Build UC Motorsports #680

Hatz33 said:

Yep in the Denver, Co area now!


Still working on a plan but hoping to be at the Moab race, and then find a longer desert race with Vorra, Legacy, BORR, or Unlimited in late spring or early summer. Unfornately the timing of V2R won't work this year.

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Very cool.

If you wanted to come air it out on a short course there is the Kentucky race in early May or come dodge trees, rocks, and have all the humidity at the Tennessee race in late June...both races are ones we plan to go spectate at.

With the recent announcement that we will have to qualify for the EMC in 2026 we are adjusting our plans for the year.

We are tentatively planning to race:
Area BFE
Badlands Off Road Park
Buffalo Chip (if we haven't qualified yet)


Also finally pulled the failed power steering hose out of the box.


Here is a picture of the routing with the old spare installed.


I had the hose made at a local hydraulic shop when I was in Sugarland, Tx. I recall it was a Gates hose but I can't find the invoice.

However, I think the reason for the failure was my line routing and not the brand/quality of the hose.

Going to have two new hoses made, I'll need to figure out what the best brand/type/model is.

Also found the most expensive way to jump start my rover.

at the expensive jump start picture!

Working on my to do list:

After Hammers the to do list stands at:

Figure out the soft front end:

• Are the springs worn out? Talking to my shock tuner he doubts that I don't have enough race miles on the car to have worn them out.
• Can shock valves get worn out? Again talking to my tuner the valves are either okay or completely broken and the shock wouldn't have been functioning at all.
• Did the local shop that I had rebuild the shocks screw up the valving my tuner installed? I haven't pulled my shocks yet, but I have a new set of valves from my tuner and plan to replace everything.

Address the transmission cooling issue:

• Hood louvers? Have a set in hand, just need to decide where to locate them on the hood.

• Larger transmission cooler? Looking at the car there is space to install a larger cooler, but I haven't found anything off the shelf that will fit yet. I also likely need to make some baffles to push air into the cooler.
• Also started to dig into the transmission fluid. I have been using Amsoil OE trans fluid, talking to an Amsoil rep he thinks that its very likely exceeded the flash point of the OE fluid when the pan temp hit 260°F and has recommended their torque drive fluid as extra insurance as its got a higher flash point (~25°F higher).
• Order a new radiator: Order is placed, should have it before Moab.

Wait a minute, I skimmed and trashed the email. We have to qualify for EMC now?

WiscoF100 said:

Wait a minute, I skimmed and trashed the email. We have to qualify for EMC now?

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Yes all classes do apparently now.

WiscoF100 said:

Wait a minute, I skimmed and trashed the email. We have to qualify for EMC now?

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Yes. They want to race a series race or race an LCQ at hammers and potentially not get in. They haven’t made it clear if they’re going to cap the total car count to 100 like the old days. There was 114 EMC cars leave the line this year.

WiscoF100 said:

Wait a minute, I skimmed and trashed the email. We have to qualify for EMC now?

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Yep all classes now have to finish in the top 40% of all unqualified racers at a season race, or finish in the top 20 at the last KOH, or buy a $5000 charter and get a guaranteed KOH spot or be in rookie program.

JR4X said:

Yes. They want to race a series race or race an LCQ at hammers and potentially not get in. They haven’t made it clear if they’re going to cap the total car count to 100 like the old days. There was 114 EMC cars leave the line this year.

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A car cap for the EMC with three classes isn't going to cause any drama with how many allocations each class gets ....

Lovely. I was warned many years ago it would come to this. I’ll remain optimistic and bet this doesn’t last

Got started on the shocks today by getting the car up on some stands.


Did find that both the upper and lower bolts on the the passenger front coil over were bent. These are correctly shank F911 bolts...

I wasn't thinking and didn't note which of the two front coil overs came off which side, however I think I opened the passenger side coil over and found what appears to spacer between the piston and the valve stack on the compression side of the main piston (this controls oil flow in the bump zone).



Glad I have decided to start servicing my own shocks!

