25th ladoga trophy

[miketomcat]

I've still got some 100% deet in the workshop. I've never seen mosquito 🦟 as big as the ones in the swamps around lake Ladoga. Any bit of you not covered with deet or clothes (and some that is covered) will suffer dearly.

Mike

[PandaSpeedShop]

That convoy looked amazing! So good that you guys managed to get out there in a big group. Nothing like strength in numbers. 
 

I am planning on using a TD5 disco. 
I will have a VW T5 van support car once I get to Russia, so should have plenty of space for spares. 
 

What device would you recommend for the GPS? I understand you get issued with one from the organisers to track your points? And then people have their own system that they follow? 
 

Do they issue the point coordinates the night before or do you have more time to research and plan the routes?

What tyres do people go for? It looks like a lot of guys are using insta turbo special track looking things? I can’t seem to find creepy crawlers or trepadors in 33” it seems to be mostly remoulds or slightly milder offerings. From what I see the routes tend to be a mix of rock/side slope or bog so mud plugging ability is high on the list ad well as something that behaves well aired down. 

[landroversforever]

Having seen some of the videos from this above, I’d have massive reservations about using a t5 van for a support car given the terrain and state of the roads  

[miketomcat]

We were running bfg km2 then switched to the camels mudzillers. The ability to float on the surface is useful but difficult within the size regs. 

Nav gear is definitely not my area @FridgeFreezer will have a better idea. I'm fairly sure we were given the route at scrutineering so had time to sort it all out (we didn't enter the first stage till 5pm). 

A T5 will be fine as a support truck for camp and beginning/end of stage. If you get stuck in stage as happened to the camel, Belgians and mouse. The T5 isn't going to be able to go in and help.

most important though we need a build thread and event tread!

mike

[elbekko]

Navi has probably evolved quite a bit in the 10 years since. Not sure how good modern Russian topo maps are.

We had an old Toughbook CF-18 hooked up to a Garmin GpsMap 62s, running OziExplorer and Garmin MobilePC. The latter doesn't work anymore sadly.

Right now I'd probably go for a secondhand Toughpad (as I'm running now as my daily tablet - nice little machine and can take a beating). Take a handheld GPS so you can get out of stage on foot if need be!

I still have the maps somewhere, I'm sure Fridge does too. They're pretty old though, so might be worth trying to find more modern maps.

You'll get some GPX files with waypoints, and you get to find the best way between them.

[FridgeFreezer]

21 hours ago, elbekko said:

And get the good 90%+ stuff, not the camping shop stuff, or it will do nothing.

Absolutely, 100% DEET or nothing - no skin-friendly all-natural herbal remedies they are all lies, you need the full strength stuff and it WILL melt plastic including fleeces and the polycarbonate lenses of your glasses.

13 hours ago, landroversforever said:

Having seen some of the videos from this above, I’d have massive reservations about using a t5 van for a support car given the terrain and state of the roads  

For the campsites a T5 will be fine, but FFS don't bring one with alloy wheels & low-profile tyres, Russian roads and some of the tracks to camp will not be kind to those... ideally a slightly oversize set of AT's on small steel rims to soak up the bumps a bit - these are what's considered decent road in the sticks:

 

For GPS I second what others have said - you want a cheapy handheld one that you can use for backup, doesn't have to be anything posh, a used Garmin or whatever comes up cheap as long as you can get waypoints into it. For the main nav we were using old Itronix / XPlore / Toughbooks running Oziexplorer but that was 10+ years ago now, I'd talk to the organisers and see what format their stuff comes in now and aim for that if you can.

We migrated towards cheap disposable laptops and giving everyone the same - we bought a batch of old Itronix on eBay for cheap, that way we could have spares - racers and support trucks had one each so if one got destroyed we'd just swap it out and one of the support guys would just have to follow the leader

I'd recommend for deep water just lock the thing in a Peli case, no matter how rugged they claim a laptop is it's going to have a much easier life inside a Peli case. Also make sure your bits and bobs like chargers and GPS dongles are reliable and ideally have a backup - none of the gear needs to be expensive, but you do need to be familiar with it before the start line.

The organisers issue a GPS tracker / tag and that is purely for them to verify your progress / that you actually completed the course / didn't take any shortcuts, it's not a device that you can use - you likely need to provide a 12v lighter socket or USB power socket for that, check the rules.

In fact stuff like power sockets, USB charging ports, etc. seemed to always be at a premium. Also little details like good lighting inside & outside for finding stuff in the truck, working outside/under the truck, etc.

 

[Escape]

On 1/7/2022 at 8:07 PM, landroversforever said:

As for the lockers and Traction control… my logic would be that you wouldn’t need to do anything the TC just won’t see any wheel speed difference when they’re all locked. If you had the rear locked and spun a front wheel it would then just slow that wheel.

