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brandiesel
Bone Stock
Posts:2
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| 12/17/2007 10:05 AM |
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| whats up... i just left the im |
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webby4x4
Forum Admin, Magazine Editor
Rock Star
Posts:2375
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| 12/17/2007 8:44 PM |
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Welcome to the boards, and good call on making the switch from imports to 4x4's!
You're going to have a lot of fun with your new 4x4, especially at OBX. Like any sport or hobby though, there are a couple of things you should consider.
1) Your only as good as your skills. That is, don't expect to be able to win the Baja 500 overnight. Learning your vehicle's limitations is really important to having a really great time when you're off road. One way to sour your off-road experience is to get your rig stuck during one of your first off road adventures. Kind of like buying a new car and expecting to win an autocross, drifting race or drag your first time around - if you lose early, you'll be discouraged. (OK, enough of the old guy lingo (although, I'm really not that old [)])).
2) You'll only ever be as good as your equipment (true in golf, true in racing, true in just about any hobby or sport there is). The reason I bring this up is this; if you go cheap, your results will be cheap. If you slap a body lift on your truck and bolt on bigger tires, you'll be sorely dissappointed. Spending a bit of extra money up front will reap you huge benefits and make your experience a LOT more fun - afterall, you're doing this to have fun, right?
Here are some good rules of thumb to keep in mind...
- If you put on bigger tires, ALWAYS change your axle gears. Unless you're going from 215 75R15 to 225 75R15's. Anything beyond that, and you really need to deepen your gears to bring back the lost power and reduce stress on your drive train.
- Generally speaking, suspension lifts are better than body lifts. Body lifts do not alter the suspension in any way, which means that you will NOT gain any more suspension travel. Plus, stock suspension typically doesn't handle the added unsprung weight of bigger tires as well as aftermarket suspensions.
- Tires - go as aggressive as you think you can stand while driving daily. Since you're a tuner guy, you'll know that getting good meats makes your on-road performance. The only difference in 4x4's is that tires typically get noisier, the more aggressive they are. If you don't mind some tire noise, go for mud terrains (unless you're driving in a lot of snow and hardly ever going off road, in that case, get all terraings like BFGoodrich AT's).
Now... if you're on a really tight budget, and you only ever go to the sand dunes and don't head to the trails, then you can get away with a body lift and slightly larger tires.
Flotation is the real key for running sand dunes, which means you'll need good torque and horsepower, coupled with larger tires that are aired down (this allows you to float on top of the sand, and not dig down). IF you go with bigger tires and air them down, then you will absolutely need to go with deeper gears - otherwise you'll bog the motor and be really dissappointed.
Sorry for the diatribe. Hope this helps!
Rick |
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Rick Webster
Editor, 4X4REVIEW.COM - A Tork Media, Inc. Publication
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'74 FJ40 Land Cruiser
"Measure once, cut twice" |
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