- Thread starter
- #101
3rd gen 4Runner, Racing Build (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Good Mayhem
- Start date
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- Thread starter
- #102
We got 2nd in class for our first race! We didn't just finish, we got 2nd! Way more details to come!
^photo credit, KenBlock XJ on facebook.
^photo credit, KenBlock XJ on facebook.
This picture is begging to be made into posters
Congrats! You put a lot of time (work) and money in your rig and it paid off.
- Thread starter
- #105
Thanks!
Alrighty. Now that's it's one month after the race, I feel like I've absorbed it enough to share.
Firstoff, it got so much attention, that multiple companies reached out to discuss sponsorships that week. I told them I'd follow up once I go the marketing deck squared away. This has turned hobby into a side hustle overnight. It's now a marketing business. Going through the whole process of starting a business immediately after racing was exhausting. And no, it's not profitable yet. Give it time, cause it's gonna take a while.
With that in mind, it required the start of a website.
Goodmayhemracing.com
Race results and details are on this page:
Race results
Thoughts on the 4runner post race?
We finished, the 4runner did great for a 1st run. We were at a baja1000 pace first try. We averaged 22.4 MPH, and that's within a mile an hour average of the 4runner that raced the baja1000 back in 2009. That story can be read here on Motor Trend.
The 4runner is slow, because it's undersprung. The springs limit the speed we can go. They're good and soft for weekend wheeling, but too soft for racing. With the roll cage now welded into the engine bay at four points, the frame is stiff enough to force the suspension to work. The suspension frequency is too slow at speed. It needs to cycle faster than it does now, by alot. After a month of research and discussion with my racing mentors what we're trying next.
Fronts: 550 lbs/in --> 700 lbs/in.
Rears: 100 lbs/in (200\200) --> 127 lbs/in (350\200, with 350 overtaking at 2-3" before bottoming out)
Companies like Total Chaos sell LT coilovers with 700 lbs springs for rigs with heavy bumpers and winches already, so I'm following that. I would have rather done 650 lbs/in, but Eibach's out of stock until those are manufactured in late July.
The rear now has Icon hydro bump stops, thank you TPM racing for providing them! Check them out for shock rebuilds and the like. I welded them into the OEM brackets. That took some time, but the results came out very clean. It's welded around the back side of the bracket as well. Images are at the end of the post.
My rear suspension has a binding issue with the panhard. At it's current length, the panhard bar cuts out 1.5" of droop at it's bolting point. Right side fully droops, left side stays a few inches high. Therefore, I'll split the added length of the panhard with a pck bracket to rise the panhard bar on the axle. That also explains why I have such brutal axle steer on RTI ramps. So we'll try to make that better. Most rear LT's for 3rd gens are 10" long shocks and this one is 12. The bump stops are + 5/8" over stock, so most of the OEM travel is maintained.
The front suspension did great during the race, but again, undersprung. The first woop would load the springs almost completely, the next bump would almost bottom them out, and the 3rd woop would be a hard bonk if we were going all out. We kept our speed down to prevent that from happening. Our left front dipped into a rock ledge at 30 miles and hour and bent a grade 9 bolt, but it didn't work itself loose until a week after the race. That impact also caused a flat tire, which caused a 30 minute delay on time. It was so jarring neither I nor the navigator remembered to mark the hazard on the nav.
Speaking of nav, Garmin Baja review is here on youtube.
The 4runner has lots of room. The driver compartment was plenty roomy over other race cars and had spec-meeting headroom for 6ft-2" occupants--I may try to improve that though for the really tall guys. With the way the roll cage is designed, there's alot of stowage capacity in the middle of the 4runner. We had no issues storing items and junk we thought we'd need during the race.
Oh, by the way, I only had a bottle jack for the spare tire change. That was stupid. I've bought a badlands jack to remedy that. The wheels have already been cut off.
I used road style lug nuts, I should have used open lug nuts that would have been easier to change in the desert. Using splines was not smart.
The back end needs extra tubing to make a bumper for the other racers to nerf. We'll start welding that this week. image below.
There's more where that came from, but this is everything I can think of at the moment. Check out the website and socials for other details!
Thanks for reading.
splitshot
Head cook, Bottle washer, and Peace keeper.
Been watching this since day one. 
splitshot
Head cook, Bottle washer, and Peace keeper.
What is the story on your Grill? Noticed a subtle difference from what you started with. Nice clean look.