Not sure if TC would be good or bad itself in Russia, if it’s activated a lot it is potentially a way of running through lots of brake pads. 

That should work, except it didn't on my 90TD5... After fitting lockers I would always end up with an ABS error when using them for some time. As it was my daily at the time, I fitted a relay in parallel to the ARB compressor to disconnect the power supply to the ABS ECU. For Ladoga, I would just take out the fuse.

Most other points have been well covered in previous replies: preparation and reliability is key to survival, make sure you know your vehicle and having a good (support) crew is vital.

Filip

[landroversforever]

4 hours ago, Escape said:

That should work, except it didn't on my 90TD5... After fitting lockers I would always end up with an ABS error when using them for some time. As it was my daily at the time, I fitted a relay in parallel to the ARB compressor to disconnect the power supply to the ABS ECU. For Ladoga, I would just take out the fuse.

Most other points have been well covered in previous replies: preparation and reliability is key to survival, make sure you know your vehicle and having a good (support) crew is vital.

Filip

Interesting! I wonder if part of it's checks is always having some slight wheelspeed differences?

[L19MUD]

45 minutes ago, landroversforever said:

Interesting! I wonder if part of it's checks is always having some slight wheelspeed differences?

my guess would be that it calculates the expected variance in wheel speed depending on steering angle and that is why it causes the issue as to be exactly the same then some of the wheels have to be slipping when turning

[PandaSpeedShop]

I am also lead to believe that the discovery 2 traction control system is more complex than that of a defender. So I think disabling the SLABS ecu would be the way to go. 

[Escape]

18 hours ago, L19MUD said:

my guess would be that it calculates the expected variance in wheel speed depending on steering angle and that is why it causes the issue as to be exactly the same then some of the wheels have to be slipping when turning

Sounds logical and I was thinking something similar, but as far as I know my Defender didn't have a steering angle sensor...

[Daan]

Hi Panda, and welcome to the madhouse. I was with the group of landies doing Ladoga in 2009; Tyres, the locals like to use the bogger tyres:

 

They are not available here anymore due to EU regulations on noise. If you want them you can still import them from the US. I used the Maxis Mudzilla, and they were very, very good in the swamps, and average in the forests:

Maxis now has the Trepador, which I think does get used in Ladoga as well.

As mentioned, get the biggest tyre that is allowed in your class, and you need some kind of tyre retention option. Bead locks are not allowed in TR1, but you can gorilla glue the tyres to the bead or at the very least use inner tubes.

We were running tyres as low as 2 psi in the swamps, which was key to the performance there.

The winch will need to be very dependable, if it dies, Ladoga is over for you. So at the very least a spare motor or spare winch and use double batteries. I would not rely on traction control; If it even works, you will go through a set of brake pads in less than a day. Diff locks are a good idea, as are heavy duty shafts. If you think of building a new car for Ladoga, Can I suggest choosing a different car? A disco is heavy for Tr1, where you are up against Suzuki Jimnys which are half the weight of a disco. 

Most important thing is to get to the end of it, and 8 days of hardcore offroad is not easy, most people struggle to get to the end of a 1 day pay and play event in 1 piece, let alone 8 days non stop. 

Reliability and weight are the most important things for Ladoga, in this order.

We liked the event very much, it was completely different from what we have done before. To give you an impression of the swamps, where the average off roader likes to apply max power where it gets difficult, in ladoga, you race at tickover in the swamps. Your car need to be able to do this for miles on end:

If you can do this, fine, if not, you are winching for miles on end. That is Ladoga in a nutshell.

Daan

[PandaSpeedShop]

Thank you for your reply, I am going to have to use the disco I have due to time and budget constraints. I will be going for adventure class which hopefully is a little less competitive than TR-1. 
 

As for the tyres I am thinking 285/75r16 which should be 32.8” I will have to go and measure the tyres I buy as I do not want to be over the max size and get bumped up into the class above. Initial thought lead me to insa turbo special track. I have used them before and they are very good in deep mud. Not sure how good they will be aired down due to them being remoulds and the sidewalls are far from soft. 
 

I am planning on taking a spare winch out there. As losing a winch is one of my big fears. 

[miketomcat]

We abused the M8000 on ours a even broke the drum housing where the tie bar mounts (due to bunched rope) but it kept on going. On several occasions we were manually cooling the motor with swamp water. We snapped an 11mm plasma rope on stage 5, tied it together to get us out and back to camp. In camp I spliced it together and continued to use it. In fact that rope is now on the Fairey 525 on the wife's 110, complete with splice still in it.

Mike

[PandaSpeedShop]

What would you recommend as the very minimum low line winch? I have a Chinese winch on the truck currently (winch max/rhino winch type of thing) and I will be buying a backup. It works ok for the pay and play days/punch hunts I have used it for but it would probably die a horrible death in a day or two at Ladoga. 

