work as a mobile fire extinguisher inside the cab. So I've decided I'll rig both 10lb units as fire suppression, one for the engine/fuel cell and one for the cab, then have a 5lb hanging from the roof, and then two additional 4lb conventional powder extinguishers on the outside of the cage in the back.



Here is the actual dedicated suppression 10lb. I'm thinking both 10lb tanks will go in front/below the seat, and the pull handles will be in the center console adjacent to the kill switch.



The fuel lines used to go under the seat, I moved them to outside of the cab and behind the seat. I made some little cradles to hold them in place away from the links.



Random photo.



I made a shock cross brace. I had some TMR tube connections laying around so used those. It's 1.25" x .120 tubing. On the small side but considering the relatively low loads it'll be fine, and helps keep the hood height as low as possible. The hood plan currently is a donut around the supercharger and then a panel in the front.



Got a horn mounted, it's tucked behind the winch and mounted to the bump stop. Can see the funky air filter bracket too.



I got 1.5" extended eyelets from ADS so the bypass bump zone is fully utilized now.



Trans dip stick properly mounted.



Radio antenna mount. There's no picture of the air pumper mount but it's a big hogged out bracket with 4x 1/4-20s holding the pump on. As you can see it's located above the battery area.



Chase bar mounts are welded to the rear roof/head panels, this keeps the bar about flush with the top of the roof so it doesn't stick up from the front.



Chase bar mounted and wired. There's a center blue light which isn't normally wired in but by moving some plugs around turns on if needed.



The wiring is a bit of a cluster. With the exception of the ECU harness, most of the "sub harnesses" were opened up to run more stuff. I have it broken into essentially three sub harnesses, front, mid, and rear.



Wiring wrapped up. All the wiring (at least in high risk areas) has fabric braiding, and then hear I decided to wrap it in coolant hose to further prevent anything rubbing since this stretch runs along the transmission and oil/ATF lines. Then I can man handle the wire bundle where I want with not much worry of what it lays against.



I got some mirror kits from TMR and went with some old Japanese inspiration and mounted them on the fender. Every vehicle with "traditionally" located mirrors and window nets make the mirrors nearly useless. This way I can easily see BOTH mirrors by looking straight ahead. We'll see if they live through rock crawling though.



Brake light switch. Just something from Ace. I couldn't find a signal off the brake booster for lights sadly, but this will do and can easily put in a nicer switch if this dies.



I'm honestly disappointed with the big dash. Nowhere as bright as I expected. Since I had a little dash I decided to mount that in front of the steering wheel. I can configure it to give me warnings and any vital info I constantly watch as opposed to the big screen which I have to look to the middle to see.



GPS module for speed for the Holley. It's magnetic plus has zip tie cut outs to keep it sliding off.



Front limit strap mounts. The front has so much going on this was the easiest spot to put them. On the axle I have left over shock mounts that I use. The straps should probably get shortened an inch.

And that wraps up all the random photos I took! And tons more has been done that wasn't photo worthy. Paneling, floors, wiring, etc. etc. But last night I finally decided it was time to take it for a rip! It was getting dark so no real photos besides getting muddy afterwards.







The thing is an absolute animal! The new shock setup is wild, I hit this road that had probably 100yds of huge uneven nasty ruts and potholes from all the rain lately, probably some of the nastiest shit I've hit in anything since none of it was smooth like whoops, and at 50+ it absolutely ate it up and didn't even touch the bump stops which I'm amazed by. I can't wait to push the new shock tune since before it would get into the bumps all the time.

But it's not all good. It's a handful to say the least. I'm hoping to get it on an alignment rack this week, because hitting bumps the rear wants to kick over again. I had mostly fixed this, but after I messed with the front end alignment doing the bump stops I think it's messed up again and the rear isn't tracking parallel with the front. It'll take some big hits but wants to get sideways which is scary, and the relatively slow steering doesn't help.