And mine is partially held in place with zippy ties.
And mine is partially held in place with zippy ties.
splitshot
Head cook, Bottle washer, and Peace keeper.
Also "Hats off" to one of the best drivers that the world will ever know...
- Thread starter
- #109
@
Concerning the grill, mine is held on with zip ties too! The biggest change are the light-cuts in the bumper. I cut those anew and welded mounts for the Baja Designs lighting I'm borrowing. That visually paired with the light bar in the middle nicely.
Update! We have alot to cover!
1. First off, we have a new sponsor! Thank you Necks Gen! I bought and used their HNR months before talks started, so consider that a good referral! I plan to explore more of their products on the youtube channel as time goes on.
2. Rear crash bar is fabricated and painted.
3. Spare tire mount is redone and converted to use a ratchet strap.
4. Rear limit straps are welded in.
5. Garmin Nav mount is completely redesigned and fab'd anew. Much improved over version 1. It doesn't tip over, it allows for more foot room, and the police siren and radio mount directly to it.
6. All wheel studs swapped out with extended ones w/ open lug nuts.
7. Sponsorship Deck is being sent to potential sponsors.
8. Discussions with additional drivers are underway.
9. We're selling our PRP seats to make room for Necksgen's Air Max! I'll make a FS page on ih8mud.
10. We got to share the fun at Northside Lexus in Houston. Cheers!
What is the story on your Grill? Noticed a subtle difference from what you started with. Nice clean look.
And mine is partially held in place with zippy ties.
Concerning the grill, mine is held on with zip ties too! The biggest change are the light-cuts in the bumper. I cut those anew and welded mounts for the Baja Designs lighting I'm borrowing. That visually paired with the light bar in the middle nicely.
Update! We have alot to cover!
1. First off, we have a new sponsor! Thank you Necks Gen! I bought and used their HNR months before talks started, so consider that a good referral! I plan to explore more of their products on the youtube channel as time goes on.
2. Rear crash bar is fabricated and painted.
3. Spare tire mount is redone and converted to use a ratchet strap.
4. Rear limit straps are welded in.
5. Garmin Nav mount is completely redesigned and fab'd anew. Much improved over version 1. It doesn't tip over, it allows for more foot room, and the police siren and radio mount directly to it.
6. All wheel studs swapped out with extended ones w/ open lug nuts.
7. Sponsorship Deck is being sent to potential sponsors.
8. Discussions with additional drivers are underway.
9. We're selling our PRP seats to make room for Necksgen's Air Max! I'll make a FS page on ih8mud.
10. We got to share the fun at Northside Lexus in Houston. Cheers!
- Thread starter
- #110
Update!! We're going racing the Baja 1000! #1491
Much has happened to the 4runner since the last post. New sponsors, new wiring, new parts, suspension upgrades, more welding, and lots more!
Keep tabs on us during the race! See y'all in the desert!!
Much has happened to the 4runner since the last post. New sponsors, new wiring, new parts, suspension upgrades, more welding, and lots more!
Keep tabs on us during the race! See y'all in the desert!!
Good luck and have fun!
SOAZtim
Car Camping round the world
He's still moving. Keep after it. RM280 so he's got a full Baja 1,000 to go! 
Good luck man! It's so cool to see a 3rd gen doing the Baja 1,000, I recognized your truck immediately in Larry Chen's Instagram photos. Super curious to see how it takes the abuse considering how thoughtfully and solidly you built it up. Rooting for you up here in Montana!
SOAZtim
Car Camping round the world
I think he DNF'd. He made it through the notorious silt beds where several of my friends DNF'd, but not long after the truck looked to have stopped. Bummer, but solid work even getting 400 or so miles into it!
- Thread starter
- #115
You are right! Thanks so much for keeping tabs on us, I appreciate it! We got to RM 366.6 before the LBJ separated from the spindle. It wasn't an LBJ failure parse, but the Spindle lost it's threads entirely. Full story incoming!
time for a fabbed spindle fully deleting the LBJ nonsense
- Thread starter
- #117
I concur, time for 2024!
Frist off, I'd like to thank our Sponsors for helping in 2023.
