Fire Guys Racing's transformation from 7s to 7200/Class 6 w/ Camburg Suspension

[Wermz84]

Amazing looking rig.   

All that video and no torque numbers at the end..    

I know, I know.  probably secret info type stuff so the competition cannot gleen any information.

[Wainiha]

Wow!

[FireGuysRacing]

Amazing looking rig.   

All that video and no torque numbers at the end..    

I know, I know.  probably secret info type stuff so the competition cannot gleen any information.

We don't have "real" numbers anyway, the clutch was slipping a little so it was mostly a tuning session.  I can tell you it was more than we had before and we have bigger tires (33" vs 35").  New clutch going in today.

[FireGuysRacing]

Just got home from our tuning trip. We made some progress on the truck in a few areas! We did some tuning out in the desert in the Lake Havasu, AZ area with LC Engineering and Gabe from Street Nologe Performance and made some awesome changes to the performance with how and when the power hits! The few videos I have here are all from the engine tuning session. We had a small oil leak from a fitting that cracked and was able to fix it and continue with the tuning. Toward the end of tuning we developed a vibration at above 60mph. We were pretty much done with the tuning so we called it quits for the day. We swapped out the drive shaft with our spare, found that the weights were all still there, and there were no dings from any rocks. When we had these drive shafts made we were told they were pretty long for what we are doing with them and he told us he tubed them with the heaviest wall tubing he could to see if they would live. We headed out to Plaster City, CA for shock tuning the next day with Joe from Fox. The day started off well with no vibration so we thought we were good. We started making some changes in the right direction and after a little bit Paul felt the the vibration as he went over a roller while shifting into 4th. He started to say something to Harvey (one of the guys on our crew who was riding with him) about if he felt that and bang! The drive shaft let go and spit out the rear. It broke the rear of the transmission and scrambled something inside the third member. At this point we think it was a drive shaft problem that caused everything else but will be looking through all the damage for any other reasons for the issue. The vibration going away for a bit with the drive shaft change leads us to believe it is a drive shaft problem.

edit by BigMike: embedded videos

[Wainiha]

My turn to drive! hehe

[BigMike]

Sounds & looks great!

[Nation]

That looks like some fun!

[FireGuysRacing]

It was fun until we spit the drive shaft out the back of the truck!  We think we had an issue in the 3rd member possibly locking it up and it sent a bunch of damage forward taking out the drive shaft and the rear of the transmission.

Jason

I will have to post the pictures later.  The files are too big to post from my phone.

[FireGuysRacing]

Sounds & looks great!

Hey Mike,

You or Marlin heading to the SEMA show this year?  Our little mishap took out the transmission and if no one is headed to SEMA we will just ship it out to you guys...

Thanks,
Jason

[FireGuysRacing]

Mike,

I called today and got everything taken care of...

Thanks

[twistedtoy92]

Oh man that thing sounds good!!! Bummer about the carnage though...

[Nation]

 

[FireGuysRacing]

Here are a couple of pictures we got from the video above...  Full droop and almost full compression!

Jason

[FireGuysRacing]

Here are the pictures from the carnage...  This was a problem in the 3rd member that sent all the damage forward to the transmission..

Jason

[Nation]

 

[twistedtoy92]

Oh man thats nasty....

[FireGuysRacing]

Here is the full video from tuning the engine and shocks!

Jason

[Wainiha]

I'd like to try 100mph in a hovercraft.  When you shipping that to me?

[Nation]

Starting to get some ideas for another build here

[theslayer85]

Man trough break on the damage.  Isn't that Murphy's law?  Nice truck. 

[FireGuysRacing]

Thank you Marlin!!!  Met up with Marlin and his wife at the SEMA show and swapped the broken transmission for a newly built Marlin Transmission!  Can't wait to get the truck back out to the desert again!  Now to get a whole new 3rd member...

Jason

[BigMike]

Hey Jason,

I finally got some time to respond Great videos BTW and I saw our old transmission that Marlin brought back and it seems to be in pretty good shape other than the downstream carnage!

We had a small oil leak from a fitting that cracked and was able to fix it and continue with the tuning.

http://www.amazon.com/s?field-keywords=torque wrench

When we had these drive shafts made we were told they were pretty long for what we are doing with them and he told us he tubed them with the heaviest wall tubing he could to see if they would live.
...
The vibration going away for a bit with the drive shaft change leads us to believe it is a drive shaft problem.