Hatz33 said:

I wasn't thinking and didn't note which of the two front coil overs came off which side, however I think I opened the passenger side coil over and found what appears to spacer between the piston and the valve stack on the compression side of the main piston (this controls oil flow in the bump zone).

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Hatz33 said:

Got started on the shocks today by getting the car up on some stands.

Did find that both the upper and lower bolts on the the passenger front coil over were bent. These are correctly shank F911 bolts...

I wasn't thinking and didn't note which of the two front coil overs came off which side, however I think I opened the passenger side coil over and found what appears to spacer between the piston and the valve stack on the compression side of the main piston (this controls oil flow in the bump zone).

Glad I have decided to start servicing my own shocks!

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That's interesting........

Hatz33 said:

Figure out the soft front end:

• Are the springs worn out? Talking to my shock tuner he doubts that I don't have enough race miles on the car to have worn them out.
• Can shock valves get worn out? Again talking to my tuner the valves are either okay or completely broken and the shock wouldn't have been functioning at all.
• Did the local shop that I had rebuild the shocks screw up the valving my tuner installed? I haven't pulled my shocks yet, but I have a new set of valves from my tuner and plan to replace everything.

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a loss of oil viscosity or broken shim is the only way a shock can 'fail' without puking the oil. i will say one of the faster OG 4800 guy mr rick waterbury would only get 75% of a race in before his king IBPs would cook the oil.

shims will fracture, but rarely will they fail completely. most of the failures are on sway aways when the rebound shim gets sucked into the compression port because of a back piston design.

mobil1syn said:

shims will fracture, but rarely will they fail completely. most of the failures are on sway aways when the rebound shim gets sucked into the compression port because of a back piston design.

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Yep! I everything I have found agrees with this.

mobil1syn said:

a loss of oil viscosity or broken shim is the only way a shock can 'fail' without puking the oil. i will say one of the faster OG 4800 guy mr rick waterbury would only get 75% of a race in before his king IBPs would cook the oil.

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I had definitely lost some viscosity as all the oil in the shocks was absolutely cooked. It was supposed to be Fox’s JM 92, and I think it was as the old fluid was still somewhat purple.

Finally got the shock rebuild done. I went back in with Accutune's new Ride branded oil. He is claiming its good to 500°F!


I was delayed waiting on new IBP pistons for the rear of the car since it looks like someone had been using an impact which deformed the original pistons. Also had to replace a few shims in the rear that were damaged from what looked like a pry bar when someone attempted to get the old IBPs off…
Old IBP:


New IBP:


Also got a new radiator in and new lines to the hydraulic ram made and installed but neglected to take pictures.

Also spent a little time with some of the pit crew out wheeling.

Had some time over the weekend to modify the gas pedal with a throttle stop.

How it started.


Welded on a piece of flat stock with a 1/4-20 hole tapped for a bolt to make an adjustable stop.

Hopefully a 1/4-20 bolt is sufficient!

Also cut some holes in the hood, painted, and then mounted some louvers in the hood.




I am now also registered for the race in Moab at area BFE!

I just need to drain and refill the trans a couple of times with new fluid and do some re-assembly and the car should be ready to go.

tack a flanged bolt to the side where it ‘stops’ or flip the bolt around.

The Area BFE beatdown was an absolute blast!

The team arrived in Moab on Thursday morning, we got through Tech with no issues and were able to get started pre-running right on schedule.

Once we got the map transferred to our GPS we did run into an issue as the Garmin version of the map only had waypoints (it was basically mile markers and either/or points) with no line. Lucky one of the team’s sponsors/Garmin source, Nate with Good Mayhem Racing, was at his computer and after emailing Ultra 4’s files over to him he was able to get the outdated .usr file converted correctly to .gpx and we had a line in the GPS.


