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Future of KOH 4400 chassis/car development?

Jeffh555 said:
He had that pit stop where they had to change the co2 tank for the ARB. I think that was long enough to have cost him the win if everything else was equal.
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Over a 200 mile race there was plenty of places where someone could've picked up 40~ish seconds.

Could you imagine being in that position? I know I'd be beating myself up over every little decision made during the race and the prep before.

But all that is moot, it happened. Huge congrats to Raul, the returning king.... Long live the king!
His best decision of the day was having Darian come over to help him winch on Sledge. That one thing made the difference between winning by a few seconds or losing by a few minutes.
 
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Tech Tim said:
Over a 200 mile race there was plenty of places where someone could've picked up 40~ish seconds.

Could you imagine being in that position? I know I'd be beating myself up over every little decision made during the race and the prep before.

But all that is moot, it happened. Huge congrats to Raul, the returning king.... Long live the king!
His best decision of the day was having Darian come over to help him winch on Sledge. That one thing made the difference between winning by a few seconds or losing by a few minutes.
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I’ve seen the Gomez brothers use that tactic before on backdoor. Saves a ton of time, and in this case it totally was the difference between winning or not.

As for live valve shocks, you guys were talking about them earlier, do any SA cars run live valve? I’m curious if it would make a difference for them.

Dave Cole mentioned during the live feed it has given a substantial advantage to ifs cars going down rock trails…historically going down rock trails fast with an ifs car it is a constant hit to center diff skid, now with live valve it stiffens up so quickly that it prevents that and you can keep a much greater pace.

It seems the ifs guys are willing to invest in the technology and the SA guys are more hesitant. Live valve helps ifs in the rocks, if be curious if it helps SA guys in the desert.
 
Bebop said:
You're including the TT guys too?
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Actually, there was a lot of learning about going fast from the 2WD TT's . They had to maximize front traction in turning...Especially if they couldn't rear steer by broadsliding. That fundamental was only captured by a few of the top builders. There would be no reason they would change the geometry thinking. I see the Mason builds as accomplished. I have not seen them all in action. We also learned about loss of camber with body roll from the sprint and roundy round dirt guys. OEM designers were dumb founded when 18" IFS articulation was mentioned. They actually disregard body roll during design. Dallas put all that info together along with input on max CV angles, clearances, 2WD TT experience, as well as Toyota IFS learnings (I believe) . All simulation starts with what you want the wheel and tire to do to the ground.Then discussion on suspension anti's, bump steer, etc. Then work backwards with endless simulations finding pivots, adjusting anti's, bumpsteer, clearances, strengths, and etc. Usually months........on Bad Ass computer systems. If you could see it, there is nothing parallel, and a large reason for laser cut suspension pieces and jigs that all key together. Love the dedication here as not the main gig. Tim may see some of this differently, but they are both on point.
 
JohnnyJ said:
I think that I heard Schereeerererer was running Live Valve on his fox shocks. Any idea who else was running similar systems? Was that a factor in his speed through various terrains?

From wikipedia, here's the past 10 winners:
  • 2013: Randy Slawson and Michael Slawson[24]
  • 2014: Loren Healy and Casey Trujillo[25]
  • 2015: Randy Slawson and Michael Slawson
  • 2016: Erik Miller[26]
  • 2017: Shannon Campbell[27]
  • 2018: Jason Scherer[28]
  • 2019: Jason Scherer[29]
  • 2020: Josh Blyler[30]
  • 2021: Randy Slawson and Dustin Emick
  • 2022: Raul Gomez
  • 2023: Raul Gomez
So going backwards, it's IFS, IFS, SA, SA, IFS, IFS, IFS, SA, SA, IFS, SA for wins. So 6-4 IFS to Solid axle.

I remember that when IFS cars were starting to become popular (Baird, Campbell, others) that people all claimed IFS was going to replace SA. We definitely see the benefit in the desert, but the SA close up the gap in the rocks. Any mistake by an IFS car, and there's usually a Bomber or Miller chassis there looking to climb on the top step.

I believe one day UTVs could be in that convo, but I still don't see anything becoming dominant to the point of making something obsolete.
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Loren hasn’t won in an IFS car just solid axles. So it’s 5 to 5 IFS to Solid Axle in the last 10 years or 5 to 6 IFS to Solid Axle in the last 11 years as listed in the post.
 
06h3 said:
I’ve seen the Gomez brothers use that tactic before on backdoor. Saves a ton of time, and in this case it totally was the difference between winning or not.

As for live valve shocks, you guys were talking about them earlier, do any SA cars run live valve? I’m curious if it would make a difference for them.

Dave Cole mentioned during the live feed it has given a substantial advantage to ifs cars going down rock trails…historically going down rock trails fast with an ifs car it is a constant hit to center diff skid, now with live valve it stiffens up so quickly that it prevents that and you can keep a much greater pace.

It seems the ifs guys are willing to invest in the technology and the SA guys are more hesitant. Live valve helps ifs in the rocks, if be curious if it helps SA guys in the desert.
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Monkey with a Knife (Bailey Coles rental for 4400) and NorthShore Racing both run a form of Live Valve shocks on their solid axle cars.
 
SLOWPOKE693 said:
I'd love to see a UFO car and one of the Miller's Can-Ams sitting next to each other for size reference. Those UFO cars look tiny compared to most of the other 4400's I've seen them near and I'm thinking the size of the car, along with the IFS/SA design have alot to do with how well they do at KOH. :smokin:
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The UFO cars are Super Wide. I’ve monkied all over them with the Gomez guys and another guy who bought one.

