please tell me hes gonna race on the swampers :grinpimp: :flipoff2:

what gears was he running last year?

 

Desert bouncer! Boom.:grinpimp:

 

sounds like a new chassis would be faster

 

Yes he is going to run Swampers this year. I was let down last year when he didn't run them. We are going to pack them full of tire balls and leave the spare in the pits. We plan on putting him together a solid buggy this year and try to get him across the finish line.

We thought about a new buggy but Richie just wasn't down for it. Honestly after going over it I think we can pull off what he is wanting. He said if he is going to do a new buggy then he would want enough time to make it right. We don't have enough time to make it right between now and then.

 

Yes he is going to run Swampers this year. I was let down last year when he didn't run them. We are going to pack them full of tire balls and leave the spare in the pits. We plan on putting him together a solid buggy this year and try to get him across the finish line.

nice! :grinpimp: i was also disappointed he didnt run them last year

 

I look forward to seeing this again. I saw it at Superlift but no other Ultra4 races this year on the East coast. I know it is in good hands and Woodlee knows what it takes to finish KOH!

 

Why aren't you building the new front end with wod knuckles???

 

X2 ?

 

Looking forward to seeing what you guys do to thing thing. Subscribed for updates.

 

Hell yeah!!!

 

Ritchie already had a set of Ouverson knuckles so we are using them.

 

We dug into this thing hard this week and got a lot of the stuff out of the way that we wanted to change. We decided that we wanted to move all of the suspension points on the chassis except for the rear lower link mounts. We jumped in and removed everything that we wanted to and cleaned up the frame where the mounts were. We measured and figured we can get 6.5" of up travel in the front of the buggy with a 22" belly height. The rear will easily get 8' of up travel. The front axle is re-tubed now; and it will be going in next week along with setting up the front suspension. Hopefully, by the time the front axle is in place and the front suspension is done the rear axle will be re-tubed. Then we can carry on with the rear suspension.

We are leaving some of the tube work in the rear until the new radiator gets here and we see how it fits. Richie really wants to mount it down low, so we are going to see if we can make that happen for him. As soon as we get that crossed off the list we will go into mounting the shocks. We are leaving some of the current tube work until that happens. The plan is to do a pretty cool rear shock mount that is kind of desert inspired. That will give us a good place to end the old tube work and start off with the new tubes.



We also cut out the front shock mounts on the front of the chassis. We only cut out a portion of these right now. We needed to leave enough to visualize the theme of the buggy throughout the rebuild. It’s just a little easier to see where you’re going with a few tubes out there for reference. All of the front tube work from the frame rails up will be replaced before the build is done. It’s been a nasty week for these guys getting this thing cut back to where we can work with it. Next week will get back to fabricating. Hopefully, next week we can make the turn and get this thing headed back in the direction of running and driving again.


From all of us here at Wide Open Design have a happy Thanksgiving; and if you’re headed to RBD afterwards, look us up. There will be a few of us from the shop out there trail riding and having fun.

See more pictures here: Plowboy Rebuild

 

Richie is good people..can't wait to see the rebuild.

 

I see you are redoing the front 4 link. When this was featured in crawl the front links seemed really steep.

 

We are actually redoing both the front and rear link set ups. We are going to get the link angles nice and flat. We also want to put more triangulation into the the upper links front and rear.

 

Who was the original builder of the chassis? I think it uas served well in the scene of rock bouncing. It has taken some crazy hits and drove away. So props to the original builder for atleast that. Yea not a great looking link geometry but it has held up to some crazy disastrous rollovers. And back flips

 

Could be wrong but pretty sure the original builder was Brian Cole, of Coleworx

 

Hey W.O.D , gonna be able to get a little rolled tube in there somewhere to get that trademark "swoop" or flow your cars have?

 

Looking good Adam and crew

Dan

 

Current update:

While not everything is cut off yet, we are already looking at going together with things like the suspension mounts. *


Few pics:

New rear axle with thick custom tubes

Rear mounted radiator to replace the front mounted radiator it had

Wheelbase will be stretched about 4" total

Link brackets are braced significantly

 

hope the 2nd go at this rig is as good or better than the 1st! looking forward to seeing it on the lakebed.

 

Quick update, suspension in the process of being mocked up. *It looks like we gained a very respectable amount of up travel. More details coming soon..

 

How long are the front links?

 

I hope Richie is doing the backdoor shootout again... in a rental

 

From the sound of things, he will be in his new hill killer rig!

 

Were there any serious hits that did most damage or is this mostly the results of year() of racing and no tube replacements ? (seat, big crack)

 

It's a rock bouncer serious hits is what they do

 

The front lower links are about 36" and the upper are about 33". That's from memory but it's pretty close.

The buggy has been beat all of it's life pretty hard. The last crash it took on cable hill did the most damage you asked about. There is a video of the roll on you tube some where.

 

There is a video of the roll on you tube some where.

this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNDaYjUDUPY

 

Has Richie been to the Hammers other than KOH last year? I mean this in the most constructive way possible, but he NEEDS more experience on those trails. The terrain out here is much different than out east. He needs to spend a month in JV before the race and learn the trails if he wants to be halfway competitive in the main event.
Best of luck

 

There is a lot of sense being made here.