We suited up and headed out to pre-run the course. Neither myself or my co-driver had been to Area BFE and I don’t really know the trail names, landmarks, etc. But we were able to cruise around talking notes as needed. We were following someone in a new Maverick R on what I think were stock tires. They were struggling with a lot of the rock ledges and they weren’t making very good time and a few other cars where stacking up behind us and getting a little too aggressive. I decided to pull off the side of the trail and let these car pass. Which was rather comical as I managed to turtle to the car in some boulders. It took a little back and forth work and we were moving again. But I did manage to tear up the rear driveline. It wasn’t bad enough to stop pre-running but it would need replaced before the race (I have a camera pointed at the rear driveline). Anyway, shortly after we were moving again, we caught the cars we let past and they were tailgating the Maverick R, preventing them from backing up and ultimately making everything slower….. Then a 4400 decided to park on the easy line of an obstacle so we got to watch a few people try a rather difficult (at least for a race car) v-notch. After a bomber car almost rolled in the notch the 4400 moved on and the Maverick pulled off. Traffic cleared and we waited few minutes to avoid the dust and continued on our pre-run. We did a second lap to make sure we ran both options of the either/or. At this point we thought we had seen enough of the course and decided to call it day. We went back to trailer, swapped our damaged driveline and called it a day.


Friday afternoon was qualifying with some more scheduled pre-running that morning. We decided that we could learn more watching the more experienced drivers who were practicing the qualifying course and comparing their lines instead of pushing our car trying to test different lines.

The qualifying course was fun and made for great spectating as you could easily see the who thing from the main viewing area. It started at the start finish line for the race, down in a wash. We went straight into a rocky section of the wash whish did have a nasty uncut hole that you could put the front passenger tire into and get a flat, then a quick blast through a sandy section of the wash, to a short straight section then a tight left hander into a long sweeping left along a ridge over to the top of the rock drop that is featured in the a lot of the promotional clips, back into the wash then a zig zag in and out of the wash to the finish line.

We decided to run qualifying in 4-low. This worked well for having good control through the rocks, but we lost some in the first rocky section as I slowed to make sure I didn’t get off my line, then lost more time along the back stretch as we rode the rev limiter for the last third on the straight. My current atlas has 3.0 to 1 gears, I think a transfer case with 2.0 to 1 would have been a lot better, or a transmission with an overdrive….

We also were not brave enough to send it off the drop and instead chose to slow roll the drivers left line. I lost some time here but I don’t think it was significant as everyone dropping the top was having to check up really hard, and often checked up too much, to get settled for the second drop. A bigger issue for us was on the second drop/section we were taking a wider smoother line on the drivers left (blue line below) we should have been taking the orange line, but we missed this while watching others practice since people were coming to complete stops on the orange line.



But we still qualified 8th of 21 4800 cars, and we didn’t break the car. Still have a lot of work to make up the ~12 seconds set by Dylan Summers. I think it’s my driving and my car isn’t the limiting factor…

Saturday was race day. After watching a little bit of the UTV race we got suited up and in the car. We were 9th off the line in the combined 4800/4500 field. While not ideal it was still a decent position to be. When the green flag dropped, we were off, and I immediately made the mistake of driving the passenger front tire into the undercut hole that I had slowed to avoid on the qualifying run, the nerves of race day must have gotten to me. However, nothing seemed to be wrong, and we continued, by the time we got to the first long decent it was clear that we had a flat front passenger tire. The car was plowing through left hand turns but we were hard pushing hard and had a decent place. We figured we would be able to make it through the lap and get into the pit to swap tire faster than changing it on course. We had almost chased down the car that started before us, but after getting through some of the larger rocks on the course the front end started to get harsh, we think it was at this point that we lost the inner bead on the front passenger tire that we had managed to flat earlier in the lap. Sticking with our plan to get to the pit we continued, however we backed our pace off hoping to limp the wheel through the lap. At about halfway (maybe a third) of the way through the lap the cars behind us started to catch us at our slow pace. We let them by as we could on the tight course. Just before the start finish line of lap one we had to work our way around rolled 4800 car. We got into the pits and the pit crew started on the replacing the tire. At some point someone noticed that we had a power steering leak. We spent a decent amount of time in the pit with the crew and a few people from other teams looking for the source and attempting get the cap of the power steering fluid reservoir. Once it was finally off it only took a ounces to top it off. We decided that the leak was slow and we should just continue on. By the time the car was ready to go again we had fallen to last place and had been lapped by the leaders. Once back on course we continued at a moderate pace with good clear air with the goal of finishing the race. On the last lap the power steering pump was giving up and was leaking a lot of fluid. We crossed the line in 11th place in class and with an empty power steering reservoir.












