Target carrier (3 Viewers)

[scrapdaddy]

Damn, that's funny! Can't stop laughing. Rest and a little penicillin should clear the pig up.

True story, When my u bolts loosened up, we were working on them and one of the guys said that the u bolts didn't stretch, but the nuts did. Who am I to disagree, so from then on it a case of stretchy nuts! All I know is, keep your nuts snug.

Here's one from the other side. I wish I had more of J Mack's wagon in action, it really was making every obstacle we came across look easy.

 

[Napster]

Man, those are two great looking rigs. I am now motivated to finish mine so I join the fun!

 

[PabloCruise]

I believe they are one in the same..

But we’ll have to wait for Ron to elaborate a bit more on the stretchy nuts syndrome, I’m a bit fuzzy on the details as it were.

A bit fuzzy on the nuts, eh?

 

[boots4]

Great report J Mack. You really do push your rig! Since everyone always asks me I figure I'll throw it your way too: What kind of EGTs and mileage where you getting? How about water temps and rpms at 80mph?

 

[davegonz]

Great pics! I'm jealous of you guys that went to Cruise Moab!

 

[PabloCruise]

High speed pigs,

Going to Moab I was thinking about the recent talk about driving our pigs at or around the speed limit here in Idaho (80MPH) so I was paying more attention to how thing reacted at speed, on the way there we drove 80/85 MPH most of the way windows up and A/C on and other than the temp rising up a bit on the long uphill sections it really was like driving a modern vehicle, no hood bounce, wandering or darting unexpectedly. We got up at 4am Sunday morning and burned rubber to get the wife home in time to do some stuff she had planned (she reluctantly agreed to spend mother’s day weekend with a bunch of dudes in Toyotas if I got her home at a decent time on Sunday) but we had some high speed issues. The first issue was indirectly related to the gallon jug of water that one of the dogs stepped on the day before, as it turns out if you intend to turn a 55 into a Greek Steambath you need exactly one gallon of water and a big round dog bed, it was early and cold and as soon as we got the cab toasty warm bam a heavy dense fog started rolling in from the back of the pig (now if we weren’t in a hurry to get home we would have just pulled over striped down naked and enjoyed the warm steam for a while) but we were in a hurry so we cracked the windows to let a bit of steam out but apparently pig windows are not designed to be rolled back up at speeds, we had been cruising between 85 and 90 and the windows were getting sucked out of the track on the top front and would stop about ½” from going full up, after about two hours of listening to the wind whistles we came up to a little town with reduced speed section and magically bout side windows rolled back up, we repeated this experiment several hundred times (let steam out/ slow down roll windows up) and somewhere right around 70 MPH is the magic number to get my side windows up.

We went looking for you before we pulled out of Slickrock on Sunday, but it was well after 4 AM! Hope you had a great Mother's Day. Although I don't think my wife would enjoy starting Mother's Day at 4 AM!

I remember your fogging issues earlier and you said the AC system functioned only on Recirc. Then when you mentioned you deleted the rear quarter vents, I was wondering how that was going to work out for you! I think they added those quarter vents and the forward vents above the kick panels to create a nice passive air flow when the Pigs are moving down the road. I don't think you are going to get much passive air flow through there now. With 2 dogs, I am not sure how sweet the inside of the Pig will smell this summer!

 

[J Mack]

Great report J Mack. You really do push your rig! Since everyone always asks me I figure I'll throw it your way too: What kind of EGTs and mileage where you getting? How about water temps and rpms at 80mph?

Under normal circumstances I drive the pig ~80MPH on the freeway for short distances 15 to 30 miles and the water temp never gets over 190°, EGT says around 900°, boost around 10 PSI and I can average 24 – 26 MPG.



On this trip I was pushing it hard for a variety of reasons but mainly to see how the cooling system could effectively handle towing a trailer with a buggy on the back, bottom line if I plan to tow my new pig to Utah and drive the speed limit I’ll need to upgrade the radiator to something larger.

Temps would start to climb to 220° on the long up hills going 85 MPH, I would need to slow down to 75 MPH to keep them under 200°, I was fully loaded with a 35” tire on top that wasn’t helping but still not as much of a load as a car trailer, the 4BT had plenty of power and at no point did I need to down shift out of 5th gear but the cooling system is not up to the task and honestly I might be asking too much from the pig to do well as a camping rig, 4X4 off road trail crawler, high speed comfortable daily driver and tow truck.

Bucking the head wind and trying to go ~90 MPH for several hours of the drive home knocked the MPG down to 17 MPG.

