Wanna go FAST! - JRT KOH Stock Mod Build

[JRTOffroad]

Originally Posted by REDLYNER

Great to meet you at the race and it was even better getting to race against you! That jeep is sick man, when we saw you at the bottom of Stihl Hill backed into the corner, we knew it couldn't be good.


I'm hoping I can get mine a little more dialed in for the Auburn race, which if you liked The Flats layout, you will love Auburn. It is much faster and the laps are longer.




Thanks for the feedback on the engine swap and axles too- I'm sure I'll be reaching out to you for a harness when the time comes.

-Jay

Jay,

It was great meeting you and seeing your family out there. Congrats on the podium finish! Really like your rig and was very impressed at how well it performed with some last minute rear suspension modifications.

Give me a shout if you ever need anything. Thanks for the pic!

[ECORS]

I love that pic of the rig on the big jump

[JRTOffroad]

About time to bring this back from the dead!

Getting ready for the second ECORS race in Aubrun AL this sat (May 19th).

We've had a number of items to address since the last race including:
-Fuel pickups
-Steering box & pitman arm
-Rock Rings & New beadlocks
-Tie-rod
-Front Diff cover
-Trans skid
-Inned Axle shafts
-Ball Joints
-Winch rope

Excited to report we've picked up two new sponsors:

-Inner Air Lock - After ruining two of the Stauns and 3 wheels we've been running, Inned Air Lock set us up with a set of their inner beadlocks and rock rings. So far we are very impressed with the bead locks and their aluminum rock rings should make h2 wheel damage a thing of the past!

-Fusion Works Fabrication - A local Huntsville AL based custom fab business has provided machining services for our aluminum links (CA's & tie-rod) and wheel centers.

More details & pictures coming!

[Heartburns26]

Shits weak..............

[JohnnyJ]

12:16 NC4x4: Jordan Townsend unofficial first place in B, just took the checkers

Congrats!

[JRTOffroad]

Originally Posted by JohnnyJ

Congrats!

Thanks Johnny! It was a fun race. Great to have the rig finally stay together for once

[battlebuddy618]

Here's a couple of not so good pics I got of this thing. You have a sweet rig and it I really enjoyed meeting you. Congrats on the win and good luck at the next race!

[David D]

Congrats man on the first place finish. The few times we saw you on course you were flat moving, very impressive.

[JRTOffroad]

Originally Posted by battlebuddy618

Here's a couple of not so good pics I got of this thing. You have a sweet rig and it I really enjoyed meeting you. Congrats on the win and good luck at the next race!

Thanks for the great pics! It was good meeting you!

[JRTOffroad]

Originally Posted by David D

Congrats man on the first place finish. The few times we saw you on course you were flat moving, very impressive.

Thanks! Hope to see you guys in GA in a month.

[JRTOffroad]

Our first ECORS race didn't go so hot. We broke the sector shaft on our steering box, stripped the splines on the pitman arm, blew the reservoir off 1 rear shock, bent the tie rod, had issues with our fuel pickups, and had a flat tire which took out a brake line. We were a little tired and discouraged after this race and took some much needed time off from the jeep. Other than ordering a couple parts and working with our new sponsor (Inner Air Lock), we really didn't do much until about 2 weeks before this race. Nothing like a tight schedule to light a fire under your ass. Luckily, we do our best work in the wee hours of the morning the nights leading up to a race apparently.


To get ready for this race:
Replaced steering box with another remanufactured astro van box (from a different source this time). This box turned out to still be pretty bad, but it held up. Stay tuned to see the proper fix currently in work.

Built a new pitman arm (stock WJ), by filing the clocking splines and cutting off the double shear mount from the old pitman arm and welding it to the new one.

After bending our old tie rod:


Built new tie rod out of solid 1.75" 7075 AL.

As you can see this also was doing a number on our diff cover (stock with Warn guard), so XRR set us up with a great deal on an ARB cover and new winch rope:


Found the ball joints were loose, so replaced all 4 with XRF units. We'll see how these hold up. I would have gone with the new HD poly performance ones, but they weren't available yet.

After a flat tire broke our brake line at the last race we replaced both front brake lines and rerouted the hardline/softline mounts. Hopefully preventing this failure in the future.

Speaking of flats, we've had a tough time keeping our H2's alive:



We're happy to report we picked up a new sponsor Inner Air Lock and now wheel damage and flats should be a thing of the past! Inner air lock set us up with a set of their inner beadlocks (replacing the stauns we damaged) and aluminum rock rings:



These beadlocks were easy to install and worked great! This was the first race we've finished without some kind of tire issue.

Installed chromoly front inner axles because the ears were stretching on the stock axles. Our great sponsors at Nitro gear and axle sent us the beefy replacement shafts. http://www.nitro-gear.com

Built a skid for the transmission pan which took a lot of abuse at KOH.