- TPM Racing
- UC Motorsports
- Necks Gen
- Total Chaos Fabrication
- DC Power Engineering
- Duggy's Garage
- Arc Specialties
- Superior Cladding
- Treaty Oak Offroad
- Fast Lane Auto Service
Baja 1000 recaps:
Here's a presentation I just did covering our adventure:
Alright, here's the story recaps: short, medium, to long:
Short, TLDR:
We did not finish! We stopped at RM 366.6 with mechanical failures. But dang, we started! We built a race car, a team, and raced in the Baja 1000!
Medium:
The Race was 1210 miles long for the Sportsman’s course. We earned 366 of them.
This year’s Baja 1000 was a point to point race. However, it was unique. The race started in La Paz and ended in Ensenada. That’s opposite of every other point to point race in the 50+ year history of SCORE! The pro’s had to drive 1310+ Race miles—it was the longest Baja 1000 in history. The only race that is longer was the Baja 2000 way back when. This year’s 1000 was brutal!
The logistics of this race are hard, and very human. Most teams keep more people in northern part of the peninsula and merely maintain a skeleton crew close to La Paz. That was flipped. Now the main chase teams had to start in La Paz and have all of the team support at the bottom of Mexico. There was carnage at the starting line, and teams rushed to fix their cars before the green flag waved.
Our team consisted of four sets of drivers with co-drivers, four chase crews and three pre-runners. Two of the chase crews made it to La Paz, and the other two stayed up North in San Felipe. The north teams preran all of their sections while the first two teams weren’t able to prerun much with mechanical issues.
Unfortunately, the race abruptly stopped when the 2nd team suffered mechanical failures. We called the race when we couldn’t find parts to fix the 4runner. The race was brutal, and our 4runner faired much better than many cars that slogged through the silts at RM 330. We earned all the damage to the truck. More importantly, we earned every singe race mile we drove. We raced in the Baja 1000!
Long:
Ever wondered what it's like to race in the Baja 1000? On November 16th, 2023, Good Mayhem Racing attacked the Baja 1000, and the 4Runner earned some battle scars.
At the start line, Thomas and I noticed we had a driver front shock leak. That freaked me out, and I had to clear my head before we moved. We were the first sportsman’s truck to start, just behind the Class 11, or classic VW bugs. The course starts on La Paz’s waterfront, and crowds lined the streets as the blue ocean sparkled to our right. Imagine the start of a fast and furious movie or a video game; it was packed with people. The green flag waved–We launched, and the 4Runner accelerated silently. Compared to the other loud cars, the 4Runner was quiet. So quiet, we had to use the car horn and sirens to get spectators out of the way throughout the race.This course was brutal, but the first 300 miles went flawlessly. The silt beds were oceans of talcum powder, and the truck swam through them in 4x4, 1st gear, no problem. Within the first thirty miles, we were caught behind several multi-car pileups. Class 11 bugs were stuck in big 4-foot whoops and loose sand. Someone needed medical assistance. We traversed the rock ledges with no issues. At one point, a race truck was stuck in a mud hole and blocked the course—we found a way around it. We did our best to keep the transmission cool, but we overheated it once getting around that mud hole. While negotiating a siltbed 70 miles in, another race car impacted our left side. It was an accident; no one can see in a cloud of a silt. Imagine the worst fog of your life, but brown.
At race mile 105, we had our first pit. Colin and Thomas refueled. Colin worked on the front suspension by grinding the bolt head that caused the shock’s leak, and he recharged the shock with nitrogen. Kelli took video and helped all around. From there, we took it easy to save the car for the finish line. From Race Mile 170-250, we drove through continuous 3-4 foot tall whoops and several water crossings. A side-by-side ran head-on into a 40-foot-tall cactus (the cactus won). From Race Mile 250-300, we drove through two extremes: harrowingly narrow farm roads lined with cacti, and riverbeds. We saved the car for the next team, but we lost the back hatch and the snorkel’s head too. The radio antenna flapped around after brawling with tree branches. Thomas and I averaged 43 MPH moving speed, with an average of 13 miles per gallon fuel consumption. In comparison, most other race cars get 3-6 miles per gallon in a race like this.
