Rebirth of Monster Mudder

Already have the first oil spot, anti freeze, etc... on the floor. I'll eventually get the building finished, but even with 2 sets of extension cords run into it from the house, it's better than working on the dirt or rocks that I did have. I'll just be glad to get power to it and some lights and plugins....
 
Right now I have about 63k in it, by the time I get it finished probably 75k, that includes electric, commercial kitchen, bathroom and storage room.
 
Ive not read on this in a LONG time, we talked a couple or few years ago about doing you a TH400 and sat you up with my convertor guy, did you go that route? If so how are you liking it? Also have you had Any failuars?

Tucker
 
Yeah, I went the th400 route, but had it built by someone else as they guys you pointed me too went out of business or at least wasn't answering the phone when I tried to order my trans. I had it rebuilt after the first season because I burned some clutches on my last race trying a high range run and not enough cooling capacity. I've tripled my cooling now and am on the 2nd year for the trans. I've had my converter tightened up as tight as they can make it. It seems to work. I launched all last year at 20lbs of boost off the trans brake. After I get the truck back together, next race I'm going to launch in 2nd gear as first is just too low in low range. I think the new turbo will really wake the truck up, ended up going with an s475.
 
NakeDiesel said:
Right now I have about 63k in it, by the time I get it finished probably 75k, that includes electric, commercial kitchen, bathroom and storage room.
Click to expand...

Dam, that's alot "nicer" than I thought :lolly:
 
It's not cheap to build a building anymore. The building package alone was 23k, interior steel 5k, 11k for concrete, 10k for insulation, then you have rough plumbing, dirt work, electrical... I'm doing what I can by myself, but there are some jobs a lone person just can't do or get done in a timely manner.
 
Well, I got the truck back together with the new s475 in it and made the race Saturday. The pit was a disaster, the bottom fell out of it when they were prepping it and a huge hole developed at the end. Lets just say that a 3 hour race event turned into a slow 7 hour event. My class 2 run ended with me going only 50' into the pit as something just didn't feel right. After I shut it down they told me the rear wheels weren't spinning. I hadn't gotten the 205 fully engaged after putting the front drive shaft back in when I was testing the truck Thursday evening. I got the transfercase engaged and came back to make my class 3 run. Started out great, was making good progress and then I hear a loud pffffthththththt sound and knew I'd blown the hump boot after the 90 off the compressor. I have the 3 boots wired where they won't come apart, and yesterday after I unloaded it off the trailer I found a rip on the underside of the hump hose. Guess I should have replaced it after the turbo failure as it got pretty hot and must have weakened it.

Time to order a new boot and see what the next race brings. Be glad when I can make a good solid pass.
 
Wow, awesome shop! That's a lot of work. I hope in the next few years I can put one up like yours. Stinks to hear about the boot. Keep it up man!
 
NakeDiesel said:
It's not cheap to build a building anymore. The building package alone was 23k, interior steel 5k, 11k for concrete, 10k for insulation, then you have rough plumbing, dirt work, electrical... I'm doing what I can by myself, but there are some jobs a lone person just can't do or get done in a timely manner.
Click to expand...

I have been tossing the idea around about a shop/house... could you pm me some more details about "kit" options or who to talk to, to get some better ideas

Sent from phone
 
Wow, the summer has flown by and race season is almost over. We are down to our final two points races over the next two weekends and then the season will be done. I've done pretty good over the rest of the season since I replaced my turbo with the s475. I'm planning on checking my timing on the truck and advancing it to 25 degrees to see how it works with the turbo, it's either at 20 or 22 degrees right now.

In the points run, I'm 1 point behind first in class 2 and 8 points behind 1st in class 3. Sitting in 2nd place in both classes right now. I'm hoping I can beat JR on the next 2 races and then I should get 1st. In class 2, the top 3 trucks we ran in an almost empty 200' pit, my time was 3.99 seconds, JR's was 4.00 seconds and Kieth who is in 3rd was 4.07 seconds. I got blown away by another truck that ran a 3.8 in that class, and haven't been able to beat him since. I was beating him at all the races up to that race, he's dropped a new motor in or something to make his truck faster.

I went to the friday night portion of the 8 lug event at TRP and tried my truck on the dyno and wasn't impressed with the numbers I got on the dyno. I know their is more power in my truck that what the dyno showed. I talked to others there that dyno'd there that night and they were all seeing less than what they expected.

9938029163_37b529828f_b.jpg

9937924326_7b9d98e5fa_b.jpg


Not sure what I'm planning for the truck for next season, I want to rebody it with the old power wagon body, possibly a gear change, possibly moving up to a class 3 truck and running classes 3 and 4. Think I might pull the pump and have it tuned and flowed to get more out of it. If I go to class 3 I can run twins, but not really sure I need twins. With the ease my truck spools the s475, I could move to a larger single and bump up to 5x.20's or something. I just need to figure out what I can afford and go from there.

My shop is taking most of my cash right now trying to get it finished and fully functioning. If anyone wants to waste some time, it's documented here: It's finally going to happen - The Garage Journal Board

I need to run power and air all over the shop still and get lights installed. Next year will come the heat/ac and water/sewer being hooked up.

The truck is still the crowd favorite at the races. I get lots of cheers and people asking about it. And gas racers *****ing about it.

I'll put all my videos together at the end of the season and post them up when I get them compiled into a single video.
 
