CannonBall
July 14th, 2009, 12:47
Well, I've done a bit to my XJ over the winter and while it's still stock height it has a bit of body armor and lockers, so I was ready to take it out on something harder than slaughterhouse. This is by far the hardest trail I've run in THIS jeep, but we made it through taking moderate to hard lines, generally avoiding the bypasses, and without getting stuck. The only damage I took was to my plastic bumper ends, and some dents in my exhaust, I was VERY happy with my jeep.
The abilities of the XJ are really impressive, it fared FAR better than some folks we passed with lifted but open rigs on our way out, but the height and small tires made for a tiring day. All in all the trail took about 4 hours.
My buddy Matt hasn't had his 4runner out since last summer and was eager to test out some new mods. We arrived at camp around 7 or so and after airing down were both antsy to check things out, so we took off in the dark trying to make it to the top of carnage where we were planning on just checking out the trail before returning back to camp. Matt's enthusiasm got the better of him and he pulled a bonehead RTI type flop in the middle of the trail. No one was hurt, we got everything back upright and returned to camp to run the trail in the morning.
My buddy took about 200 pictures, but his computer broke so he just sent a few. Here they are.
Don't laugh at how low the XJ is, it's a little ridiculous.
http://i25.tinypic.com/28k7kp4.jpg
Stock suspension flex baby!
http://i25.tinypic.com/23j4o3p.jpg
Not trying the hard line here, but also not spinning a tire. Big O and lockers FTW!
http://i29.tinypic.com/2je9zbm.jpg
Here's the nighttime flop, we went back by in the morning to make sure we got all the trash and I think brenkle even took a bag of oily dirt home but I'm not sure.
http://i31.tinypic.com/zjuquq.jpg
and the damage (sorry no action shots of the runner, just imagine the XJ but taller, I followed him just about everywhere) I even had to pull him off the stairs, geeze I thought those things were supposed to be capable.
http://i26.tinypic.com/23wrziv.jpg
All in all, no real breakage, we both drove back to denver and I was ecstatic to finally run a real trail, it's been a long time since I last got rid of my old heep.
Cheers.
-Nate
The abilities of the XJ are really impressive, it fared FAR better than some folks we passed with lifted but open rigs on our way out, but the height and small tires made for a tiring day. All in all the trail took about 4 hours.
My buddy Matt hasn't had his 4runner out since last summer and was eager to test out some new mods. We arrived at camp around 7 or so and after airing down were both antsy to check things out, so we took off in the dark trying to make it to the top of carnage where we were planning on just checking out the trail before returning back to camp. Matt's enthusiasm got the better of him and he pulled a bonehead RTI type flop in the middle of the trail. No one was hurt, we got everything back upright and returned to camp to run the trail in the morning.
My buddy took about 200 pictures, but his computer broke so he just sent a few. Here they are.
Don't laugh at how low the XJ is, it's a little ridiculous.
http://i25.tinypic.com/28k7kp4.jpg
Stock suspension flex baby!
http://i25.tinypic.com/23j4o3p.jpg
Not trying the hard line here, but also not spinning a tire. Big O and lockers FTW!
http://i29.tinypic.com/2je9zbm.jpg
Here's the nighttime flop, we went back by in the morning to make sure we got all the trash and I think brenkle even took a bag of oily dirt home but I'm not sure.
http://i31.tinypic.com/zjuquq.jpg
and the damage (sorry no action shots of the runner, just imagine the XJ but taller, I followed him just about everywhere) I even had to pull him off the stairs, geeze I thought those things were supposed to be capable.
http://i26.tinypic.com/23wrziv.jpg
All in all, no real breakage, we both drove back to denver and I was ecstatic to finally run a real trail, it's been a long time since I last got rid of my old heep.
Cheers.
-Nate