Additionally, on the way home the engine was really unhappy and seemed like it was running on 6. It was totally fine going there, but something is loose or the same misfire issues before popped up again. The engine will get a bit of inspection and tune up in the coming days, check compression, find the messed up cylinders and if comp is good then swap the coil packs and stuff. When it has power it has a surprising amount of power, now if it can just reliably make that.

Otherwise the test run went fine, pretty short outing to make sure everything is functioning that was added and see how the new shocks feel. Once the spare tire is mounted I'll probably just crank the long compression tubes a few turns and hopefully that's the only change needed. As usual, the potential feels off the charts! It's making massive strides with these improvements and I can tell there's so much left on the table. Hopefully I can get the chassis and suspension to play nice and make it easy to drive.

 

Saturday morning I pulled the spark plugs to check compression. First off, cylinder 3 and 4 had bent spark plugs... so that's interesting? Compression started out looking amazingly good, and then we got to cylinder 5.



It wasn't just low on compression, it didn't even move the gauge at all! Plugging in the leak down tester it seemed like the air was going through the heads, so my first thought was something was stuck under a valve, maybe a valve spring broke and got lodged under a valve holding it open. I pulled the valve covers but all the valves were moving fine, and a bore scope showed the piston appeared totally intact. There was no noise from anything either.

At this moment I lost some efficiency points. I went ahead and pulled the head since it seemed like that would be required either way since there was something wrong with a valve, I was now thinking a valve got bent and wasn't seating somehow since the valvetrain was moving fine.



With the head off, sure as shit the intake valve on cylinder 5 wasn't fully closing. Looking down the intake port there was a huge piece of PLASTIC jammed in it.





This is why I say I lost efficiency points, because I didn't have to pull the head or even touch the valvetrain, if I had just looked down the intake port I could've pulled it out when the valve extended. Oh well.

It appears to be from the stock intake, and has evidently been rattling around inside the engine for the whole time I've had the 5.3. Thinking back, I had cracked the stock intake manifold lifting it out and hadn't thought much of it since I wasn't going to use the stock intake anyways. This piece must've fallen in and been chilling in the intake port until the Friday night test run had the right circumstances to suck it under the valve. On the plus side, nothing was broken! It was the most non-catastrophic catastrophic failure, completely dead cylinder with nothing actually broken! New head gasket and valve cover seals from the parts store and slapped the head back on.



And quick peek down the intake valves of the even side bank. Oh look!



Another piece of plastic! This is on cylinder 2, the ONLY cylinder with slightly lower compression than everything else. And thinking back to those bent spark plugs? Those were probably from smaller pieces that got sucked in and crunched in the cylinders. Absolutely wild. And it's not like I obliterated the stock intake pulling it out, I just remember hearing it crack as a chain rubbed against it, there wasn't a hole big enough for one of these pieces that I saw. But lesson learned, check all the ports and a bore scope wouldn't hurt too before swapping an engine! This thing has had quite the life now, it came from a $300 vehicle with like 250k miles, was never meant to actually be run and just used as header mockup, and has now been utterly beaten and is still running! The engine is actually in a lot better shape than I had hoped, the pistons and cylinders looked fine, valvetrain was fine, compression is actually insanely consistent. Some new seals and spark plugs. Oh and cylinder 4, which I had said before the exhaust never changed color---it had a dead coil pack it's entire life! This thing has been a V7 the entire time I've owned it. And had plastic rattling around in two intake ports.

By the end of Saturday the engine was all back together and properly running on 8 cylinders for the first time ever! Maybe even consistently running on more than 6 cylinders for the first time ever...



On the plus side, the buggy is pretty easy to work on, I'm glad I haven't compromised that some way yet. There are a few things I'd like to change eventually to make wrenching on it easier, like the steam vent port lines could be longer so they don't snake through the fuel lines and require one of the two to be removed to remove the supercharger. Stuff like that, but overall it's still easy to swap a head gasket in a few hours and if it wasn't for the supercharger would be an easy task.