[Daan]

A high mount winch would be better, as you need 100 foot minimum, plus several extensions if you are in a swamp and the tree is too far away (we had 800 ft extension in total).

The come up or goodwinch seems to get good write ups. I have a superwinch EP9 as rear winch, has worked most of the time (I run a PTO at the front).

Perhaps a bowmotor for more punch as well as double batteries to back it up.

Your car will be the best part of 2.5 tons, so you need a lot of pulling power to get it out of a swamp.

Fit the new winch to the front and your spare to the back, so you can swap them over.

 

Daan

[miketomcat]

The class your going in does less swamp than daan did. From memory we had 30m on the winch a 30m spare and about 50m of assorted strops.  I don't recall using much more than 70m in one length, but we did triple line at least twice. We had a second hand M8000 and a spare motor. The camel had a husky and spare motor. If your going to take a spare winch then Chinese ones will probably be fine just give them a good clean and service. I would happily go back with an EP9, come up or TDS my current winch is an X9 also a good winch.

Mike

[Nonimouse]

15 hours ago, PandaSpeedShop said:

What would you recommend as the very minimum low line winch? I have a Chinese winch on the truck currently (winch max/rhino winch type of thing) and I will be buying a backup. It works ok for the pay and play days/punch hunts I have used it for but it would probably die a horrible death in a day or two at Ladoga. 

Winch Max winches are actually pretty well made. Go for big numbers - ie over 10k. The gearing is slower, but that means you use less juice and there's less strain . Get a spare exactly the same model/make. Strip the winch down when you get it. Clean all the grease off and regrease with decent quality. If you fancy a trip to Somerset, I'll do it for you. Gratis

 

For rope, don't use the chinese copy stuff, it's very unknown in reliable quality. This guy is excellent https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Product-Service/The-Cheapest-Rope-Company-100921071734477/ SK95 at good prices - 98is slightly stronger, but 95 is pretty damn good. Big hooks. Easy and simple...  Goodwinch  (speak to Will; he'll probably give you a deal) sell well priced tested soft shackles. Cheap untested soft shackles are a liability

[PandaSpeedShop]

Thanks for the replies guys. Spoke to Will at Goodwinch, will be getting one of their winches in along with all of the associated accessories.

Had a set of 285/75r16 insa turbo special tracks measured and they come in just within spec at 32.8” so will have a set of those on their way after pay day.
 

Going for a set of Ashcroft lockers  and HD shafts next month too. 

Managed to pick up a gpsmap64s pretty cheap second hand too. So going to get familiar with that. 

I have also started an Instagram account to document the build/trip. 
@ladoga_disco for those that might be interested. Or @panda_speed_shop which is my normal account with a mixture of restoration/paintwork/fabrication/drifting.

Edited January 14, 2022 by PandaSpeedShop

[elbekko]

28 minutes ago, PandaSpeedShop said:

Had a set of 285/75r16 insa turbo special tracks measured and they come in just within spec at 32.8” so will have a set of those on their way after pay day.

Be careful, being remoulds no 2  sets are the same size!

[landroversforever]

For the diffs, have a chat with Nigel at Xcess4x4 he’s a wizard (and also a total fruitcake!) also on here as @Hybrid_From_Hell

[PandaSpeedShop]

15 minutes ago, elbekko said:

Be careful, being remoulds no 2  sets are the same size!

This really concerns me. I am not sure how to get round it apart from buy and hope for the best. Is there a good non-remould alternative at a similar price. BFG Mud tyres don’t look aggressive enough, Radar renegade seem more aggressive, comforser cf300 look similar to mudzillas but I am not sure any of them will deal with mud and bog like insa turbo special track. 

[Daan]

I think if you go with Insa, the extreme line mud terrain would be the best bet:

 

The problem with the special track, (or any simex pattern) is that they don't work well in the swamps. They seem to dig holes in a swamp I think. I have first no hand experience with this, but Uncle Jez has forbidden me to take my Simex tyres to Ladoga, so I bought the Mudzillas. They were amazing in the swamps, and even on the forest tracks, although they are not that course, they are the best self cleaning tyre I have ever seen. If you look at this picture, the thread is completely open:

It is as real shame you cannot get them anymore, as it would be a great choice IMO.

In Russia, the solution if your tyres are too big is a chain saw.

 

Daan

[miketomcat]

We did the first stage on 31" BFG km1's. The ones daan linked look good, having been I wouldn't have a problem with taking km3. As daan says we were warned off simex by jez. I think good self cleaning is best. Once you break the surface it's just ooze so floatation is useful.

Mike

[Escape]

The Muzillas are a copy of the Mickey Thompson Baja Claw. I had those on my Defender and they worked very well on most surfaces. Unfortunately also hard to get in Europe these days, I had some shipped from the US for my Range but that was ridiculously expensive...