Ironman 5.9 Race Jeep

[IronmanAndy]

here are two more crap cell phone pics of the jeep minus the doors and the beginning of the cage.

We are building the cage narrow on purpose so that we have room to tie it into the uni-body at all points.
A

[IronmanAndy]

Better pics of the cage. It's being built out of 1.75 .120 wall DOM and will be tied into the body many times around each main pillar. We want the doors to go back on! First pic shows the body manipulation we did to the rear, it's gonna have a high clearance rear bumper with recovery points.

[Jeeptech01]

Doesnt it kill the strength of the main hoop bending the bottoms in to meet the rails like that?

[IronmanAndy]

It may lose a little strength if we were to leave it that way. The reason I did that is for more surface area at the weld as well as clearing the sides of the door sill. We are going to tie that into the b door pillar and it will be gusseted a lot so it will actually be stronger than a straight joint. It will also help the floor plate be more rigid as we are only using 3/16 material for foot pads.
A

[IndyZJ]

Doesnt it kill the strength of the main hoop bending the bottoms in to meet the rails like that?

My thoughts exactly. I always thought a straight piece of tubing would resist bending better than a bent piece of tubing, hence why some sanctioning bodies don't allow more than 180 degrees of bend in the B pillar. It may not be as big of a deal in a unibody when tied into the pillars sufficiently, but I'd stick with the general "the fewer bends the better" for any cage. With proper X bracing it probably won't be as big of an issue, but it seems like straight tubing would be much better. That C Pillar is going to take a ton of extra bracing (added weight) to keep it from folding in a role, too.

[IronmanAndy]

I intend to gusset the bottom to tie the cage into the frame and the cross member. It will all tie together so much that the bend at the foot will be way beyond concern for strength in a roll situation.
We are also building this so that if it rolls it will roll and be able to hold its form so we can continue going.
The other part of this that we are putting a lot of though into is torsional rigidity. As we all know the uni-body will flex under axle movement and under heavy acceleration. We are going to build the stringers and rear section as a torsional support.
More to come. We will probably get back to this on wed.
A

[Jeeptech01]

10-4

[zjfabn]

[QUOTE=IronmanAndy;315057]Better pics of the cage. It's being built out of 1.75 .120 wall DOM and will be tied into the body many times around each main pillar. We want the doors to go back on! First pic shows the body manipulation we did to the rear, it's gonna have a high clearance rear bumper with recovery points.

Am I blind, I dont see it?

[IronmanAndy]

subtle plasma work, just took off everything up to the pinch seams.

[1ABrian]

lookin good man. I watched that video of the racing. That looks like a blast. Lots of fun to be had!!

[IronmanAndy]

I cant tell you the last time I had so much fun as at the last race. I encourage anyone that can do it to come on out!

[IronmanAndy]

Bottom of the X-brace from the B pillar to the C pillar






D Pillar tie-in to the body

[IronmanAndy]

5 days till the race. The cage is all done but for a few more welds. The front axle is trussed and The new UCA mounts are on the axle. The New LCAs are built and in place. Pics up soon.
A

[1ABrian]

Lookin pretty sick!! Looking forward to seeing more

[UTChavok]

A buddy of mine was racing with Chris May at the race and said he saw yall hauling ass in the A class. Heard you had a little unfortunate accident though with the oil pan and a certain trac bar. Got pics from it?

[Master-Pull]

I take it you are prototyping the 5.9 motor mounts for this rig? I can't wait to get our hands on a set!

-Alex

[IronmanAndy]

Yeah we had an issue with our track bar not liking the way the oil pan was looking at it... so the track bar decided to slap him around a little! oh well we were doing really well up to that point. The 5.9 was definitely the most powerful truck in A-Class but we are still trying to get our suspension gremlins under control... You can see more pics on our facebook page.

[IronmanAndy]

Here's a few pics from the recent ECORS race in Auburn, AL. Next one is in Spartanburg, SC and if you haven't made it to one you should it is a lot of fun. www.ECORS.com

Pre-race getting the pit set up


we smoked 'em of the line, the speedo said 90mph near the end of the straight


Mid way through our first lap


didn't see the tree so I'm pretty sure the doors won't be going back on... anybody need ZJ 5.9 doors????

[1ABrian]

OUCH...LOL thats awsome man. Sucks the doors wont go on again but that racing looks like so much fun!! What kinds of rigs were in the same race? Was it 1 on 1 or a group of vehicles?

[IronmanAndy]

there were about 12 vehicles racing in our class (Class A) as well as the 15 UTV's which they ran with A-Class. So there were about 27 vehicles on the course at once. B-Class had about 10 and C-Class (think KOH buggies) had about 15. The races are run separately by class so you have UTV/A-Class racing for 2 hours, then B-Class for 2 hours, then C-class for 2. They started the UTV's in front of us because they are quicker than the A-class trucks and they started 5 wide! A-Class ran 3 wide at the start and the others were 2 wide.

Oh and we saved over 500lbs by taking the doors off! We weighed them at the shop so we know!

[BigClay]

Wow 500lbs just in doors? Is that including the rear hatch?

[IronmanAndy]

Haven't weighed the hatch yet but I'm sure it puts the total well over 500! Fronts were 104lbs a piece and rears were 96lbs a piece, that hatch has got to weigh at least 100 if not more.

[IronmanAndy]

We made the front page of Pirate ---> http://www.pirate4x4.com/welcome1.php and here's the article --> http://www.pirate4x4.com/trailreport...cors/index.php

[albersondh]

Man your still running the lazy boys? I bet you ditch those front seats for something a bit more spartin and loose another 50lbs.

[CrawlerReady]

Very bad ass Andy! Looks like a damn good time.

I had a very similar track-bar-meets-oil-pan issue earlier this year. Got it all fixed now so I no longer have that issue.

Got any more pics? That one on Pirate is sick!