Additionally some other progress was made. My neighbor figured out a way to mount the supercharger bypass valve so now the engine isn't always in boost! The intercooler tank was getting extremely hot before, which I guessed was from always being in boost since my Tundra's supercharger intercooler is always around ambient but only sees boost at higher throttle for short periods of time. I'm very excited for this, some testing will see if it fully fixes the intercooler getting so hot but I'm hopeful and it should make the engine happier and less stressed and maybe make the throttle curve a bit less aggressive.



My other friend also got half of the body cut out and mounted yesterday so it's starting to look fancy! Kind of funny the only tubes that are really used from the original Rock Lizard kit are the tubes the body mounts to, so some of the rock lizard DNA comes out. There will be two additional panels per side, one being the big triangle behind the seat, and then the big trapezoid next to the fuel cell. Additionally in the plans is to properly brace the rear bump stop, I'm hoping I can get a sway bar install behind/below the fuel cell before the end of the week, and then a spare tire mount will get built to hang the spare at an angle way off the back that can be unbolted for crawling. I think it will look very cool, and is already looking sweet!



Last night we went for a short test drive now that the main body panels are on, and I also finished out the floor and the drivers head panels. The entire cab area sits in a 1/8" aluminum tub essentially. If the engine, trans, tire, or fuel cell explodes there is 1/8" plate in all of those locations. This was a short drive, there was something that was rpm/suspension position dependent making a thrumming noise. Not sure if it's the front driveline, or the front axle, it could even be one of the new body/floor panels just resonating. The drivers header also tickles the upper link, and since the header got pulled multiple times I'm wondering if it's that rattling against the link. I'm not too worried about it, it wasn't doing it on the Friday test drive so seems like something that was added or changed. I'll pull the front drive slugs so I can run it in 2WD without the front driveshaft and diff spinning, and then compare to 4WD with them spinning to see if I can isolate where it's coming from. Worst case it is a driveline issue, and I'll just leave the drive slugs out for the race and be in 2WD like every other vehicle. More likely I think, it's a body panel or the exhaust tapping away.

The engine sounds quite a bit more nasty now that it's running right. It feels good, I think I need to tweak the tune a bit but it's running strong and I seemingly put it back together correctly.





There's not much left on the list of must haves for the race. The buggy has to be completed by Thursday night since we drive up Friday. The last three things it really needs is a hood (waiting on more aluminum today or tomorrow), fire suppression (will mount the two 10lb tanks below/in front of the seats), and window nets (the PRP nets I ordered and shipped a week ago are now in Kentucky? So I just overnighted some off the shelf nets from Summit that I'll make work). There's a bunch of other little stuff, like wrapping hoses in rubber line, the spare tire (big task, but not mandatory), ergonomic tweaks, lowrance shows up today, etc. She was giving me a run for my money Saturday morning thinking I might not make the race, but it's back on track and fingers crossed we make it!

 

Wow! Amazing progress & thanks for the write up!

 

Last week has been insane, last 48 hours have been more insane. This whole month has been one of the hardest pushes I've done on anything and ended in a way to make it certainly memorable.

I don't have many photos from the past week, but I'll post what I do have. Starting with a steering wheel extension. The steering wheel placement has always been slightly awful. It's fine for crawling but not setup for good twitchy control or extended comfort--- let alone harnessed in which is a completely different animal to normal wheeling. I machined a 4" extension out of delrin (since it was the only material with a large enough diameter I had laying around) to push the disconnect and steering wheel apart. Kind of funky on the one hand and some getting used to to pop the wheel on and off, but is also nice since it keeps the steering column from protruding out extremely far. The 4" extension is a huge difference, I used to be conscious of the steering wheel position driving and now don't even think about it and can react a lot faster and easier with more range of motion.



Other things on the list but low priority that I want to change for comfort is adjust the brake pedal, and put a jog in the transfer case shifters to bring them a bit closer so I don't have to stretch for them.

I think I had mentioned in the last post that the handling has degraded. I had adjusted the front axle position so it was centered relative to the nose so that the bump stops hit the axle at the same spot from center. This then jacked up the alignment, and was very noticable driving that the axles weren't parallel. I have a friend that runs an alignment shop in town so was able to get on his alignment rack, and the night before did my best to align everything. The rear end still seemed fine and was pretty square with the chassis, though the front was not the same---which is good, the rear is extremely hard to adjust the alignment where as the front requires a crescent wrench and that's it.