Pulled the old fuel pickup assembly and replaced it with a new assembly made with brass fittings and copper lines. Cleaned pickups and filters and reassembled everything.

Checked torque and replaced a few bent grade 8 bolts in the suspension.

Welded on extensions and support for the bump stop landing pads on the front axle (had some slight deflection)

Installed rebuilt shocks. FOA was great, rebuilding both rear shocks and re-valving them after we blew out one reservoir off the big jump at ECORS #1.

[JRTOffroad]

This race, being in Auburn, was practically in our back yard. We left early in the morning Friday and got down to Auburn about lunch time. We set up our pit and got straight to prerunning. The course was setup on an old golf course and the owner of the property had setup a fantastic race track. You can check out the park at http://www.thegreatamericanpark.com

The park is setup as a mixture of mud and rock obstacles. Our track took us around the mud holes and through the rock sections. Unfortunately it had rained in Auburn a few days previous and golf courses are designed to flow water away from the greens. Where our course happened to be was where the water wanted to flow. It made for a muddy, slippery track that was quite the rush, especially in the wooded sections when you are trying to turn and burn around trees in sloppy mud at 30-40 mph.



The owner of the park provided a free pressure wash station at the pits and the course dried up over the rest of the day and the following morning so the race itself was not bad at all. We got lots of time to prerun and were very comfortable with our strategy and lines. At the driver’s meeting they announced the starting order and once again we found ourselves starting in the back.

The race course starts off with a quarter mile drag down what was once a fairway then veers off to some tight man made obstacles that really worked the jeep’s suspension. It then worked up through some rocky sections and then back through some wooded, faster sections including some fun jumps and steeply banked turns. The race was set for 10 laps.



My GoPro didn’t record this race or I’d post a youtube video L I hit the button at the start but apparently it never started recording. Which is too bad because our race was pretty epic. Starting at the back, we knew we had to make some passes, but our strategy for this race was to keep the jeep alive and finish. Early in the first couple of laps we found some places to pass people, executed the passes, and found ourselves squarely behind the jeep that started in pole position. At this point we knew we were in the lead since it was a staggered start, so we settled in and rode behind him for several laps. Eventually we made the pass in the rocks but later got stuck in the woods behind a broken rig and he was able to pass us back when the course officials created a bypass. Made for some pretty exciting racing! It was back and forth all race, but eventually we managed to pull ahead for good. We finished 1st in B class and unofficially 2nd overall (should have signed up for C-class...). We also posted the fastest lap time in B class.









The jeep did great and we have just a few minor issues to address before our next race. Our new beadlocks and rock rings from InnerAirLock worked great at absorbing the punishing hits from trees and jumps. And our new axles from Nitro Gear and Axle gave us worry free performance.

[RedNeckRea]

why even run window nets if your legs and hands can just go right under them out the lower door opening???

[JRTOffroad]

Raced this weekend at the 3rd ECORS race of the season in Durhamtown GA. Fun and challenging track comprised of a large GP course (w/ numerous jumps and banked turns), a short wet rock section, and lots and lots of tight winding trails through the trees. These trailes were very tough on steering and it was easy to cut a corner or get a little loose and end up in a tree.

For this race we entered 2 classes, B (modified) & C (unlimited). Durations were 6 laps for B & 10 for C with each lap being ~5 miles.

The weather was very hot and humid and I had to wonder if we or the jeep could make it the entire 80 miles. But, despite my best efforts, the jeep held together. Huge thanks to Inner-Air-Lock: we hit 2 trees HARD (one on each side just to even things out) and had no tire or wheel damage, also on the last lap of the B-class race we cut a tire in the rocks & finished on a flat without ever losing the bead (The Inner Bead Lock still has pressure)! For once our steering took the abuse, for this race we'd installed a Red-head steering box, PSC hydro assist ram and built a custom pitman arm. Our FOA shocks and bumps continued to soak up the jumps and showed little fade despite the high temps.

When the dust settled we'd placed 1st in B-Class & 2nd in C-Class

Pictures and videos to be posted soon.

Huge thanks to my pit crew (Doc & Danielle), my co-driver (Case aka Fatmouse), and my sponsors:

[David D]

It was nice meeting you this weekend man. Congrats on the finishes, even though we kinda wish we could have knocked you down a spot in C class! Car was crazy fast out there.

[JRTOffroad]

Leave Thursday morning for our next race, ECORS #4 at Devil's Playgound in Trinity NC.a

Beyond just typical maintenance we had a few things to address after the last race....

1. Carving through the tight wooded trails at our last race in GA really showed us the limitations of a TC steering pump. It just simply doesn't have the volume for quick turns at low engine speeds with a ram (even though I'm only running a 1.5"). To remedy this we've stepped up to a PSC CBR 1800 pump. This also required us to upgrade to one of their remote reservoirs and step up to a cooler with 1/2" (-8) lines. For a cooling we went with a tube and fin type (was running a heat sink prior) with a dedicated fan.

