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Team NAXJA/Petty Cash Racing stock class KOH XJ build

Is the resolution and reaction fast enough?
 
Sposedly. Will set it to up the signal 20% and see what we get out of it.
 
Cage pics, A pillar notch was a bitch
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At 1st I thought WTF?!?!?!
He actually cut through the roof & built it on top & then thought about for a sec & thought what a great idea!
Allows for complete around welds & gives you a light bar & a roof rack all at the same time.:thumbup:

Maybe more common than I know?
But 1st time I've seen it.
 
Its actually done to allow headroom in the car.

Ultra4 rules require 3" of space above your helmet, and the cage would not allow it. This way we have more room.


As a side benefit, when we barrel roll the car, there is less damage.
 
Here's what it's like to go Ultra4 racing. Cal and friends prep the car including repairing a ripped UCA axle mount. Thurs morning Cal and Mark drive from Orange County to Bakersfield, while I go to the doctor to get the finger I broke when we rolled at Glen Helen checked out and hopefully get cleared. No luck on the finger, gotta keep the splint on a few more weeks. Cal and Mark arrive and we move 4643 and the spare parts and gear from Cal's trailer to my trailer and the three of us leave Bakersfield for Salt Lake City. On I15 between St George and Cedar City we blow a rear tire on my truck at 70 mph. These are load range G 19.5's, but the spare is not, so we move a front tire to the back and put the spare on the front. We notice on close inspection that a couple of the other tires don't look so good, so we continue on at a slower pace. We stop for fuel in Beaver UT a little after 10:00 and are lucky enough to find a tire shop that is still open, and amazingly they have a selection of 245/70 19.5 load range G tires. We buy four and are out of there a little after midnight. We pull into Miller Motorsports Park a little after 3 am.

Fri morning we finish registration and at 10 am is practice. We've walked the course a few times to check out lines through the rock sections, but it's pretty tough when we get out there. We struggle and almost roll a couple times through the first section, and struggle and almost roll on another section when we can't get to the line we thought would work, and we hear some clunking underneath. We pull off the course and back to the pits to check it out and find the other UCA axle mount has come apart. Thank heavens Rough Stuff Specialties is there and they come over and get us fixed up. We also find that our transmission is not shifting properly, and Cal checks and adjusts everything he can think of. We skip qualifying and have a few beers. It's hot. The generator quits working so we can't run the A/C in the camper. The needle valve in the carb is worn and we can't get a replacement this weekend. Around 6 pm Jeff, Mark and I head over with a bunch of other Ultra4 guys to race go karts, the park has a pretty nice go kart racing course and rental karts. That evening we drive to town and have dinner with a few of the Intermountain chapter folks.

Sat morning we go to the drivers meeting. Our prelim race is at 11:00 and our main is at 2:30. We start the prelim and on the first lap we roll at the very first section of obstacles taking a line we walked and thought would be the quickest way through. We struggle on various lines and end up having to make multi point turns to get on a makeable line. Oh well. On the next hard section we try a line we think will be quick but almost roll and save it but the save takes us almost off course and we have to do the longest possible route through the section to be able to keep going. We get through the first lap and on the remaining laps run other lines through the obstacles that aren't the fastest but we can do them all cleanly and we finish in 3rd place. The trans is shifting like crap and we can't accelerate under full power, which is pretty frustrating.

We decide to unplug the TCU and shift the trans manually without 2nd gear (which you won't get if the TCU is unplugged). We try it, the trans shifts and holds in gear, we plug the TCU back in and try it and realize we don't have 2nd gear. It's been shifting from 1st to 3rd (only when I let off the gas) and when I get back on the gas it wants to downshift to 2nd (which isn't there) so it shifts back to 1st at 6k rpm. We decide to leave the TCU unplugged so at least I can choose 1st, 3rd and 4th and it will hold in those gears and we can accelerate at full throttle. We start the main with high hopes and are in 2nd place as we complete one lap of the short course and enter the rocks. Even without 2nd gear we can at least accelerate and are much faster on the short course. We run slower lines but are clean through the rock sections until we clear the very last rock obstacle where I hit it a touch too hard and are slightly off line and we roll again. Crap, two races and two rolls in the rocks on the first lap. It takes the course workers awhile to get over to us because two other cars rolled right before we did. They finally get us over, we tap the starter a few times to make sure we're not hydro locked, fire it up and take off. Now we just want to run the rest of the race fast and clean with no more mistakes and keep moving and see what happens, which we do. Except that the car starts running really rough on the last couple of laps. We notice a couple cars have stopped with mechanical problems, and when we get to the end of the race we learn we're in 2nd place. We also finished ahead of Kevin Adler who we are fighting against for the series points lead. The car is now running so rough we don't know if we would have made another lap. Of course, yesterday it was hot but now it's raining. We get our trophy, and try to keep the dash in the car from getting soaking wet. After watching the unlimited main, great race BTW, we hang out with the IC chapter folks who have come out and we have to stay out of another thundershower. Eventually some of the guys take off and we start to load everything up so we can leave. Now the car won't start, won't turn over at all. We have to winch the car onto the trailer.