The average speeds I was driving was 80 – 85, at times I would try to average 90 -92 but like I said I was bucking a head wind and EGT’s were up around 1100° with boost around 25 – 30 PSI and with the turbo making that much boost the inter cooler was pushing a lot of heat back to the radiator keeping average temps up around 210° on flat ground.

75 MPH = 2050 RPM

80 MPH = 2200 RPM

85 MPH = 2300 RPM

90 MPH = 2450 RPM

92 MPH = 2500 RPM



Hope this helps..

 

[PabloCruise]

Bucking the head wind and trying to go ~90 MPH for several hours of the drive home knocked the MPG down to 17 MPG.

Dream Pig...

 

[npulver]

i forget, what transmission are you running and what gears in the axles?

 

[J Mack]

i forget, what transmission are you running and what gears in the axles?

NV4500 transmission 5th gear = .75 over drive

Marks transfer case gears = .92 over drive in high, 2.81 under drive in low

4:10 axle gears

35” tires

2.83 final drive ratio 5th gear transfer case in high, 64.63 final drive ratio 1st gear transfer case in low

 

[Napster]

Good Lord what a beast! I have always thought the 4bt was the perfect engine for a pig but I was assuming there would be a slight disadvantage power wise (when compared to a 2f, 3f, v6 etc.) but it does not sound like that is an issue! 90mph in a pig! Love it.

 

[J Mack]

I was assuming there would be a slight disadvantage power wise

Thank you!



This engine on paper is making around 500 foot pounds of torque so “enough” power is a non-issue. My issue is removing heat when making those power numbers for extended time, getting a radiator big enough in the front of a pig to handle those power numbers would be a challenge regardless of engine displacement or fuel type.

For me the key word is “extended time”, I can drive normal indefinitely and push hard for short burst ~30 minutes, it’s when I try to push hard making boost for extended periods and the compressor outlet temps are 350°+ going through the intercooler that’s in front of the radiator and I can’t get enough air shoved through the pig snout to keep the heat soak in check.

I don’t plan to drive like we did on this trip on a regular basis but I was looking for the limit of my combination of parts something not possible just casually driving on trails to determine if it would be conceivable to tow a car trailer to Utah, as it turns out engine power is not an issue but heat management will be.

 

[Napster]

I love that you are are pushing it this hard. Have you thought about extending the radiator lower and bringing air from under the under grill apron? It would require making a new cross member but I am sure you can do that in a few hours

 

[J Mack]

How do you like the Marks gears?

I like them a lot, they seem perfect for the dual purpose highway/off road vehicle.

Here in Idaho the speed limit is 80MPH and taller rear end gears would have killed my low range but the Marks gears really do give me the best of both worlds with the low/low and high/high.

How loud when on the freeway?

When I bought the pig it had the stock transfer case and four speed transmission and I believe that combo was noisier than the NV4500 and split case with the Marks gears, you can hear a slight whine when coasting but not bad.

Also, how was the install? I forget if they required any significant machining.

A little grinding for clearance on one of the gears, not bad at all. Somewhere buried in the beginning of my build I have pictures of the install.

 

[bobm]

Strechey Nuts syndrome. ( cause = driving your wife's car to Moab. )

 

[PabloCruise]

Ha ha, but it is a Land Cruiser, not a car...

 

[bobm]

Lexus?

 

[J Mack]

Lexus?

With heated seats and a vanity mirror. Yes a car!

 

[PabloCruise]

With heated seats and a vanity mirror. Yes a car!

Damn, that's a cold-ass honky...

 

[J Mack]

Damn, that's a cold-ass honky...

Sorry, according to Edmunds Lexus designers went out of their way disguise the utilitarian Toyota “Land Cruiser” and turn it into a luxury SUV “car” by fitting supple leather upholstery and rich wood surfaces, Lexus engineers specified softer springs for the LX 450 to give it a more forgiving ride on pavement, an automatic climate system with a solar sensor, a separate heating unit for the rear seats, a seven-speaker cassette stereo, full power accessories and an alarm system, antilock brakes and dual front airbags were also standard, a sunroof and a six-disc CD changer, owners are typically annoyed by the limited seat-track travel up front, the lack of rear-seat air-conditioning ducts and inadequate cupholder provisions.

Based on Edmunds description the typical LX owner sounds more like a yuppie soccer mom than a traditional Land Cruiser owner, and I believe if I would have left the pig at home and drove my wife’s Volvo XC90 “basically the same thing as your LX” to Cruise Moab and tried to pass it off as a “Land Cruiser” I would be catching grief right now from my fellow pig owners that made the drive to Utah.

Still looking forward to the day when I can see yours and Scrapdaddy’s pigs on the trail together, I’m just hoping my pig is still running and I don’t need to drive the Volvo and suffer the pay back for this post..