On the rack it turned out my tape measure alignment was pretty close, and he was able to show me the lateral misalignment of the axles, the thrust angle, all the toe specs, the whole 9 yards. We adjusted the front end a bit to get the two axles parallel to each other and then adjusted the front end toe. Everything except caster on one side is in the green as far as a conventional F350 alignment is concerned. The rear housing is bent front to back a bit, I think it was like 0.75deg of total toe between the rear wheels. But now I know the alignment of everything is at a good an as close to perfect baseline as possible. I will probably adjust the toe and caster and see how I like it, but I know where the reset point is which is great.

That afternoon I then had a remote tuning session with a guy named Andrew from the Holley forums, I think his website and contact info is Dr. EFI. After we got the engine running correctly, the tune was off more than I would've liked with the engine now running lean at times. I figured with the race coming up, the engine configuration now changed, and my inherent lack of knowledge about using the Holley, that it'd be easier to have a professional do it.



We had a few phone calls, a couple drives, and he tweaked just about everything and now the engine is running very good. I also had the supercharger bypass valve plumbed wrong and didn't have the fuel pressure regulator hooked up to the supercharger so he had me do that and it runs great now! I haven't put a lot of miles on it, but it's pretty nasty for what it is and I can't wait to drive it more!

I did do one little test drive though, and half way through pulled the front hub lock outs to test the vibration issues I had been having. Lol and behold that fixed it! And putting the front drive line into drive made the vibration happen again.



There was a nut on one of the carrier bearing u joints that had backed out a little, so I'm thinking that may have been the issue. But since fixing that I didn't drive it again to see if that really was the issue.

The next few days was a flurry of activity with not many photos. The fire suppression mounting was a bit of a bitch, I decided to only mount one of the two tanks (one is actually meant for suppression, the other is an extinguisher that CAN be setup for suppression but the extinguishers huge handle makes packaging it a lot harder). I mounted the tank in the rear, above the wishbone. The tanks come with these kind of derpy straps that are like 0.75" wide and .030" thick, and I've had plenty of extinguishers fall due to the hose clamps breaking so just relying on those for a tank that weighs 20lbs put me on edge. My maybe janky solution to this was to make some bulkheads essentially that the tank loosely slides into, and then the two straps hold it tight. In the event a strap failed, the tank can't go anywhere and you'd need both straps to fail and even then at worst the tank will just slide back and forth a bit. With the tools, time, and space constraints I had this seemed like the best solution.



I'm hoping the huge extinguisher I could swap out the head on it for the suppression head, but worst case I'll buy a second suppression tank and mount it the same way on the driver's side. The coolant line on this side will have to get tweaked, it's fine and works but not the most elegant routing needless to say.

Because I was only mounting one suppression system, I decided it'd all be dedicated to the cockpit. I mounted the automatic heat bulb on the dash. One line runs from the tank to the bulb, kind of along the passenger seat. From the bulb it Y's off along both of the intrusion bars up to a four nozzle spray setup right at the center tube junction of the windshield bars.





I've never done anything with fire suppression before, so I figured all of this on the fly and is why it's not very invisibly integrated. I don't know how many rigs I've seen with suppression, but either they don't have it or it's well hidden! How I set it up I tried to keep it as snag free as possible. There is a nozzle pointed towards the lap and then one to the foot well on both sides. The automatic heat bulb and the fittings that came in the kit aren't very conducive to nice routing though. Like I'd prefer one line off the heat bulb going to a four way split, instead I have to use both lines off the bulb going to essentially the same location and then two T fittings. Again, not the sexiest but it'll do for now. The other suppression system I'll have dedicated to the engine bay and transmission which is what the guys at the race event recommended. The manual activation handle is mounted next to the kill switch so very easy for both occupants to access, and is setup for the second systems handle too.