What in the hell was up with your torque numbers?

I have no idea how they calculated HP considering HP is a function of rpms and torque...

HP=(RPM*Torque)/5252

Did they have you get the wheels spinning in your 1:1 gear at a certain rpm (usually 2000)? If you get the rpms lower when they clock it, you'll show higher numbers, and vice verse.

So...
The chart says at 2000rpm, you were at least at 2500ftlbs:
HP=(2000*2500)/5252=952rwhp
 
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I don't know what was up with their dyno or how they calculated hp. I had to borrow some tires while there because I only had the 37" boggers with me, didn't even think about them not working well on a dyno. They put a reflective sticker on my damper and used an optical pickup to capture rpm since I don't have an alternator on the truck. I capture RPM using a mag pickup on the 4 bolt holes for the ati damper and run that through a GM hei module to trigger my tach.

They claimed my truck spooled too fast for the dyno to capture. I left unhappy and dissatisfied and wasted 2 hours changing rear tires on my truck with a bottle jack and a lug wrench. They claimed my truck wasn't in 3rd gear at one point, I proved to them it was. They wanted me to hold my brakes down as I brought the truck up. That didn't make any sense to me as it would have made my engine work harder and build boost faster than it already was. This was my first time ever putting a truck on a chassis dyno, so I'm not sure what the hell the problem was.

I'm hoping to make a trip up to Joe's in early spring and spend some time on his dyno to tune on the truck and see where it's really at and what we can get it at.
 
Bumped the injection pump timing from 19.5 degrees to 25 degrees for this weekend's race. Truck ran great once I got it started in the cold damp evening to get it off the trailer. Guess I'm going to have to start packing a little either for when the weather's like that. Truck ran awesome. Placed 1st in class 2 and 2nd in class 3 with two very good runs. In class 3 there was only 600th's of a second difference between me and first.

My class 2 run
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC4zpMlW8uY"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC4zpMlW8uY[/ame]

My class 3 run
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gK4IpZS4SM"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gK4IpZS4SM[/ame]
 
Usually on a dyno, you get to 3rd gear, lock the converter, the they have you sit at a certain RPM (so they tell you 2000rpm, you keep the truck there), then they mark that your wheel speed right then is equal to 2000 engine rpm. That way everything is constant through your rear wheels.

That's how it was on my truck, on my car (08 Audi A4 AWD) they did the same thing but AWD, and then also hooked up to the OBD2 port to rear sensors, but I think that was just for the tuning.

Oh, and the last dyno I did was on my Cooper STT 37" tires, and the time before that was on BFG T/A 35" tires. Not sure why they made you swap your tires...
 
I run a th400, so there isn't a lockup to get a constant from. The people running it were questionable about whether they knew what they were doing or not. They claimed the boggers would expand too much and cause the truck to bounce around too much on the hamster wheel.

On another note, the season ended with a wimper, the last points race of the season was cancelled due to the pit location flooding the night before the race with the storm that hit. It was supposed to be held on the infield of a dirt circle track and their drainage system didn't work. So we closed out the season with our dinner and awards ceremony. I took home 2nd in class 2 and 2nd in class 3. That's 3 years in a row I've gotten 2nd in class 2. I came back pretty good considering how the season started for me with two races back to back with terrible finished due to my turbo crapping out and catching my carbon fiber stack on fire.

I'm running one more race this year in 2 weeks at Kansas Badlands where they have thier multi state shootout. Then it's time to tear the truck apart and figure out what I'm going to be doing for next season and to start building a truck for the kids to race next year. That's going to get expensive running 2 trucks next year.

I need to pickup a new trailer to haul both trucks and the 4 wheeler. Find an older full size blazer for them and am planning on building up a 427 bb chevy for them to run. They will be racing in class 1 so they will have to pull 17 inches of vacuum to fit into that class.

I'm looking for 40 to 44 inch ultra skinny mud tires for them. Maybe some mud tires off a school bus or something. At the widest 9", I'll run them on some 6" wide wheels.

For my truck, next season I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet. I think I'm going to try regearing my truck and switching to the high side of the transfer case. I want to change the body over from the 2nd gen body to the 46 power wagon body I have. Build a cage for the truck. Replace the shifter with a better one that I don't have to beat on to get it into 3rd gear. I'm also thinking about moving up to a class 3 truck, which will allow me to run a hood stack. I also want to send out my 215 pump and have it bench flowed and tuned to make more power.

My time and pocketbook are going to be the biggest limits on what I can accomplish in the down season. I still need to get electrical ran in my shop and lights bought and put in as well. As well as build more fence for the farm. I just finished up a new 1/4 mile section of new barb wire and need to build another 3/4 of a mile to get my place finished off with good fence.
 
2013 Season is over

Finished up the 2013 season this weekend by attending the Central States Shootout at Kansas Badlands this weekend. I ran in Class 5 with 85 other trucks and thought I was going to be way outgunned in this class. I ended up doing way better than I thought I would and think I finished in the top 10 trucks, waiting on the full class results to be posted to know for sure. I also ran in their class 6 but was the 5th truck through out of 34 trucks and by the end the pit was way faster than it was at the start. Had a lot of fun this season racing the truck.

I put together a video of all of my runs over this season.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3OW7XQmGuI"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3OW7XQmGuI[/ame]
 
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