n.r.g97

Okay, so it may be a load of work and not work great, back to the box idea; There's zero space in the front; a big pto winch which can't be moved due to it being mechanical, the radiator fits to the winch frame which means it can't move. So I thought about putting a box on the outside of the chassis rail, but this will get in the way of my coil overs. One thought I've had was about using a yanky (ford/chevy type ) box which mount on the outside of our passenger chassis rail, so would fit on the inside of our drivers side rail. The trouble is I don't know which are good boxes etc; and even if I can find a decent one, by the time I've bought it and had to move a load of things around again it may just be better going full hydro and not racing the emc. How strong are 3 bolt steering boxes compared to 4 bolt?

Hi, due to killing off too many PAS boxes on my landy, I am looking for an alternative; Full hydro, banned from emc hydro assist, not worth the spend from what I can gather other steering boxes, struggling to find anything that is up to the job and will fit without heaps of work So, what about a rack? I would fit it to the axle like a full hydro ram, but behind the axle, and would probably go above the diff nose, however I'm yet to do any measuring so may well be better off below and just some hefty protection. The ram and pump etc I'd use is from a volvo 940 which gives 7" of travel, which I think should be enough. I think I could get away with the steering column by having a sliding joint and a couple of well positioned uj's. The last point however, does worry me the most- but with radius arms, articulation is limited, and I can fit a limit strap so that it doesn't have too big an issue (although I think the problem is more likely to be articulation than droop thanks to the sliding joint) Is there anything painfully obvious that I have missed out? I do wonder if the rack would be up to turning bead locked wheels with 33's against rocks etc- but then I'm guessing I won't know until I try it. Cheers

Having just rebuilt my 2.25... I would do it again. Pick up a cheap 2.25 petrol and rebuild it, try and get a 5 bearing if you can, then skim the head (we did 2mm but you could do less- we had to file down the water pump housing as it didn't allow the head gasket to seal properly) it's got a polished and ported head (not expensive, just time consuming) send the cam off to get it re profiled, we went for a high torque profile from Kent cams, it was like £60. 40thou rebore and a 4 branch exhaust manifold along with a straight through exhaust. Oh and run it on lpg! No more effing around with carbs which don't run on any incline and always just a nightmare.

Hence I stopped as soon as I realised it was steeper than first thought, put harness on and reversed out. It was a lesson learned to all ways wear the harness and not to drive into water without checking first, at least not at a stupid angle like above.

Not really a stuck, as I put the rear difflock in and reversed out. In between sections at the Buildwas national finals, found that the hole was a bit deeper than originally thought.. lesson learned- all ways wear a harness.

The cage on my landy is blue band, it's been rolled and abused by me fairly well, there are no deformities and I trust it- it was built in the workshop by us, and welded by my dad (a coded welder) and there has never been an issue, or with any of the other blue band cages we have built. Dad's buggy uses a cds hoop, likewise, this has been abused and is still fine- although it is a much lighter truck, however this will be changed to a blue band cage in the next year or so, as it is a trialer not a racer, therefore it does not warrant the extra cost of the cds, the only reason for new cage design is that it is being changed to single seat. My next car however, which is being designed for the u4e style events, will use a cds cage to suit regs, however as it is not to save weight, I will likely use thicker walled cds and it will be built closer to a u4 style chassis and cage anyway, so as mentioned, will be much stronger than a twin hoop alrc esque cage. The comments about expense; well I plan on entering KoV this year, and hopefully following years, although probably not in my land rover for much longer, so far I have bought coil overs and tyres, along with obviously the other bits that people tend not to think about, to name it in one, beefing the old girl up, and I could buy a very high quality cage for less- let alone what I could build one for; I'm not as the cage that's there is suitable and meets regs, but if it didn't it wouldn't cost the earth to change it- and i for one, would not resent spending the same on a cage as I have on shocks.

Thanks, I decided not to cut up the suspension, as it works well enough, for now anyway. Since I last posted, we have gained support from a couple of company's, the first being Profender; for the shock absorbers, I have got a set of 14" travel, 2.0 remote reservoir coil overs on their way; they should be on their way to me towards the end of January (currently waiting to get on the boat). Also, WSO4x4, for beadlocks, they are great quality and at a great price! not only have the blingy bits been ordered, but we have been working on the old girl, the centre cross member has been beefed up with 6mm plate, and raised in line with the chassis rails. There is a new gearbox and clutch in there, as the last one gave up in December. while we are still running the engine in, it is worlds apart from the old one, I cant wait to use it properly! the gearbox now sits about 1" further left, this means that the rear prop angle is greatly improved, and it is actually much more central! the winch is in, and just needs rope now, although it was a tight fit! hopefully it will work well.