Are you guys using just some some ordinary drive line shop? Have you considered Jessie at http://highangledriveline.com ? I'm probably preach'n to the choir but this is who we used when we competed in the Formula Toy Rock Crawling series (three consecutive championships, same F & R drive lines). The front shaft in my personal Rock Crawler is made by High Angle DL.

Worth check'n them out, Jessie is an awesome guy for this. For instance they make shafts for Trophy Trucks Clicky: http://highangledriveline.com/trophy_truck.html

If you suspect your new suspension is generating too steep of an angle for your u-joints, then he makes custom joints with a much larger range of motion

Regards,
BigMike

[FireGuysRacing]

Hey BigMike just to answer your questions and let you know what is going on...
Glad to hear the transmission looked good other than the "downstream carnage"!

In regards to the oil leak I wish it was as easy as a torque wrench!!  The set up we had was a fitting off the block with the electric oil pressure sending unit after that.  We made a custom cradle off the motor mount to hold the "big" sending unit but it didn't work and the fitting off the block broke from the pounding thru the bumps causing the oil leak.  We have come up with a solution that we believe will work without any future problems.

As far as the driveshaft goes after further investigation we believe the problem originated in the rear diff and it locked up at speed sending all the damage forward.  We have a plan in place to fix the rear diff and test our theory.  With Jason being injured from a dirt bike accident and out of work for the last 5 months it has put a hurt on our financial situation for the near term.  He is supposed to go back to work in the next couple of weeks so hopefully we will be able to rebuild the rear diff soon and test in the next month or two. 

[FireGuysRacing]

Got some new parts so we can fix what we broke and get back to testing soon.

[BigMike]

In regards to the oil leak I wish it was as easy as a torque wrench!!

I think I know what you are referring to. My 3RZ-FE only had a low-pressure idiot light (on/off switch) with no other mounting provisions for a variable resistance sending unit. So I decided to only run the sending unit and ditch the idiot light, but Marlin wanted to run both and put together a bunch of brass fittings to make a rather long adapter using a T-fitting to accept both the low pressure idiot light switch and also the sending unit (original 22R Toyota sender to match his 1980 instrumentation). His sending unit is a good 4-inches away from the block and I can definitely imagine that putting some stress on the little 1/4" NPT fitting. Good thing the Crawler truck only jumps when it sees a fat chick. The first thing that comes to mind is to run a rubber hose off an elbow fitting and hard-mount the sender to the side of the block or motor mount bracket. You guys know this better than probably anyone here, but it's always nice to find these small issues during testing ... image that sending falling off at the 800 mile marker later this November.

...Jason being injured from a dirt bike accident and out of work for the last 5 months...

Wow that's not good! Here's to a speedy recovery Jason!!

Regards,
BigMike

[FireGuysRacing]

Rear end is assembled! Thanks to Currie Enterprises for the new parts!! We are now bleeding the brakes and making a few changes to the braking system to fine tune them to get the most out of our Willwood brakes!

[FireGuysRacing]

We changed out some brake lines on the truck while we were putting the truck back together. This is the little brake tuning session when we were done.

https://youtu.be/MxgiI13e79g

[theslayer85]

Is that a Ford 9 in the rear or did currie make a custom center diff for your Toyota for some sort of hybrid?  The axle is so trussed it is hard to tell what it started life as, but pictures of the destroyed diff and gears looks Toyota. 

[BigMike]

Question: What are teams doing to control brake dive? An electronically adjustable front dampener reading brake pressure or brake pedal travel comes to mind. An accelerometer could be used. Or a mechanical solution, maybe have a rear valve similar to a brake proportioning valve that would somehow increase the front dampening or spring rate by engaging an additional bump stop/valve?

[FireGuysRacing]

Is that a Ford 9 in the rear or did currie make a custom center diff for your Toyota for some sort of hybrid?  The axle is so trussed it is hard to tell what it started life as, but pictures of the destroyed diff and gears looks Toyota. 

The rear end is a Ford 9".  It started life as a stock 9" behind a truck and then was "modified" for off-road racing with the bracing and link mounts and such.  The 3rd member is a nodular iron 9"+ from Currie.  The gears are 9" with a spool.  The picture of the destroyed diff & gear set is all 9" stuff.