TJ: AORC Jeep

[Richo]

Hitting stuff at high speed in a TJ......hmmm.
Not sure on the rules, but Id look at adjustable lower arms to maybe dial in some caster to slow down the steering, even running the amount of lift you have... can the rear of the lower front arm mounts be modded or redrilled to flatten them more?
Front and rear arms as flat as possible.
And can you run hydro bumps, bouncing off the stock rubbers isnt much fun.

re the shocks, have you spoken to Sandy at Aus4wd in Bayswater? King dealer, he can tune them himself and loads of offroad racing experience.

[motas]

No was dealing with another company but wont be dealing with them again. Hopefully get a refund and then go to sandy or somewhere, otherwise we will have to sell them or hopefully trade them to someone looking to get a bigger lift. I know of them we race against them but never met him. We will, for now at least, mostly be using this for shorter races at lower speeds. I can't modify the mounting but am pretty sure I can run adjustable arms, or at the last aftermarket arms made to be the right length.
Can run hydro bumps and are very high on the list of things to add. I'm also going to check out what's in the way for more up travel see if I can squeeze a little bit more out since I have some fender clearance left with the tyres, especially with some smaller rubber we will put on later.
Cheers.

[Rosie]

Diff Bracing would be my number one priority!

[motas]

The courses were doing this year aren't long and are fairly flat so it should be fine, out plan for next summer is to truss and sleeve the front and rear diffs and maybe brace up some of the suspension and brackets. This year will just be getting used to it and getting a feel for what needs attention. Being fairly close to stock I hope to not have too many reliability issues though.

[motas]

Got it inspected yesterday and it passed so now just waiting on the log book to arrive and the first race will be in August. Then we have 3 more races lined up a few weeks apart. They are all fairly short races but it will be a good test for it and hopefully we wont run into any problems in between.
Will try and get some race pics and maybe some go pro footage.
Also we have decided to mount the shocks we have and just fabricate some taller mounts so we get the extra travel.

[motas]

Some pics from our first race, we were a bit slow at the start but by the end we were competitive even with a few of the buggies which is awesome. Ended up second in class since everyone else but one broke down or crashed.
Was a good shakedown though and we made it through the whole race which is awesome. We did have a few issues though the gearbox got a bit hot and didn't like changing to second, the motor lost a bit of oil so may need a freshen up and the trackbar mount almost broke off which could have ended very badly. Luckily it held on so we will brace that up before the next race in 2 weeks time and replace it with something neater afterwards.

[motas]

Hey guys had another race today. Jeep performed above and beyond what we ever expected of it. Drove all the way to moyston swapped roofs and finished the whole race. The track was 7km long and we did 3 heats of 7 laps. It was very very rough, in one fairly smooth lap we hit the bumpstops hard 25 times. That means we hit them well over 500 times in one day! But it managed to hold together with just both front sway bar links broken. Found a few issues though the fuel tank needs to be relocated as we have put a few big dints in the bottom of it, the front upper control arm touches the block and we need more comfortable seats! Ended the weekend very well though with a first place in class and 9th outright. Will post the go pro footage probably tomorrow and will try and edit a shorter version of the highlights over the next week. Awesome day though and simply amazed we didnt break things with how rough the track was and how hard we pushed it. I think we amazed a few patrol owners there!