Additionally, I have two 4lb traditional extinguishers mounted off the C pillars on the outside of the vehicle just above the fuel cell. In between the occupants on the roof there is a 5lb extinguisher with the same foaming product that the suppression system uses. Currently there is 23lbs of fire extinguishing product on the vehicle, with an additional 10lb suppression system coming soon. All of the small extinguishers are on pin pull quick release mounts that I made.

At this point there's no photos. I made a lowrance mount that can swing in and out for the codriver and wired that in. I'm running a gen 2 HDS 12" I got off eBay for less than a new 7" unit. The guy that was gonna codrive for me did all the body work and made a hood. We pinned the seat belt buckles, bolted the seats in properly, routed some vent lines, I braced the rear bump stops and added fuel cell bracing, and built a spare tire carrier, lots of shit got pumped out the night before we drove to the race. No pictures of any of it, but we wrapped up at 3am and I went back out at 630am to wrench a bit more and this is the sexy thing that drove out of the shop that morning!





Three weeks of going ham and it turned out great! Course most of the work you can't see, that body really elevates it from a trail buggy to looking pretty racecar like! I think the raw aluminum is sweet too!

We loaded everything up. I really need a big boy truck; the guy codriving towed the buggy and I loaded my cab over camper onto the tundra and we headed up Friday morning, with tech happening around 4pm.



We got to the event, unloaded and went straight to tech. The only thing I was conscious of failing was the lack of identification numbers. The race we were going to was the Bonneville Off-road Racing (BOR) Knolls 200, a small Utah based racing organization. They've always been extremely cool and why I wanted to go to this race for the first time out. They were able to find some number stickers so we slapped the 4401 number on it and passed tech without issue! I have no photos whatsoever of all of this, though my wife grabbed one photo right as we had arrived.



After tech I bumped up the coilovers by 1.5" since the spare tire was really sagging the ass past the point I wanted. We went to the drivers meeting, and after that started to prep to go for a test drive to see how the handling was. It had zero miles since adding the spare, and nearly zero with the new engine and transmission tune and suspension alignment, so I wanted some idea how it'd behave prior to starting the following morning, plus we didn't know if the drive line vibration was fixed or if we'd be running in 2wd. We were racing in the unlimited truck/buggy class which had four entrants, think a class 7 V6 pickup type, a 6100 spec trophy truck, and I'm not sure if the other one was also a spec truck or something else.

A few minutes before leaving for the test drive I received a call from my mom that something had happened and my dad was hurt. They had driven out from Colorado to watch, and had just left to go look for a fire pit. Fast forwarding the details, my dad got a flight for life helicopter ride to Salt Lake City. I cannot thank the BOR crew and volunteers and people enough, I don't know any of their names, but I don't think you could be around a better and more well prepared group of people. They took care of my dad, addressed what they could, coordinated operations and landing of a helicopter, and made the "experience" as good as possible.



Needless to say, racing was out of the question. My wife and I packed up my parents stuff and our truck and took off as soon as possible for the hospital, which was a 1.5 hour drive away. I also cannot express my thanks enough to Shad, the guy who was supposed to codrive, and his wife for all the help before the race and then following our departure. He had towed the buggy up and we left them with a campsite of parts and tools and a vehicle that wasn't theirs.

Fast forward a bit more, and the following afternoon my dad was released from the hospital. I drove my parents vehicle and them back to our house in southern Utah so they can chill for awhile. He is doing good and will recover.

We went through all the motions to race, but it didn't work out! Extremely glad my dad is alive, and he'll be able to make the next first race.

With all of that said, here are a few photos of the current form and the transformation over the past couple weeks.



And introducing the new and improved 4401:









There are a few more races this year that I have the option of doing. One or two more BOR races, a proper Ultra4 race in Arizona, maybe some other desert ones. Now I can relax a bit, continue making upgrades and stop throwing cash at it as quickly. I'm looking forward to driving it and experiencing all the new bells and whistles and performance improvements and learning how to drive it! And with some luck, and my family not getting hurt, maybe the buggy will get to its first race later this year!