Swapped return flights and got home around 1am, vs. noon today.
OMG, what a past few days.
New car, holy crap.
The GOOD:
I would compare the ride to....sitting on your couch with a steering wheel and driving it across 3-4' deep whoops. You're butthole puckers up for the hits and they just never came. Its cheating compared to solid axle, just plain cheating. Going to take a while to untrain the mind that huge holes arent really a huge concern anymore.
Huge success in my book. Way exceeded expectations.
The BAD:
Car did get ****ed up a bit. And NOT BY ME....well I was driving...
Rick and I are at full fault for it though, we left the original DSI designed upper rear shockmounts. They seemed weak, so we thought about beefing and supporting them, then after Parker redoing them to accept a bigger shock package. We'll they collapsed and caused some pretty significant collateral damage, putting us on the trailer for the day. Nothing is perfect out right out of the box. This was a weak area and we're fixing it.
I'd already been talking with Wayne Isrealson about some King 3.5's that he had in stock, and since we were tuning with him when it happened it was pretty easy to pull the trigger on that upgrade now since that upper needs redone anyway.
Like I said we planned to make changes, just had hoped what was they would last through Parker. Changes being made now, vs. later.
I was coming down the Barstow main at about 60mph, where I'd been running over 80, and it just dropped, then 1st hit was a partial bottom out and got my attention, then the 2nd bottom out, I really lifted by then the rear suspension. I had packed and the 3rd hit was an ass end pogo.
I didnt realize what had happened yet, and Wayne came over radio about then, to come in as something didnt look right.
Just as I was passing the trailer those guys could see the white tire smoked coming off the right rear, and the knee jerk thought was I'd smoked the motor. The smoke was rolling up right at the exhaust so it made sense.
Shitty engineering, but even shittier is we knew it was bad, and didnt replace it.
I wont put these out there for the public to see so, please dont leak them outside this private forum. Rick, Wayne, Brian Smith, and Mark Chaney where there.
tower collapse, allowed the side load on the axle.
Shifted axle to the left and got into the bumpcans and exhaust.
Doesnt look like much on the driverside, but focus at the C/O bolt, the plate is pooched out here.
My welds held on the axle, but it tore the plate. Got very lucky this happened damn near at the trailer, as it could have gotten bad if that mount had penetrated the tank.
The bumpstop came down through the tire and hit the rim and just exploded it. I think the tire will make a decent spare, as it doesnt appear to have any holes in it, just a nice grove in the sidewall, right at the tread.
Tireballs FTW!!!