I use 235/85/16's for trialling and occasionally punch hunts, they measure about 32" and I have Nissan patrol axles so should have less diff clearance, but I very rarely have problems with grounding out, if I do then its driver error. I have gone a size or 2 up (255/85/16) for KoV, so im hoping that big tyres aren't the be all and end all but I think that as I have a much shorter w/b than most of the KoV vehicles it should stand half a chance. I think its more about having the right tread pattern, but then that's also dependant on the weight of the vehicle.

And sorry, its for the front.

Yes, i think they do use that setup, but i used the landy setup out of ease really and just changed the ball joint on the a frame, while it works well enough at trialing, i wish i had done it right the first time around- oh well. Okay, i have read your thread and im very impressed by the way it should work and appears to, i understand the way its meant to work, but i dont plan to do anything half as good, just steal the way of mounting the lower link- with it wrapped around the axle. I also saw another post on here by an author i cant remember, who meantioned using the rear point of the radius arm as the lower link, but i dont think i could get enough separation for this to work. So as you say the steering will be less predictable as the axle articulates? I think that will hinder the landy more than improve it unfortunatly, as ut already has reasonable travel and the lsd and locker help when thats not enough, thanks for helping.

Hi, I havent had much chance to do any work on the landy lately, but we will, if all goes to plan, be fitting the new engine and box this friday/saturday, which will be good. Also i've been looking at the various suspension threads posted on here, and in future would like to one link the front and 4 link the rear, however, at the moment i am not going to be doing this and i am quite happy with the rear ends travel, with lockers its not so nessacary (sp) however i would still like to improve travel on the front if there is a way withought messing aroumd with the truck too much. Anyway, I was looking at DeRanged's rear end and while im not doing anything half as cool, would it be worth cutting the rearmost mount for the radius arm off on both radius arms, so that the frontmost part of the radius arm is bolted to the axle in the normal way, but the rear bolts would be missing, then, using a nissan patrol drag link as a top link mounted above and behind the axle to create effectively a 3 link? It may be really stupid but i cant see why it wouldnt work, that being said i havent done any calculations oreven any measurements so it might not work.

There are merits and hinderances to every system, however reliability has to be important.. John Sales 'Bulldog' seems to have trouble with that with the independant suspension, however i do still think that once someone puts time and thought into it, it could rival beam axles, at least at the higher end competitions, at a low end i dont think people are prepared to spend that much money and time on a system that is fairly unproven, especially on something that needs to be used on and off the road, im not sure a comprimise would work well. Saying that the comprimise between offroad and offroad capabiltys is often not perfect with beam axles... http://forum.difflock.com/viewtopic.php?t=14499&start=600 I think this idea has alot of good points and it would be well worth investing some time into it.

I would consider it, however it would put me in the same class as fiddles and with nissan axles would cost a lot more, while i may do it one day i cant see it happening soon as id lose my locker and would hold it back at speed events.

Back from the awdc national finals and well it didnt go as planned exactly, at buildwas the gates wer very tight, very! With a few sections only 80" and fiddle braked cars getting past the 8's i cant say it was the most enjoyable event having driven 4 hours to get there- only to pop off a tyre on the first day, a bad nights sleep meant i was fairly irritable in the morning! But winge over, i decided to put my hubs into auto lock because hopefully id get slightly better cornering, it worked well, thankfully as some of the sections were even tighter today, however the axles and the suspension are working faultlessly so now its time to look at the cornering, with an LSD in the front it will allways try to push on, and at 87" its not perfect for trialing, so im considering fitting fiddle brakes, which will put me in class A/ mod 1... all that worries me is that ill be at a dissadvantage having a full body compared to the other mods... definatly need to have a long think about it.

That sounds promising! Ill have a look through dads old all wheel driver mags, it was dads idea in fairness i was all for the 2.3 volvo lump i have, but i like the 2.25 so it makes sense. Unfortunatly i wont be going with an overdrive, but with taller tyres and the right gearing it will hopefully be pretty useful. Steve, we are not going crazy with the cam for that reason, also leaving the flywheel alone; for racing its better but as i still want to trial it then i need the torque really, plus some events need speed and torque.

I think that title sums it up... My landy has been around about 3 years in its currentish form, by that i guess i mean a coiler. First off it was a leafer used once a year at riphay scuffle... oh dear! But then I started to do punch hunts, it soon turned out the chassis was worse than first thought, anyway we wind up 3 years later, its coil sprung with +5 shocks flexy springs, nissan patrol y61 axles, locker in the back LSD in the front. Now, I feel it is time to progress to more events, well actually i fancy a shot at racing and maybe a few other types of competition, wink wink. The mods planned for the next year; well actually by next June, are as follows: Tune the 2.25 petrol rebuild the gearbox New seats Finish off the gas tank cover Work to the cage PTO winch (to fit in with sticking with a 2.25) A thread on the tuning can be found in the series section. We have started on the rollcage, however it may need more work. Also will be new tyres and possibly shocks, of either king or fox variety. I hope you enjoy. Here is how it looks currently. Here is the first of the cage adaptations

