The Shopping List (Part 3)

the Interior

Powering Becca’s air activated Lovell transfercase and ARB Air Lockers front and rear, will be a special dual tank Jet Pak system from PowerTank.

We have used PowerTanks for our competition and trail air needs for years and with the introduction of the tiny Jet Pak systems, we became spoiled.  This time around, we have many more air-operated items involved and that ups the opportunities for Murphy to strike. Knowing that, we will use a simple system designed with some redundancy in case anything goes wrong.  Steve from PowerTank sent us a custom manifold that holds two Jet Paks.  You can have just one tank turned on, and if one goes empty from you not paying attention or some issue you have not yet seen, you can just turn the dead one off and the good one on. From there, we’ll use a regulator to dump the pressure down to 170 PSI, the operating pressure of the Lovell case.  From there, we’ll plumb forward to the switch cluster and split one leg off to the Lovell switches and the second leg to another manifold that includes a “bullet” regulator set to 85 psi and a pop-off valve set to 110 psi.  From there, we’ll go to the ARB air locker switches.  Dallas tells me he can hard-line the whole thing from the bottles, through the switches and then down to the T-case and the links…I’m telling him he’d better cause I just bought him a $325 flaring tool!  Once we get to the links, we’ll install -3 steel braid line and ARB adapter kits from Russell to plumb down to the ARB’s. 

The brakes are tricky.  We’re still up in the air on a couple of things we want to do but after working on this with PolyPerformance, I’m thinking it will go this way.  First off, we’ll use the twin CNC 7/8” master cylinders with the reverse mount hanging pedals.  We get the tall reservoirs for more capacity in case we develop a small leak, and get the EZ fill caps to make checking fluid a breeze.  We use two pedals (the left for the rear, the right for the front…that’s VERY important if you need to use the rear brakes and throttle out of something) and plumb those through a splitter going into the 4-way cutting brakes (2 push/pull units side by side) that have the Red Bull modification (2 ports in, 2 ports out).  We'll have two of the following mounted side by side only they will have a second "in" on each one to allow us to plumb each cylinder individually.

Between the rear M/C, we’ll cut in a CNC pressure activated brake light switch for the brakelights as well as a second switch of the exact same kind, wired to the ignition switch so you must step on the brakes to start the engine…a little safety consideration due to the elimination of neutral safety switches.  Also a ¼ turn ball valve will go in the rear line to act as an emergency brake.  Finally, we’ll install a 4lb residual valve in each line to keep the brake pressure where we want it with those big calipers. We’ve ordered all of these parts from PolyPerformance and were pleasantly surprised to find they had the parts we asked for on their shelves. When we plumb the system, we’ll hard-line as much as possible but will use the Russell stainless braided brakelines at the linkarm joints as well as to the calipers.  I ordered five (one as a spare) 10” stainless braided brakelines for the chassis ends of the links, and then five (spare again) 24” lines to go from the lower end of each outer linkarm to the calipers…the 10” are female brakeflare on both ends, the 24” are female brakeflare on one end and Chevy banjo on the other.  The whole system will be plumbed 3/16 and Dallas bought a 100’ roll of hardline plus a ton of brake flare nuts and adapters as he’ll hand build everything for the brakes, just like he will for the air systems.  You’ll be shocked at how detailed his plumbing work is!  The brakeline hold-down tabs from AA Manufacturing.

 The steering wheel for the Red Bull RockHer II is a new piece from Grant Products…you know the guys, they make the most popular steering wheels in the world with the “GT” logo in the middle!  For our application, we found they had a new product.  We expect that as Grant is always coming out with stylish and innovative steering wheels to enhance the looks and performance of your vehicle, but this one came as a surprise. A smaller 11 ¾” steering wheel designed specifically for those that need a smaller outside diameter. It was meant for one thing…racing.  The simplest steering wheel out of Grant in years and it caught my eye right away as the smaller wheels give you more room for your arms NOT to get trapped, breaking your arm or thumb. Think that’s a silly statement??? Ask a couple of the top teams about their broken hands…Joel Randall or Jason Paulie shared a couple stories with us that helped us make our decision.  The wheel we chose is a part number 187 “Kart” steering wheel with the super shallow dish.  It will be mounted on a “paddle” type quick release, also from Grant.  They offer a couple of kinds of quick release, as many companies do, but we found we liked the paddle version far better than the pin style and the fine-spline better than the hex style. We get the part number 3004 which is the weld-on version for ¾” steering shafts using a 3-bolt steering wheel, which the “Kart” is. 

Hey, I want you to realize I am typing these words at 3:30am…I’ve pounded my 5^th Red Bull since starting this writeup 7 hours ago and will not stop until the intro and shopping list is complete! 

Our seats and harnesses are something that we take seriously.  Anyone reading my rants on Pirate4x4 about seating knows that our team lobbies for safety and seating is always a big part of our message.  That said, the seats we’ll be installing are the same one we introduced to RockCrawling in the Red Bull RockIt II just last year.

Since then, we’ve seen a ton of people (competitors and trail runners) installing the exact same seats.  The MasterCraft 3G suspension seat is the most innovative and safe seat we have ever seen.  With the amount of BIG rolls I have done in competition, I’ll say I have a darn good opinion on what works safely.  Our harnesses are also by Mastercraft and are 3” wide lapbelts with submarine belts, with 2” wide “Y” shoulder harnesses.  We get the springless kind of belts as the ones with springs are a nightmare to adjust.  Seeing as we are in our rigs for such short bursts in competition, we’ve had nothing but good results with this setup. 

Our throttle pedal is another piece from PolyPerformance and is the CNC floormount aluminum pedal with a built-in footrest.  You’d be surprised how nice that little side-mounted footrest is when you’re sitting with the seat flat on the floor. 

To control everything, we contacted Darren at 12voltguy.com about our electrical switch-panels.  We designed custom panels to hold everything and will use one panel for the ignition and starter switches as well as the lights and backup fuel pump switches.  All of those will have breakers next to them.  In the middle will be warning LED’s for oil pressure and water temp, as well as an oil pressure and water temp gauge.  On the other panel, we’ll have the switches for the ARB’s and the Lovell T-case, pressure gauges for both, as well as switches for the two WARN winches.  12voltguy.com is doing some custom engraving work for those panels as well as assembling the switches and electronics to fill our needs.  If they are anything like the quality he continues to show on Pirate4x4, they should work and look nice.

For occupant safety and protection of the crawler in case of fire, we’ve ordered “ColdFire” extinguisher systems from DJ Safety.  When they were helping us with our fire suits, I saw an odd looking bottle on the counter with the ColdFire logo on it.  I had seen some ramblings about these systems months ago but never looked into them as I always planned on getting Halon.  After learning more about the two systems and the huge safety advantages of ColdFire, including its ability to extinguish an entire car in seconds without damaging the occupant or the environment, I was sold on the idea and ordered them for all of our crawlers.  DJ Safety showed us how easy it is to mount the bottle in a remote location and then run pull tabs to multiple points on the vehicle, including two inside the cab.  Those pull tabs activate the system, spraying the ColdFire liquid through small-diameter copper tubing, to wherever you mount the spray nozzles. EASY and SAFE...far safer than those little extinguishers we’ve been carrying.  We’ll still carry one to use on other rigs.

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Red Bull RockCrawling Team

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