Build Legends Class 4800 Build - "Tinkerita"

Back in September 2020, I made a rash decision to take our stock TJ aka "Tinker" (as I always tinkered on it per the wife) and convert it to a 4600 Stock Class car and race it at King of the Hammers 2021. As if I wasn't crunched for time already, I also created a YouTube channel to documented the whole experience from start to finish.



After racing this past year with a podium finish and a 2nd overall in the Eastern Race Series, our team was offered an opportunity to build another car. After some difficult discussions, budgeting, and a change in life plans, FSU Off-Road partnered with TMR Customs to build one of their chassis for a 4800 Legends Class car in Ultra 4 Racing.

With that said, our journey to the 4800 class begins. Tinkerita as the wife's named it (a mixture of tinkering and garage margaritas) showed up back in September 2021, and ever since its arrival, I've been non-stop fabricating, welding, researching... repeat! Our goal is to have a "budget" friendly 4800 car that can serve as both a racer and weekend warrior for the wife and I to enjoy. Now, we also know anything "racing" is never budget friendly, but by doing it yourself you save a lot of money in the long run. Also to help with the budget aspect, our team has a list of key sponsors and partners that we've established over the last year of racing to help save us some money. In a project like this, every little bit helps.

Tinkerita Specification:
*TMR Chassis (Estimated 113 WB)
*LQ9 6.0 LS Based Engine
TH400 Transmission
*D300 Colossus Case (32 Spline Outputs)
*S&S Fabrication 9" (Front & Rear)
GearWorks 10" Centers (5:43 Gears)
*Branik Motorsports Axles (40 Spline)
*Branik Motorsports Brakes (Hats & Rotors)
PSC Full Hydro Steering (10" Ram)
*Locked Off-Road (2.5" Coilovers & 2" Bumps Stops)
*TMR Sway-Bars
*Method Race Wheels
BF Goodrich 37" KM2/3 (Race Tires)

There are still a few unknown's for the build, however we will address those when the time comes. We have committed to a new build series on YouTube for Tinkerita to hopefully encourage others to just start doing what they love. To see more in detail as the build progresses, make sure to subscribe to the channel.

Now then, to date, we have assembled and completely welded the chassis. We started with the top half and worked our way down until we installed the back and front portions. From start to finish, the chassis took approximately 26 hours to assemble and weld together.


Note the margarita to help ease the pain of frustrations.



With the chassis assembled, it was time to start thinking about gussets, shock mounts, link mounts etc. For the ease of complexity, we went with a mixture of TMR Customs and Barnes 4WD brackets as I notched 1.5" and 1.75" .120 DOM tubing for our gussets. If you're familiar with Ultra 4 Racing, then you know the Miller Pro Chassis is top dog as a solid axle car. With that said, I wanted to mimic a lot of Eric's support/gusseting system in our TMR chassis. Although different in overall design, I was able to come up with a flooring design to help strengthen the chassis as well as the lower subframe portion. I also wanted to utilize quick clamps to allow easier access to the transmission, transfer case, etc. from the bottom. In order to achieve all Ultra 4's safety rules and incorporate my design ideas, I used masking tape to help visualize where everything needed to go.


Little by little, I worked through the tape until I had most of the gussets complete. This included the flooring design, dash bar, shock brackets, link mounts, and sway-bar locations.



This can all be watched here:

To continue on past what's published on YouTube, I've been in the works of skinning the chassis while I wait on critical components. To date, this has been the most exciting thing for me personally, to see how Tinkerita is going to look in the end. With a bunch of cardboard, I made templates for the flooring, firewalls, and outer skins. I had a piece of aluminum for the roof and some scrap sheet metal that used for a front visor. Along with this, I was able to purchase a fiberglass hood and cowl from marketplace. Although too wide, we narrowed up them up to make them fit the chassis.


This past weekend we were able to start narrowing a stock TJ grill for Tinkerita. With my sidekick, we didn't get much accomplished, but it's more important to invest in the future of the sport for sure!



I don't suspect we'll get much done with the Christmas weekend ahead, however I'm hoping we'll be receiving our axles and brackets before the New Years and we'll hit it hard come the first of the year.

Merry Christmas Everyone

Following. Looks like a great start so far!

Thanks for bringing the build here.

Yeah nice work man!

Welcome to Irate Anthony. Definitely excited to see this thing get completed. What are you planning for axles?

tribal4krawler said:

Welcome to Irate Anthony. Definitely excited to see this thing get completed. What are you planning for axles?

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Fab 9's and GW 10" drop outs is what it says in his first post.

Random question.

How thick is that fiberglass hood?

I'm going to be pulling a mould and making a hood for my pile and I have zero experience with composites.

Following

gt1guy said:

Random question.

How thick is that fiberglass hood?

I'm going to be pulling a mould and making a hood for my pile and I have zero experience with composites.

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I have the same grill, hood and cowl at my shop. I'd say they are about 1/8" thick. The thing you have to remember about those parts is that they are made for racing where lightness counts and durability doesn't really matter. I'd make it thick enough so that it's not flapping in the breeze as you drive it down the road. Balsa wood stiffening ribs also help...


FSU Off-Road: You mentioned buying the fiberglass from FB Marketplace and having to narrow the parts. I'm guessing you got the 59" wide parts and that's why you narrowed them? Did those pieces happen to come from RI? A buddy of mine up there has the molds to make those 3 parts in 59" wide versions and I'm wondering if he might be the one who sold them to you...

Like the race team name and the chassis choice, will be fallowing along for sure

Sweet to see y'all building it out of a single car garage!

too cool

I appreciate the hospitality. As mentioned, the axles are S&S Fabrication's 9's. Also running his outers as well.