At Race Mile 299, we stopped and changed drivers. Ron setup Pit 2 and flagged us down. We had more than half a tank of gas upon arrival. We expected to be completely empty, so we had 2x more fuel than we needed. Thomas, Colin and I refueled. We used big, 11-gallon dump cans, which were awkward to handle. Colin was drenched in fuel when gasoline came out of the jug’s vent tube. Fortunately, he was wearing his fire resistant clothing and fuel apron, so he was fine. Ron helped with supplies, water and lights. Duc and Sam C. got in the 4Runner. I gave Duc recommendations on how to drive in the silt beds. Thomas helped Sam C. get belted into the car and wired to comms, and we changed out the Camelbacks for the new drivers. Colin recharged the leaky shock with nitrogen again and checked the car all around. I changed the air filter as the local restaurant staff cheered us on. The restaurant owners asked to keep the used filter for their memorabilia wall, and we were happy to let them have it. The race truck left after only 10 minutes: a reasonably quick pit stop, especially for a brand new team.
Duc and Sam C. headed into the deep silt beds near Race Mile 330 and fought hard. They had to back up several times to navigate around stuck cars. Both front tires blew, sequentially losing each bead as they rolled over a berm–other cars littered the course, buried four feet deep. Ron, Thomas and I met up and gave them fresh tires. Duc and Sam C. continued through more silt beds and winched themselves out a few miles later. The winch proved to be an invaluable tool for the night driving portion: Duc and Sam C. winched through multiple obstacles, using cacti and trees as a winch point. At Race Mile 345, the course changed, and the next section was an abandoned, decaying highway intermixed with tall concrete slabs and washed-out terrain. The concrete ledges were a foot tall, abrupt and jarring. These obstacles would pound any suspension, even at slow speeds.
At Race Mile 366.6 on the #Garmin, the left front spindle failed and the lower ball joint ripped out its bolts. There was no obvious obstacle or rut that caused it. The race course was a gravel road at that point. The steering knuckle’s threads were sheared clean. Duc and Sam C. tried to Macgyver the spindle back together, but it gave way again. They spent the rest of the night on the mountain, suited up with helmets in the 4Runner.
Before the race started, the race organizers warned that going on the course and trying to help late at night was one of the most common ways chase team members get killed. We were facing that risk, four hours before dawn. We could not get to Duc and Sam C. on the mountain, because it was twilight on the live race course. We were all stuck in a waiting game until sunrise.
Meanwhile, the North team dutifully pre-ran their 600 miles of course over and over. Steve, Cory, Daron, and Sam G. prepped for their driver changes and coordinated with Score on the team’s behalf. They then camped out in their rigs for the race night, sleeping far from home base. Steve, Daron and Sam G. patiently worked with me over satellite phones to plan our next moves safely.
With stress levels high, two south chase teams had to wait until dawn to help Duc and Sam C. again. We didn’t have a second spindle, and none could be found. I even begged a local to let us use parts from his 4Runner. Turns out the owner of the car was in another race car himself. They couldn’t reach him to get his permission, so they couldn’t help. Multiple locals with satellite phones called around trying to find parts. Colin and Kelli searched for parts in Loreto, but with no success. We were out of luck.
Empty handed, Ron and I drove his SXS on the unpaved highway to assess the damage on the 4Runner. Kelli and Colin met Thomas at the race access-point near VCP89. Ron and I verified it was not possible to get a trailer to the 4Runner, 30 miles deep in the mountains. When we met Duc and Sam C., we lashed the suspension back together with the winch and drove on it for 20 miles. The winch line failed a few miles away from the staged chase team.
That’s when we called the race.
I stayed with Duc and Sam G. while Ron drove back for reinforcements. We opened the survival supplies onboard the 4Runner. The three of us rested, drank water, and ate food. Colin got Chase Truck 1 up the trail, and we dragged the 4Runner out on Maxtrax. Unfortunately, rocks ate through the thin plastic, and the Maxtrax only survived for about three miles. I steered the 4Runner and tried to stop the control arm from hanging up on rocks. Colin diligently tried strap method after strap method to tow the 4Runner while saving the truck that dragged it. We got it back on the trailer with the winch. By the time we made it back to the rest of the Chase Team, we were spent, and it was time to head to San Felipe and commiserate with the North Team. At VCP 89, we were 2000 miles away from home–in the middle of nowhere.
In a span of two weeks, our team collectively drove over 20,000 miles to race a 25-year-old 4Runner in the Baja 1000. Steve, my Baja mentor in all of this, guessed that we had about a 30% chance of finishing the Baja 1000. As fate would have it, we made it through 30.6% of the race course before ringing the bell of defeat. We certainly found the weak spot in the suspension the hard way.
But hey, that’s Baja! Welcome to Desert Racing, baby!
Spunk the 4Runner will return. To be continued…
Welcome to Baja.
