first run shakedown!
the copper crawler finally hits the trail at Golden Mountain Park!
a few pics and videos are posted on past events.
first run shakedown;
Everything was checked, double checked, tightened, retightened, yadda yadda.
all my checklists have been punched, sans a couple little wiring additions that will be completed soon; thanks Jason!
we unloaded at GMP friday morn (mar 25). recharged the ORI's once more for trail riding fine tuning. Started with a very soft rate; searching for the "cloud of titties" cushioned ride. ended up with 185 over 90 on all four corners, which by the end of day (or night i should say) ended up alil low on the belly height i was looking for; roughly 19". the ride was superb! no more rubber chicken neck bob, very smooth flowing ride. as far as performance of the links; IMO excellent!! disclaimer----this is my first link setup, and my experience with building and/or riding in a linked rig is very virgin. with that said, i feel that the link geometry works damn near perfect for my style of wheeling; I am certain some other builders with more experience may find flaws ,as will i with more seat time, but first impression was spot on! there was ZERO lift upon throttle application, as well as Zero squat, very neutral. along with no noticable/uncomfortable body roll on sidehill or heavy cornering. Zero hop on climbs on either axle as well. i was overwhelmingly impresssed with the ease at which the buggy climbed, articulated, and hooked up for excellent traction; with the assistance of the 42" SXII's which to date are the best tires that i have ever hit the rocks with, even with the slippery conditions and wet weather we encountered that weekend.
i really can't find enough adjectives to express how pleased i am with the performance so far. we rode till mid afternoon and then shut down for rain. went to dinner and then returned to the park in the evening for a night run. night runs are the best anyway. all the electrical worked flawlessly, we had the woods lit up like a lynch mob! the light force LED lights rock! along with the led undercarriage lights around the entire chassis and halo lights in the headlamps, visibility was excellent! the ass warmers that jason installed really helped cut down the chill as well. despite the weather we had an excellent trail day.
saturday DavidG4x4 met me at the park to do some ORI testing/tuning. we reset the shocks for some go-fast settings and played with pressures and dampening while doing some hot laps on the gravel around the park. it didn't take david long to get me running twice as fast thru some medium radius 90 degree turns. with every adjustment we went faster. we also got the ride height more dialed in and stiffened up the dampening substantially, while maintaining full use of the chrome on the shaft. it was an eye opening learning experience for myself, as someone with no experience with shock tuning. i'm a rock crawler by nature, and in the last year have just begun using more throttle in climbing, but damn; fast is fun!
i had just a couple issues on friday and saturday; fortunately of which were minor and had nothing to do with fabrication or suspension design. first of which was a cheap, faulty air regulator which regulated the pressure from 150 to 120 psi for operation of the front ARB and air switch. i replaced the regulator before the friday night run; worked flawlessly after that. also friday we developed a miss in the motor, so we replaced the map sensor at which time seemed to remedy the problem; but it again reared its ugly head on saturday. i have since narrowed it down to what i believe is a bad injector, but will let you guys know the final repair when achieved. we also lost the starter on saturday, which ended the day for us; along with the monsoon that followed within 10 minutes of the starter failure.
all in all i am ecstatic about my buggy and the confidence i have acheived to point it at any obstacle that my balls don't disagree with!
i couldn't be happier with the final product in respect to its capability, functionality and overall good looks. the vinyl wrap turned out excellent and definately sets it off! I can't wait to get it back on the trail.
i would like to thank my good friends that helped me get it done; Jeepn-Jason and Billy Ho-aka Lucent. Also the vendors that supplied me with excellent parts, advice, and customer service; Brandon and Scott at Rides, Rocky at Wide Open Design, Vice Off road, Mudpro, PSC, BIlly at Alliance Hose, Olivers Drive shaft, Ben at Maaco, DavidG4x4 for his enthusiasm and expertise on the shocks, and T&W Signs and Graphics here in Mt. Airy.
My next outing will be to MarsFab show and crawl, I will also be holding a recycling day at this event for all our NC4x4 community. i will also be hitting the trail at Mtn City towards the end of this month for round 2 with the copper crawler. Thanks for all the interest and input here on the board, its been fun working on this build thread. i am impressed with our community and all the good nature here.
I will post some final completion pics here in the next week after i get it cleaned up and runnning smoothly again.
