Burning Money: In the shop with Scott Racing

Update... transmission install got finished the night before triple threat. For those interested, I host the Southeast Triple Threat each year. We hit 3 parks in 3 days, this year was golden mtn, windrock, and harlan. Literally drove the buggy for 5 minutes at the shop then loaded it on the trailer. I went with a Yank converter (has to be the baddest mfr ever) and no engine braking this time in the valve body. Trans builder added some more billet voodoo to support no engine braking and I am super happy with how it performed. Cant tell you how nice it is to be able to shift from 2nd to 1st without stopping or worrying about blowing the lugs off inside the case of the 400. Buggy performed flawless through 3 rough days and we literally didnt touch anything except greasing front axle joints and tightened 2 jam nuts.

In other news, the 4800 car got put on the backburner because of my transmission and cooling issues with the new motor. For whatever reason, it will not cool at idle now (there were no issues with this before). We bled air, vacuum bled it, pulled lines to make sure nothing was stopped up, etc and still no success. Currently putting new water pump on it to rule that out. If somebody has a tip then let me know... rear radiator that is high, two port steam ports, heater ports are blocked off/ not looped.
 
gt1guy said:
Don't the heater ports need to be looped? I could be wrong, but I thought they needed to be looped if not used.
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Lots of conflicting info on this. Seems that it doesnt matter either way. Dads is looped through a heater, mine was looped via elbow prior to heater, and racecar was blocked off prior to the motor failure with zero cooling issues.
 
Finally made some progress worth updating. 4800 car is cooling now. Ive never had this many problems out of getting a buggy to bleed air and cool. Ultimately, the fix was 4 port steam ports tied into radiator and a redline thermostat bypass. Dad talked with the owner and he said they see our exact symptoms a lot. Link for anybody interested... Billet Thermostat Bypass - F Body

4800 car is ready to ride and test finally. In other news, jhf chassis will be going back in the shop in the next week or so and come black friday, we will be ordering parts to build two new steering 14 bolts for mine and dads trail cars.
 
Wfoyota said:
Finally made some progress worth updating. 4800 car is cooling now. Ive never had this many problems out of getting a buggy to bleed air and cool. Ultimately, the fix was 4 port steam ports tied into radiator and a redline thermostat bypass. Dad talked with the owner and he said they see our exact symptoms a lot. Link for anybody interested... Billet Thermostat Bypass - F Body

4800 car is ready to ride and test finally. In other news, jhf chassis will be going back in the shop in the next week or so and come black friday, we will be ordering parts to build two new steering 14 bolts for mine and dads trail cars.
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AWESOME Updates!

JHF car going to be little dudes kids crawler???
 
Got the race car out last Saturday for a quick run up windrock. For those not aware, the pull up the mtn is steep and long and overheats most rigs even in cool weather. Race car run 185 all the way up and tickled me to death.

In other news, the jhf is back in the shop and progress has started back. Rear center section is together as well as the front minus passenger side.

Ecgs has 15% off right now so went ahead and ordered their house Cs with super kingpin Reid's for the wagon front axle.

The bad news is rear spindle nut came off the race car and the caliper was the only thing holding it on 🤣 minor details
 

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Noticed that dad's front truss was basically ripped off on the driver side of his trail car. Bunch of plating later, she's there.

In other news, front clip of the jhf is together. I'm partial to the fj look and miller Motorsports bumper. Winch plate is in and radiator tray started. Pretty happy with the look of it.
 

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Feel like weve been working our ass off on this race car with minimal return lately then this weekend happened. Finally got to a place where we were confident enough for dyno and pretech for the 2026 season. Dyno went great, car is dialed in now and put down 400hp to the wheels on 37s. Really happy with that as we were expecting less. Pretech also went great with only a few small things to button up before PA. Got the car out and ripped it around the field for about 10 minutes saturday evening then it melted all the fan wiring. Currently dissecting all of that to fix properly. Gear works rear 3rd member showed up and shes a purty thing. Goal is to stretch the rear a few inches after PA and get the fab10 put under the rear.

Me and pops was able to get out two weekends ago and trail ride some too. Really needed it.
 
Race recap

We left for rausch creek, PA Wednesday morning. Nerves were high and the drive was long. Rolled in around 7 pm and set up camp in the rain and fog. Thursday morning we went through tech and got ready to pre run that afternoon. Pre ran one lap of the 11 mile course and it was nasty. Lot of high speed stuff, tight woods, and rock sections that would destroy everything if not careful. Friday we went through qualifying smoothly but not as fast as we should have putting us 7th on the roster for Saturday morning. Went over the car and everything checked out good. This morning was race day, I was comfortable in the car and the nerves had settled. We ran a comfortable pace and pushed where we could. We smoked "outer limits" but ended up with a flat. Changed the tire on course and kept pushing. Got through the next big rock section then the rear driveshaft let go on a small uphill section ending our race. Brought home 4th place.

What an unbelievable experience overall. You can't really appreciate ultra 4 until you experience it first hand. We will be back and better.

Can't thank my dad enough for being stupid enough to do this with me. The memories will last forever.

Thank you to Jesus Christ as our lord and savior for saving my soul and keeping us safe.

Thank you to my wife for putting up with this, Scott Goforth at Goforth Tire for the 37" Toyos, Chris at Wizzo's suspension and fabrication for the shock tuning, James at Schofield Performance for making this thing run like a scalded dog, Tyler for all the help and pit support, other friends for all their help, and Ultra 4 for a killer series!

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About a month before PA, we were in Harlan riding for the weekend. Fantastic trip until that Saturday evening. Coming down the mtn, I hit a water break that I've been across at least 100 times around 40 mph. It donkey kicked the buggy, we landed directly on the front bumper, and proceeded to flip for around the length of a football field. It destroyed the buggy. Pulled it in the shop last night to start tear down. So far... broke bellhousing, broke the atlas adapter off the mount, bent the support ring, broke both motor mounts, broke the shock hoops, destroyed the radiator, destroyed hood, ripped roof off, and shoved the front tube work so far to the driver side that it bent the driver shock.

If it wasn't for Jesus Christ and we hadn't of been tight in 5 point belts, it would have probably killed me and my friend.

Will update as I work on it. Wear your freaking seatbelt people.
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94toytruck said:
Glad the old girl saved you guys. Sounds like there won't be much to salvage out of it?
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Time is the biggest factor honestly. It's just harder to weld and grind with my three year old there all the time but wouldn't trade it for anything.

Going to cut it at firewall and start over. Good thing is my over excessive atlas support main frame structure didn't move so it'll be easy to weld new clamp ring on it and have everything basically already lined back up. Should take a lot of the math out of the motor mount locations.
 
I get you man, family time definitely trumps fab time. I'm glad you're fixing it, definitely one of my favorite rigs to see getting beat down.
 
Glad you guys are okay. Sorry about the damage....but the pics look like the chassis held up pretty well to what sounds like a pretty hard series of rolls.
 
Sean said:
Glad you guys are okay. Sorry about the damage....but the pics look like the chassis held up pretty well to what sounds like a pretty hard series of rolls.
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Thanks! Im not mad about the damage considering how bad it could have been.
 
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