I would definatly be interested if i was running petrol, and i will have a look at megajolt, but due to spending too much on other areas of the landy at the moment, I am happy to stick with clockwork, it has very rarely let me down, and thats only ever been due to neglect. Thanks! I am looking forward to seeing how much of an increase i get. Aiming for 9.5:1 compression with the gas, having looked at the ACR engines, maybe 120hp is optimistic, but id be happy with 100 really, and its still a 2.25 (even if nothing else on it is standard ) At the moment I will stick to points, this should keep it basic and easy to work on, I agree alot has to be said for moving with the times, but if i was doing that i wouldnt use a rover engine How do you get on with the 2.25? It is interesting to hear from other people what to do and what not to do- saves time and money in my experiance I would have a look, but my cam is back from kent cams luckily it cost very little (£60)

Hi, I am currently in the process of tuning a 2.25 petrol, its for my trialer that im going to race next year but that besides, it may be of interest to someone.I am running LPG on the engine, which we think has given it a bit of a boost anyway (or maybe it was just the **** carb on it before was letting it down)I picked up an engine advertised in the free ads for a tenner , its a 5 bearing run of the mill 2.25 petrol, on strip down we found its been rebuilt before but thats not really important.The first step was to strip the ancillaries off until we had just the block and head, then the head was ground by 2mm and polished and ported the ports. the block has been re-bored 40 thou, new pistons, the high torque kent cam arrived last week. I cant get any reasonable priced 4 branch manifolds, so going to cut up some old manifolds and make our own. Aiming for around 120 hp, though maybe thats optimistic? so would be happy with 100, coupled with the torque increase, it should be good. just need to bolt it back together now

These are what i have at the moment, http://tyresdirectuk.co.uk/shop/product-info.php?prodname=235/85R16-120N-Fedima-Cross-&id=16721 And they are great, but unfortunatly banned from many clubs and competitions. A friend of mine just bought a set of the ziarelli tyres and his look like mine after one event, and mine have had 8 months of use!! If the maxxis copys have that kind of longevity id rather spend the extra £40 and have the real deal in 35"

Yeah see everyone says the insa/simex pattern are great maybe its just me being spoilt with open centres :/ last trial i went to all of us with maxicross were flying up the hills but it seemed too greasy for the simex esque tyres. I have 235 85 16 fedimas on mine i think theyre 32.5 inch tall and they are great but alot of clubs and speed competitions dont allow them. Has anyone used both the maxxis treps and simex and if so which is the best in mud? Obviously the maxxis will win on rocks. I like the compound of the fedimas and theyre well priced so i was considering a set of these... http://tyresdirectuk.co.uk/shop/product-info.php?prodname=33x12.50R15-108Q-Fedima-VJ910&id=31367 They are an inch or so taller than my current tyres and they look reasonable anyone used a set?

Hi, i have allways run either dumper pattern or mostly the maxicross pattern tyres, and allways been very happy eith the performance. A couple of times ive tried other mud terrains like simex pattern, i was fairly disapointed with the grip levels, as my trialler is low powered i rely on having good grip rather than right foot, next year I am planning to do more events that dont allow the open centre tyres and i am going to need another set, mainly for use on rocks although will still need to perform in mud at trials. Im also wondering about sizes, i am running 32's at the moment but have patrol axles so have strength to run 35's, i know they will affect gearing but i have lower ration c+ps to go in so no worry about that either. Im just not sure if the jump in size and expense is worth it as i never have problems with the 32's Cheers

in a month or two, need to get little toe (v8 sj) out first, although i think thats just going to sit up in a field untill the landy's out again. theres quite abit to do, * nos * front winch * patrol axles (which need stripping down to swap diffs around and get a new cv) * new tyres etcetc so a few months probably, although if i blow anything at the next event then it might be 2 weeks haha

to be honist on a budget you cant do much better than patrol, overall its going to have cost me £250 for the pair, thats with an lsd for the front and a vacuum locker in the rear, ok its a bit more fitting than an ashcroft'd axle..... but for the price....

looks like a nice wee project

i do terratagging, its good, dundry was a bit of a nightmare tho, im guessing theyre talking about a vitara that went down the bottom after being told not to, then the people trying to winch them out just pulled themselves in, most people left by 1 wasnt a great day. normaly its pretty good though, ive been going most months for the last 2 years, we had one cancelation (due to some pr**k (now banned) telling the farmer to f off) but apart from that and dundry's misshaps its all been fairly quite, its getting byusyer though now (up to 60 vehicles at some events ) so that can get a bit frustrating, its alot of fun, and theyre based around bridgwater in somerset but quite often on the mendips etc