These are our axles... just waiting on them to arrive right now.

Yes, the hood and cowl are roughly 1/8" per Slowpoke693. I believe these are CD Motorsports, but Brian wasn't 100% sure. Chris Durham isn't too far from us here in NC. The original width was 59"ish or so.

@ Winchested: it's definitely NOT ideal. We were supposed to be build a shop this year at the house, instead we chose to build a race car. When the opportunity presents itself, I like to run with them.

Took a half day yesterday to get more done though. Mocked up the initial skid plates and rub rails and got those installed. Nice tight fit so I was happy. Also did a little aluminum work as well. Trying to get as much done as possible before the big components arrive.



I'm off the week after Christmas, so I'm look forward to some big progress.

SLOWPOKE693 said:

You mentioned buying the fiberglass from FB Marketplace and having to narrow the parts. I'm guessing you got the 59" wide parts and that's why you narrowed them? Did those pieces happen to come from RI? A buddy of mine up there has the molds to make those 3 parts in 59" wide versions and I'm wondering if he might be the one who sold them to you...

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do you have contact info? I'm in the northeast and run a 59" wide hood

Snowracer said:

Like the race team name and the chassis choice, will be fallowing along for sure

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haha... YES! I've been following your build as well. May have pulled some ideas from your posts.

been following this on YouTube. cool to see it here. good luck with the build!

cdemart2 said:

do you have contact info? I'm in the northeast and run a 59" wide hood

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PM sent

Awesome, thanks for taking the time to post it up here!

Following! Been following on YouTube and its great to see it here as well!

Cool, I see your local as well!

Slander said:

Cool, I see your local as well!

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Sure am... Up in Bethlehem to be more precise. Always welcome to stop by and see first hand.

FSU Off-Road said:

Sure am... Up in Bethlehem to be more precise. Always welcome to stop by and see first hand.

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Lol that's where I am as well!

As it always goes, I didn't get as much done as I wanted to, however we did manage to knock a few things off the list. I did finish the rear back paneling (excluding the mesh for ventilation). Everything lined up well and should be enough cut out to keep things cool. I left enough room for additional cutouts for the shoulder harnesses when the time comes.


While trying to finalize the cowl placement, I had the wife hop in and help me out. Unfortunately she was too short to see the hood due to the height of the cowl. Yes, there are adjustments to the seat brackets, however I agreed the cowl was too tall for my liking as well. In order to "lower" the cowl, I had to add some speed holes haha. I'll go back and fiberglass over these later. This allowed me to lower the cowl 1.5" from the original position. As a result, everything aligned better than expected once we installed the hood.


As a nice surprise, my dzus 1/4 turn fittings arrived quicker than expected. This allowed me to work on the body panels for a couple of days. Although not 100% complete (cowl/hood fender & rear fender), at least the main body panels are done.


To finish off the days I had to work on it, I focused on narrowing up the grill again. Since I lowered the cowl and hood, I had to do the same to the grill. Then worked on a few custom tabs to mount it to the chassis. Tinkerita officially has a face! I honestly surprised myself on how well it lined up and other than some bondo and pain, it looks better than I imagined.


With this complete, it's time to shift my focuses. Unfortunately the LQ9 6.0 we have has a busted rod and piston. I don't know the severity of it yet, so while we dive into that, I went and pulled a LM7 5.3 from a local junkyard for mock-up purposes. This should keep me busy for a while as I figure out the placement for it all.

Before I got too carried away with the motor, I had to finish my video.

I got the mock-up/back-up motor on the stand and stripped it down as quickly as possible. I wanted to clean and inspect everything so it wasn't so dang dirty in the chassis. Completely tore it down and cleaned everything, it was NASTY! Seems we have some bearings to replace in the future. While I cleaned, I also used some parts laying around the garage to make some mounts.


Although not completely reassembled, its clean enough for mock-up purposes and will allow me to continue progressing on the build.


Built a home made lift and started getting the motor installed into the chassis. Used some scrap tubing to get it initially in place before we get the TH400 and Colossus Case installed. Although tight, we shouldn't have any issues with exhaust, firewalls, flooring, etc. Also worked on some quick disconnect clamps for the shock supports and making sure we wouldn't have any clearance issues over the motor.



I picked up our TH400 yesterday, so I'll be working on that install next as well as getting things prepped for our axles, they arrive Wednesday!

Over the past week I've been a little distracted as I watched KOH 2022. So many many memories from last year! Watching also motivated me more to get this thing done in record timing. I don't want next years KOH to be our first outing, so full steam ahead! Like I mentioned before, I picked up our TH400 and starting working on installing this. After getting it bolted to our 5.3, I wanted to design a lower cross member to not only add support but be easily removable for working on the transmissions/transfer case if need be. I mimicked MM again from a design standpoint, however I utilized TMR's transmission mount instead of incorporating an additional cross member. Once the transfer case is installed, we can adjust the fitment of everything accordingly and get it all welded up.


Now for the exciting part! Our axles have arrived and it's time to get these things underneath the chassis. S&S Fab did a great job on these housings. These are their Race Series 9" housings with 4" tubes, 3/8" welded skids and internally gusseted, yet still allowing a 10" ring gear. As for the knuckles and rear bearing cups, these utilize the 05+ super duty unit bearings allowing for whatever size axles we can afford ha! I've already started on the rear, so I should have it initially mocked up under the chassis soon.

Is that weld splatter all throughout inside of your custom housings?

I would send those axles back or have them cover the cost of some wire wheels.