This pump setup is great, but I'm afraid we've hit the limit of flow through a stock ported astro van box. Although turns pretty quick, I can out run it when steering very fast. After this race I plan a box off to PSC to modify for more flow.

2. Hitting trees at speed last race did not take us out of the race, but did do some damage. 1st we had to rebuild the frame side track bar bracket, which was severly bent. Next we had to reinforce the hydro assist mount, which also got tweaked (awesome to see how much force the ram took, I have no doubt it saved our steering box). Then we found 4 bent 5/8" grade 8 bolts in our lower front control arms, along with damaged misalignment spacers.

3. Replaced almost all heims on the rig. Realistically it looks like we're only getting a couple races (3?) out of our heims before they generate slop and start getting loud. I'm trying a couple different brands right now, but ultimately plan to step up to a 3 piece heim to see if those hold up any better.

4. Air intake re-located. After the last race, running a 14x3" open element air cleaner with a paper filter I literally found mud (dust mixed with a little oil) inside the intake manifold. Worried about my poor engine, we went back to my old AEM synthetic filter with a wrap (which seemed to do a better job in the fine dust) and moved it just behind the interior fuse box to hopefully feed it some cleaner air.

5. We installed a radio so we can now utilize the push to talk feature on our rugged intercom and have direct communication with our pit. Very excited to try this out, hard to believe until now we've only been able to communicate with our pit crew via handle signals.

6. And finally, tires, 3 of our krawlers are finally beyond repair The side walls are just too far gone. BFG is currently back orderd on blue labels, and since stickies are legal for ECORS, we'll be sporting 2 red labels in NC. Not sure if this course really warrants the reds, but I'm excited to finally see why everyone is always going on and on about sticky tires.

[REDLYNER]

I'm on the fence about racing this weekend, but I would love to run with you again if I can make it (business travel is making it tough to get out there). This seat time is going to make you crazy fast at KOH EMC 2013.

[David D]

Originally Posted by JRTOffroad

3. Replaced almost all heims on the rig. Realistically it looks like we're only getting a couple races (3?) out of our heims before they generate slop and start getting loud. I'm trying a couple different brands right now, but ultimately plan to step up to a 3 piece heim to see if those hold up any better.

Where doing a little testing for one of our sponsors during this race, you should come take a look. May be something that will work out for you in this area.

[JRTOffroad]

Originally Posted by REDLYNER:14712615

I'm on the fence about racing this weekend, but I would love to run with you again if I can make it (business travel is making it tough to get out there). This seat time is going to make you crazy fast at KOH EMC 2013.

Hope you make it out! Missed you guys at the last couple. Hope the EMC prep is going well.

[JRTOffroad]

Originally Posted by David

Where doing a little testing for one of our sponsors during this race, you should come take a look. May be something that will work out for you in this area.

Will swing by for sure. Thanks!

[JRTOffroad]

What a race!! Short but fairly technical and fun course.

Qualified Friday 1st out of 5 in B-Class & 2nd out of 10 in C-class, starting on the 1st row in each race. Saturday brought perfect racing weather and a large number spectators (as well as NC News 14).

Had a great race in B taking the lead at the start and bringing home 1st place!

C-class was a little rougher for us. We ran a nice pace and were comfortably in 2nd the entire race until we overheated on the last lap and had to stop to clean mud from our radiator. This stop cost us our position and we finished in 5th. Oh well, still a great race!











Broken ARB diff cover:


That's REALLY NOT GOOD:


Bent link:

[JRTOffroad]

Boken limit strap:


Which led to broken shock and various other damage:




Bent & leaking trans pan:

[JRTOffroad]

Got a lot to do, but we'll be ready and better than ever for our next race in TN at the end of Oct.

Huge thanks to our sponsors! The Inner Air Lock beadlocks continue to impress us, taking incredible abuse and holding strong. Our FOA shocks & bumps worked great, even after loosing a shock due to a limit strap failure we were able to ride the bump and keep pushing hard, only loosing ~15 secs per lap. Despite running the last few laps on little to no gear oil our Nitro Gears and bearings never seemed to complain .

Also special thanks to our friends at Extreme Rock Rigs in Huntsville AL for going above and beyond to get us last minute parts and make sure we were race ready!

[Tazer15]

Congrats on the finish man!......

[REDLYNER]

I followed the updates on NC4x4, you were fast all day. I needed some test and tuning before committing to race, which we got in this weekend. While I only had a few small issues come up, they could have been bad during a race (tie rod pushing on track bar mount, front drive shaft grinding on tub under climbs and speed).


Time to invest in a pressure washer .


Are you going to make any changes while fixing the breakage for the
windrock race?