While it wasn’t the result we were looking for the sliver lining is that we finished well enough in the field to qualify for Hammers. It helped that a lot of the 4800 cars that showed up for Area BFE where finishers at Hammers this year, or had raced at Nor-Cal already.

My fastest lap was 21:29. While I wasn’t pushing the car hard both me and my co-driver felt like we were very close to the limit on what it could handle without breaking.


But the leaders where turning in lap times in the low to mid-teens with the fastest lap being 16:34. I can’t image that the leaders being on cars with both trailing and leading arms are that much smoother over the rocks than my car. I need to figure out if I am being too conservative/ have too much mechanical sympathy or if it’s the only suspension design in my chassis.

Awesome pics and great race recap!

I’m sure the more seat time you get the more comfortable you’ll feel pushing it and understand the areas where you may be overcautious. Like sending it off that drop. I bet the people that were turning in better times with a similar build either had a lot more time in their rig or it came from somebody that had a lot of time that they could watch video of. I’m sure watching recap video of others could help a lot as well.

It would be awesome if there was a way to do a Formula One style line along the race course that shows pace and angle of attack. That would be super helpful seeing how people drive.

Either way, great job!

Love following this.
Having a green early Bronco myself, I would totally support you by buying a shirt or other merch…

Austin said:

Awesome pics and great race recap!

I’m sure the more seat time you get the more comfortable you’ll feel pushing it and understand the areas where you may be overcautious. Like sending it off that drop. I bet the people that were turning in better times with a similar build either had a lot more time in their rig or it came from somebody that had a lot of time that they could watch video of. I’m sure watching recap video of others could help a lot as well.

It would be awesome if there was a way to do a Formula One style line along the race course that shows pace and angle of attack. That would be super helpful seeing how people drive.

Either way, great job!

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Thanks!

As a team we have came to the same conclusion that we need more reptations, both myself if the drivers seat, my co-driver on calls, and the team in the pits.

My AIM dash logs GPS position, speed, throttle position, brake PSI, and a lot of other data. I know in the road race world the software (Race Studio 3, which I have) has driver performance functions, but I have never taken the time see how that all works. I would have to figure out how to make a custom track.

Gumbybronco said:

Love following this.
Having a green early Bronco myself, I would totally support you by buying a shirt or other merch…

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My codriver and I were kicking around the idea of selling T-Shirts as a few of his co-workers want one, we have a few extra with the artwork from my profile picture.

Thanks for the race recap and those are some great pictures. Bronco looks right at home!

Tshirt wise, if you go that route, I'd be in for a shirt and my little dude (4yo) would proudly wear one in a youth/toddler size as he loves Ultra4 racing and Broncos too!

How goes the post-BFE teardown/rebuild?

Thanks for asking! Between my wife having a really rough time with her pregnancy with our first kids (yep kids, not kid) and my day job getting busy I haven't been staying on top of the updates here or on social media.

I haven't done much of a tear down/rebuild on the car yet. Again with the kids on the way I am going to wait to do a race prep until after the next race is decided on. For 2026 its unlikely that I'll make it to Hammers, instead my co-driver and I think we should race more regional races, and maybe a desert race through Legacy, VORRA, BORR, or SNORE to get more seat time in 2026, and maybe find the time for another shock tuning session. Between more seat time and more development time on the car we think we could set ourselves up better for Hammers 27, than continuing to race Hammers and one regional race pre-year.

That said I have replaced the power steering pump. It appears that the seal on the front of the pump was going out.
Old pump:


The new pump I had on hand as a spare:


Note that the same Part # (although years apart) was used to order both pumps from PSC.

I don't think the old pump had the provision for the snap ring on it's housing. I also can't drive it back into the housing.

We also saw steering temps (I have a temp sensor in the bottom of the reservoir) hit 260F at Moab. I need to figure out if this was a result of a failing pump, or if I need to re-design the plumbing/cooling/components in my steering system.

