discomikey

I don't know your experience/qualification in this area of vehicle dynamics and do not wish to offend you, but from my experience (off road motorsport engineer) I would wholeheartedly disagree with this statement. Vehicle dynamics is an extremely complex subject, Roll stiffness V.S. ride frequency are not directly linked to suspension type. Geometry, yes, but this does not mean that generalising independent suspension to be worse than live axle in this instance. Our bulldogs have very similar wheel travel to a standard defender. similar articulation, but better on and off road handling by miles. Roll stiffness and articulation are, in effect the same thing. whether this is tuned through suspension geometry, roll axis height V.S. CoG, or the addition and sizing of anti roll bars, is almost irrelevant. You could make a beam axled car with a super low ride frequency and super high roll stiffness if you wanted to, Inversely you could also design a fully independent car with super high ride frequency and super low roll stiffness. It just depends on what the criteria for the design is. The smaller PCD stands up absolutely fine in extremely harsh competition environments, It's not the wheel studs that take the loads (or at least shouldn't be by design), its the centre spigot. We go through hundreds of wheels on races, every failure is rim deformation. barring one, which was of a defender wheel where the centre ripped out. up to press smaller PCD wheels have stood up to that. That was purely spoke design and the cause of impact being 50+MPH into a tree with said wheel though.. the entire chassis was shunted on the left hand side by 25mm. please let me know your thoughts for this. Healthy discussion of course. And what makes this trickier on independent setups. The discovery 3/4 reigned as tow car of the year for how many years running? I would also argue that our 17 plate ford ranger is noticably less stable, and less grunty than our predecessing D4. For a pickup however, It is lovely and I really like it!

The D7u Platform is no more complex in that sense than defender. All linkages and arms are held on with bolts.. in the bush these bolts can be removed and replaced. Our Bulldog rally cars run D7U based platforms. We and our drivers can repair and have repaired these in the middle of morocco. Components have failed half way through 200+km stages and they have limped back to service

If you have the link please let me know. I can set mine up to cut square but it takes a long time. Wouldnt be without it nowadays though!

Well said chap. If anyone on here has ever driven D4 or D7U platformed JLR products off road in anger will agree that they are immensely capable. I'd pitch a standard D4 on road tyres against a defender on muds with a rear locker any day of the week. The much hated electronic wizardry is extremely clever and the E-Diff's work superbly! On paper the defender was terrible, In reality the defender was even worse. The new one, looks aside (which no-one can judge yet) will be extremely good...

I'd tend to have agreed with you until the last 3 years. Get yourself in an SVR range rover sport (manual mode of course) and your mind will be changed!

reading from the technical specs online, the diffs are 4 pin units but seem to be standard otherwise.. Not surprising to be fair. Going from knowledge gained from our V6SC 110 rally car, (roughly similar HP and torque figures to the NAv8), with the same ZF8HP gearbox and standard axles, (although we run limited slip differentials for obvious reasons) In the countless rally events, demonstrations and even in the hands of the (not so sympathetic press) only 1 halfshaft was ever broken. It was broken on stage at sweet lamb where the driver admitted it was a full throttle wheel in the air to tyre grip moment.. even a 2.25 diesel will do axle damage in that situation. The auto's are very kind on the drivetrain. Its suprising to hear of bad experiences with the 8 speed. we run that in all our current models, Its a very responsive gearbox and pretty bombproof. Of course, it won't let you change up a gear when youre labouring at sub 1,000rpm.. nor will it let you downshift when you're already at 7,000RPM.. but otherwise it is very responsive. Our ford ranger pickup with the ZF6HP box however is much more disappointing. as described above, sluggish or denied shift requests. This is all down to calibration.

any insulation is a bonus! As i'm sure you'll know, the roof panel absorbs the most heat through direct sunlight, If it has no headlining i would strongly recommend putting up some insulation and then a headlining.

if you can get something inbetween the frame and the skin it would benefit from that. I wouldn't necisarrily warrant splitting the skin from the frame though. There's nowhere that the window is affected by the door itself so you can completely cover it with sound deadening.

are you limited on wall height? can't you go up another few courses to 3m or more? it will flatten your required roof pitch and give more space inside. @3.5m it looks like you might fit in across the garage. That gives you more room naturally It's looking a little tight round the edges. I'd give yourself another 1m in length to fit a decent sized fabrication bench at the back. Don't forget all the kit you've got and where it has to live. I really struggle with storage hence why I'm starting a mezzanine floor project.

It's not advisable to lift up only one corner on a jacking beam or wheels free unit. lift an axle at a time. It puts the wrong kind of pressure on the equipment. if you want to lift one wheel, usually a bottle jack on the ramp bed is best but i know its quicker to pull my jacking beam across and lift the entire axle. make sure to chock the car obviously!

technology has vastly moved on these days and I would seriously recommend looking into battery operated ratchets such as milwaukee. quieter, more convenient, no air hose to trip over etc...

wecome to ramp ownership. it will pay for itself in no time! best value for money piece of kit about! i wouldn't be without mine!

of course they will, over standard yes. my argument was 50mm spacers whether they are at the swivel or the wheel flange will have an equal effect. as the leverage is equal. edit: sorry hadn't seen your latter reply.

apologies.. I read that as if you meant the structural load on the axle tube as a result of the extra leverage, not the dynamic load on the steering inputs. as you say - with wheel spacers as opposed to swivel spacers, there is more leverage on the steering because of the extra distance from centre of wheel to intersection of the kingpin axis and floor. Which is what i was "trying" to say above, swivel spacers is the ideal in this situation because the scrub radius stays standard and therefore the leverage on the steering from the wheel is the same as standard.

copperslip isn't the right lube for them as it dries out under heat raced on them off road with no issues at all.

answer, it doesn't. offset equal i.e. 50mm wheel or swivel spacer would equally increase the load on the axle tube over standard. one no more so than the other. the following advantages are gained by wheel spacers: cheaper easier not your engineering disadvantages: wheel spacers regularly come loose and no way of checking without removing the wheel scrub radius and therefore kickback is worsened. It can and does make a BIG difference. look @ tornado 75 testing video in portugal!!!! more cutting required on bulkhead harder on wheelbearings swivel spacers advantages: correct scrub radius retained (wheel offset aside) kickback is reduced handling (understeer + steering feel is retained) - more noticeable on some axles than other easier on wheelbearings can check bolts without disassembling cars disadvantages cost custom shafts cost harder to do My choice every day would be fit D2 axles.. but that means no wolf rims. and I know Ross is ademant to keep them.

theres absolutely nothing wrong with the sliding type calipers to be quite honest

where is your next race?

you soon work out that when braking into a washboarded corner it hurts. brake earlier and power through! makes life so much smoother!

PM'd

steel top is a must for fabrication, less because of fire and more because of easy earthing!

My series ran off the gauge and beyond at 20psi. EGT's could quickly run up to 1000 + boost is doable but it depends how much you want to look after your engine...

and some blokes couldnt even give away a straight tub still, I left with cash in hand and an empt(ier) trailer!

any decent fastener supplier (industry type not screwfix etc) should be able to source rolled studs in a variety of sizes. I purchased some long studs for my D2 exhaust manifold to use with clamping spacers not long ago but can't for the life of me remember the supplier I used. Wurth will do them but you'll likely need to find a supplier.

mig-welding isnt loading for me at the moment. trying to get on to take a look! I'm always interested in cheap fabrication kit!