teh benz buggy

[kirbyiv]

Brooks asked me to post this up here, for those who have not seen it on pirate.

Only going to post a few pics here, you can see all the rest in my pirate build thread or facebook album:

http://pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=877869

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2324984&id=12701442&l=dbf3ea6136

I started designing this thing in my head in the summer of 2009 with the intentions of having an awesome trail buggy. As I progressed with the design, I decided to build it to pass KOH tech. Little did I know, you pretty much have to double the time and money spent in order to do that. I collected some parts from September '09 to March '10, and on St Patty's Day of last year I decided to start welding.











I had the main chassis finished at the end of April. Bending and welding tube seems to go much faster than all the finish work.





By the end of May I was starting to tackle some of the little things like exhaust, dash, etc. At this point, my goal was to have it at Harlan for a test run on June 18th. Time was getting right.

 

[kirbyiv]

The first week of June came and went, and I started on the time-consuming crap like wiring, plumbing and getting the LS1 fired up for the first time.







Somehow I managed to pull it off and get the thing on the trailer June 18th. I couldn't believe it. The first trip was a different story.



I ended up losing a drive slug on the way to the first trail. Only had 3WD at that point, so I borrowed a drive slug and hit creampuff, only to corkscrew the front driveshaft. Now I only had 2WD. We followed the group to the top of lower damnation and as we were leaving, there was a slick spot. Having only 2WD, I had to give her a bit of gas, and POP...there goes the LS1. A spun bearing or 3.

I gave up working on it for a month or so until I realized we were going racing in Indiana at the beginning of October. The race was KOH qualifier, and therefore required that the buggy pass KOH tech. I had a LOT of work to do in 2 months.



The new LS1 went back in with heads and a cam :grin:



I got another test run in at Harlan the beginning of September, but still had much work to do to make it KOH legal. Had a couple steering issues, but worked those out after the trip.



A few all nighters and it was ready for the race. Or so I thought.



I decided after the race that ORI struts are great for trail riding, but have no place racing. We got the piss beat out of us, literally for my Co-driver - Carwash.

I got the buggy home and decided to cut the back half off and do a big make-over before we went to KOH

 

[kirbyiv]

Decided to go with 18" 2.5 KING shocks in the back and 16's in the front. It took a lot of work to make those fit on a chassis designed around the compact struts.

Christmas Eve was approaching and it was finally time to load up for Powder Coat





At this point I had a month to assemble everything and get in a test run and cross my fingers that everything worked before we headed west. Somehow it all worked the first time out. I was in shock.

I ended up re-wiring the whole thing and using braided stainless line on all the plumbing.





Finally had it finished the middle of January.

 

[kirbyiv]

I didnt feel like typing all this, so I copied my KOH recap post from pirate:

checking in from El Paso tonight. We are beat and decided to grab a hotel. Everything went as well as I could have hoped for during the week. We ended up pre-running the first 35 miles of the course on Monday and bent the Rock Equipment sway bar arms as we entered chocolate thunder. I had torchmate cut some new arms out of 3/16" and Dan and the guys at Ruffstuff pit were more than happy to let me use their space and welder to build the new arms.

During the week I was getting some cavitation in the steering system and talked to Tom at PSC where I learned the dual pump setup is very difficult to accomplish, so we deleted one of the pumps for the race. Got to thank Tom for the advice on that.

The guys at KING shocks happened to be out past hammertown when we were testing shocks and saw us do a few passes. The front end was packing up and they immediately told us to come by their trailer and pull the front shocks so they could re-valve them. Can't thank them enough for their support. Carwash and I were pretty beat up and soar after the first 35 miles of pre-running, and needless to say we ran harder and faster during the 62 miles of race we completed and we are not even sore. We were able to sustain about 50 mph in the rough which I felt was pretty successful for being on 175 lb, 43" tires with a big scrub radius.

As for race day, we were doing decent off the start and maintained a steady pace up until outer limits. We got held up for an hour and a half due to roll overs, broken cars and bottle necks. We picked up the pace once again and then lost the clutch after first pass on the remote pit. I had to drive about 10-12 miles with no clutch through aftershock, jackhammer and a few other rock sections until we could get some more clutch fluid at remote pit pass 2. We kept rolling through and by our checkpoint before main pit we were car #45 to go through. We started #66.

Then backdoor happened.

We waited for a good while at the bottom while a few cars winched up the ledge. When it was our turn, I figured we would give it a couple shots and pull cable if it did not want to go. At that point in the race our rear driveshaft was dented, bent and scarred up pretty bad, so I didnt want to beat on it too hard and risk breaking (our spare shaft was about killed when we pre-ran outer limits) We came off the ledge for the last time and the rear tire would not pull. Detroit was gone in the 14bolt. As we winched up, I fought the steering and had absolutely no steering. At one point Carwash was helping me try to keep the wheels pointed left as we winched up but it was no hope. Finally we got to the top of the first ledge and pulled over to the side. The steering pump shaft had sheered right off, so we swapped in the spare. with no rear wheel pulling, I decided it would be easier to back out the top of backdoor instead of going forward. We barely made it to sand hill with Carwash pushing the front bumper as we creeped through the sand. At that point it was about 4 or 4:30. We had a spare detroit at main pit about 2 miles away, so it would be approx 1 hour or so before we could huff it to get the parts needed for the rear axle fix. We had to call the race.

All in all I think we were doing pretty well, but as many other racers out there, we ran into some bad luck.

 

[kirbyiv]

 

[WeRideNTruX]

that thing i sexy!
if you need a support crew in the future im workin on a midtravel with 2.5 SAW's jus sayin :grin:

 

[97TJGUZZY]

sick build kirby as always, cant wait to see where you take this thing

 

[Steve97tj]

Sick build kirby. Look forward to seeing it in person. Whats next for the buggy besides fixing the rear axle and steering? After racing and beating on it is there anything you feel like needs changing?

 

[Clemson5.9ZJ]

I definitely think you had one of the most original looking rigs there. Looks sick man, hope I get to see it in person sometime. After hearing DJ talk about how much fun he had out there Im thinking about trying to do the same thing next year.

 

[VOLT]

East Coast buggy, west coast flavor. This buggy is the shiz. I know u worked your *** off and you should be proud as hell son. Great job.

 

[VOLT]

Am I gonna see this bitch in three weeks or what?

 

[kirbyiv]

Thanks! When I switched from 2" lower links to 2.5", the extra 1/4" of material hit the exhaust at full bump (talk about tight clearance) and therefore created a couple exhaust leaks. I need to fix those and put the rear end back together and load up for Harlan!

 

[97TJGUZZY]

did you figure out why the 14 bolt shaft broke? was it defective or were you just giving it to much hell?

 

[kirbyiv]

I havent sent them back yet, I need to get on that. Been busy as hell at work since I got home from cali