Congrats on the upcoming new additions to the UC Motorsports pit crew/family!!!

Makes sense on getting more seat time and race plans.

I finally had a little bit of free time before the twins arrived, so I was able to start an inspection and tear down on the race car.

The first thing I found was that brake pads on all four corners were completely wiped out.

Before Moab I had decided to pull the BP-40 pads out and swap them for a set new Polymatrix E pads. I had initially run the Polymatrix E pads but had problems with wearing them out at Hammers, which is why I had moved to the BP-40 pad. But I had never had an issue at the shorter season races with the Polymatrix E and I recall Wil Wood’s chart showing that the E pads should have good initial bite and performance across all temperature ranges while the newer BP-40 pads have good wear characteristics but not as good bite ( I think Wil Wood updated their line of brake pads since I bought the Poly Matrix Es). Unfortunately, I wiped a few of the rotors out after wearing through the pads….

I don’t know if burning through these pads was due to me:

• Driving harder than I had a previous season races.
• It was the wrong compound for Moab with the steep descents and heavy braking
• I think the Poly E pads are intended for short course and dirt track events.
• I wasn’t coming off the brake pedal completely.
• Another great reason for me to figure out the logging capabilities of my dash,

The only other damage I have found so far is that 3 of the 4 bolts from the motor mounts into the block are sheared off.



This one is broke but the marking paint is holding it in...


The only non-broken bolt had loosened.

These were all FNL/grade 9 bolts, torqued to 59 ft-lbs (from Fastenal's torque chart) ( which is higher that any manual for a 351W I have found, which usually call for ~40 ft-lbs), with red Loctite and Nord-lock washers.

I have had a lot of problems with bolts loosening or breaking in the past, and with the motor mounts them selves breaking.

When installing the drive train getting the bolts through all the bushings is no more difficult than any jeep, etc that I have pulled and re-installed a motor in. As such I don’t think there is any alignment issue putting every thing in a bind.

I do have two motor mounts with bushing at the motor, the transmission to T-case adapter has two bushing on it, and there is a fifth bushing on a support on the back of the T-case. See my wonderful drawing:


All of these bolts were installed before Vegas to Reno in 2024, were re-checked before Hammers, and visually checked before Moab.


Not sure what the best option to address this issues is going to be. For now I'll likely start replacing them every race...

Still slowly working through disassembly:

The twins have also arrived so we are doing the whole newborn thing. I'll be getting a couple hours here and there on race car for the next few months, so progress is going to be slow.

But the current to do list is:

1. Pull front and rear axles, completely tear down both, take housings to be blasted and the re-paint, and re-assemble.
2. Build false floors into the footwells to try and reduce driver/co-driver discomfort.
3. Build a new switch panel
   1. My current panel requires the high beams to be on to have the light bar on, I think this would be a bad idea in the dust at night.
4. Go thru a full prep.
5. Increase the rate of the upper spring on the front coil over.
   1. I think the cars pace is still limited by the front suspension.
6. Put some serious effort into a driver mod:
   1. Learn how to use the logging functions in the car.
   2. Maybe find/attend a driving school for off-road racing, or a rally school. ( one option: desertraceschool)
   3. Find somewhere local to the front range in Colorado for more testing/seat time once the car is back together.

One thing I am curious about is there any tell-tale signs to look for that would indicate I didn't get my shocks fully bleed when I go to re-build them?

common problem on jimmys chassis, the mounts cantilever out from the tube spreading the chassis. the spec chassis were constantly having this issue.

you got any pictures of the chassis without the motor showing the mounts?

edit : found this one, there is no vertical tie in and that is a large span.

On dad’s car with the aluminum Windsors in them. We switched to ARP studs and nuts. Cross drilled the tips of the studs. And use tie wire on the studs after the nuts are torqued down. The tire wire stops the nuts from coming off if they come loose, and stops the studs from turning at all if anything comes loose. The one thing I like better about an LS than the SBF is the 4 motor mount bosses per side instead of two.

what are the chances you could go to a midplate or head mounts?