After getting everything loaded up we hang out and visit with some of the other racers, say goodbye to Jeff and Derek, and leave the park a little after 9 pm. Stop in town to fill up and grab something to eat and hit the road back to Bakersfield. We drive until 1:30 and then stop to sleep, get up at 6:30 and head out again. No problems on the way home and we get to Bakersfield mid afternoon. We unload everything, load stuff back up in Cal's truck, and the car starts up. Something got wet in the rain and messed with the starter circuits. The car is still running very rough, we're thinking probably fuel filters, but we'll have to check it out. Cal and Mark head back to Orange County to Cal's house, then Mark will drive back home to San Diego. We covered a lot of ground in four days, had probably more than our share of calamities, but we had a good time and came away in the lead for the series points championship. We'll need to check into the wet starter wiring, and figure out what's going on with the transmission, and we have more body damage since we rolled once on each side. The next race, last of the season, is in Las Vegas the last weekend in Sept. Right before we leave for Moab.
 
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At 1st I thought WTF?!?!?!
He actually cut through the roof & built it on top & then thought about for a sec & thought what a great idea!
Allows for complete around welds & gives you a light bar & a roof rack all at the same time.:thumbup:

Maybe more common than I know?
But 1st time I've seen it.

The external halo isn't particularly common but not uncommon either. A really good way to do a halo in the cramped space an XJ provides.
 
:tv:Oh god. 97 pages of reading is finally done. After watching vindication the other day it inspired me to re-read this thread and catch up. Wow. It's taken about a week haha. The car is as classy as ever. Hopefully this unibody lasts another season or two. Still my favorite build. One that has inspired my current build more then any other xj. Helping out at last year's koh was a dream come true. I hope to be there again this year! Assuming you will be entering.


I wouldnt bother with that hub kit. The unit bearing setup is far stronger, and there is no gain to economy. The only reason I did it was for 5x5.5 while keeping stronger internal parts than D44 stuff offers.
do you think there is a way we could have a xj/tj unit bearing produced in 5x5.5? I too would benefit from it. I've talked to you before about the warn kit, I just would perfer units over this system and would like to get rid of my Synergy MFG wheel adapters.

What shock mounts are these? Also, any more pictures on how the upper end is mounted? Any advice on mounting rear shocks without going through the floor?
I agree with all that but what are the odds that you break a full spool?
I sheared the splines off a a spool earlier this year. Didn't damage the shaft splines
Before the next event we'll go to Yukon 30 spline drive slugs. We really liked the idea of the hubs as a fuse, but they have already been more trouble than they are worth.
How are you liking the slugs? I thought I read that you went with a different company for the drive slugs.

Two bolts only. We moved it forward by one bolt hole to help the trackbar clear the coil at the passenger knuckle.
was the frame platted on th3 bottom side and if so did it interfer with the rubicon express mount at all when moving it forword? I need to do this soon to stop my upper link from hitting my track bar.
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Deaver Q80 leafs. 104" wheelbase. 14" easy wheel travel, and could squeeze more out of it if we could run longer shocks. This is what inspired the HP60 rear swap - the driveshaft didnt droop far enough for the LP44. :)
Any more info on how you made these rear mounts? What shackles are these?
Nice job. I never came and said hi but saw you guys running around. Your chase crew was just leaving pit 1 when we got there for the car we were chasing....they were just a tad slower...lol.
you should have got there sooner. That was me in the new white duramax beating the crap out of her on the way out. Surprised me on how fast she would go back to the main road.

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New motor is in. That was a productive weekend. I'm beat. :)

Couple more accessories bolted on tonight.

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What year are the pullys etc on the driverside? I'm going to a 0331 head and 99+ manifold on my renix. I just need more info on the accessories etc.
 
in very short
drivers side is 99+ stuff
no more info on rear shackle setup, it was all hand made, those are the best pics.

cant do xj/tj unit bearings in 5x5.5. some guys have re-drilled WJ unit bearings to 5x5.5, only works on WJ knuckles, its sketchy and i would not do it - the wheel studs sit at the very outside of the knuckle with not much meat holding them in. maybe you could make a collar to sleeve the outside?
 
in very short
drivers side is 99+ stuff
no more info on rear shackle setup, it was all hand made, those are the best pics.

cant do xj/tj unit bearings in 5x5.5. some guys have re-drilled WJ unit bearings to 5x5.5, only works on WJ knuckles, its sketchy and i would not do it - the wheel studs sit at the very outside of the knuckle with not much meat holding them in. maybe you could make a collar to sleeve the outside?

I was thinking more along the lines of having a bearing produced in 5x5.5. Have you heard of anyone looking into that?

Also, is that a stock power steering pump?
 
Alloy-USA was looking into it before they got bought out by Omix, nothing ever came of it.

I really don't think there is enough demand to warrant it. There is no problem with 5x4.5 in most situations and jeep has been migrating to 5x5 since the late 90's.


Interestingly, JK's sold to the Israeli military have 5x5.5 unit bearings in them from the factory. I tried many times, there is absolutely no way for us to buy those parts.
 
Interestingly, JK's sold to the Israeli military have 5x5.5 unit bearings in them from the factory. I tried many times, there is absolutely no way for us to buy those parts.

PM Sent...
 
if you're considering a JK axle swap, why not just go 5x5?

You can get 5x5 axles for our dana 44's and for 8.8's.
 
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