I think they are 94- 96” or something.
 
Isdtbower said:
Did a SXS that some say might cost you $250k effort get in the top 10? Yup.
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Last years SxS could be mail ordered finished for $100,000. I have the quotes.

With the democrats inflation and a bigger engine, $135-150 this year?

You are also failing to give enough credit to the can am suspension design. It exceeds many of todays independently engineered cars.

Last point. If you force the top racers to drive the trails and not bypass them and cut course. They would be hung up and struggling way more in places a SxS might get through or be able to winch faster. So I would say these so called good drivers who just cut course are holding the UTV’s back by dodging the rocks that made KOH, KOH.

If Dave enforcers the rock trails, then your $100,000 UTV in a mostly factory chassis will be much much closer than 1.5 hours back and laughing at the $500k cars
 
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I was courted by the Honda factory team to be a Honda factory driver but I walked away because the horsepower and suspension geometry would not allow them to be competitive.

They are 2-5 years out if they ever show up.
 
Poke said:
I was courted by the Honda factory team to be a Honda factory driver but I walked away because the horsepower and suspension geometry would not allow them to be competitive.

They are 2-5 years out if they ever show up.
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Uhhhhh..... Bailey Cole won his class last year in his Talon, Raceco won the Baja 1000 in theirs ect.....

I'm calling bullshit. :flipoff2:
 
Tech Tim said:
The design is from the same engineer that designed both of Scherer's other two IFS cars, Dallas Lund. He gets it, more than any other person in the IFS world. Yes, I am biased.
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Not sure who this IFS sorcerer is that you speak of but I think he has something figured out. First time I saw Scherer's new car I knew they had something going just by the looks of it in comparison to the other IFS portal cars. I'm a solid axle suspension junkie and have no clue about all the IFS geometry but this thing seems pretty wild.

Those that have more knowledge on it than me, what is the reason for the steep angle of the upper at ride height? Maybe a super low anti dive to allow the live valve to do all the work when braking and descending hills? Camber curve through travel? Or maybe it is just a result of how low this thing sits considering it being on portals. But I know none of the fun haver portal cars have this geometry. Seems like they really put some thought into designing a system specifically around the portals and live valve shocks. You could really see in qualifying how smooth this thing was in the small nuisance rocks in her problem and Idle issues in the second half of the course.


scherer 2.jpg


scherer 3.PNG
 
Dallas has 100s of hours into that new suspension design and as Isdtbower mentions, it's not his day job, it is just something he does for fun to help Scherer out.

Even though it is running 74WELD portals, the suspension geometry is different from the Fun-Haver cars, Dallas designed up complete new uprights to fit his geometry and 74WELD carved them out on the CNC machine.
 
Poke said:
The UFO cars are Super Wide. I’ve monkied all over them with the Gomez guys and another guy who bought one.

I think they are 94- 96” or something.
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Just to put that width into perspective, the wheelbase of a TJ is 94", so they are as wide as a TJ is long.

wrangler-jeep-side.jpeg


I don't know the width of Scherer's new car, but his old one was in that same range (90"+).
 
Tech Tim said:
Just to put that width into perspective, the wheelbase of a TJ is 94", so they are as wide as a TJ is long.

wrangler-jeep-side.jpeg


I don't know the width of Scherer's new car, but his old one was in that same range (90"+).
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There was a tree section in PA that the SA cars fit between but the UFO and another IFS car had to jam the cars in hitting both trees.
 
Tech Tim said:
Just to put that width into perspective, the wheelbase of a TJ is 94", so they are as wide as a TJ is long.

wrangler-jeep-side.jpeg


I don't know the width of Scherer's new car, but his old one was in that same range (90"+).
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Some of the new SxSs have a longer wheelbase and wider track width than TJs. And almost the same HP from the factory.
 
93blackxj said:
Those that have more knowledge on it than me, what is the reason for the steep angle of the upper at ride height? Maybe a super low anti dive to allow the live valve to do all the work when braking and descending hills? Camber curve through travel? Or maybe it is just a result of how low this thing sits considering it being on portals.
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Camber and roll center.
 
It looks to me like he is running more droop travel vs bump. You look at a lot of the other IFS cars and most of them have the front end jacked up for better ground clearance, more of a 60/40 bump/droop. Schererer's car looks the opposite, 40/60 bump/droop, or at least closer to 50/50. Look at the halfshaft angle as that is your travel limiter, you'll notice it is pointing up at ride height and most of the others are pointing down. He is making good use of that extra portal ground clearance! I'm guessing he is also running somewhat light spring rates compared to the competition and allowing that suspension to work in the rocks, and the shocks to work in the desert.

I've been observing a lot of video footage of IFS trail rigs, things like tacomas and 4runners, off road and rock crawling. IFS does not transfer weight like a solid axle, but I also think people run too high of spring rates to make IFS work well on trails. Granted most aren't completely designing a custom suspension from the ground up, so they are working with what they have. I know most people don't want to drop the diff, so they are usually cranking up the spring rate somehow to just get more height. Stiff springs and little droop just don't work out well though.
 
I think it would be funny if out of the blue, the race course put them through a narrow canyon without bypasses:laughing:

I'm sure that won't happen because we all know the outcome. Plugged trail, race comes to a stop and then 100 complaints from the racers...lol. It's obviously turned into a rocky desert race more than a fast rock race with desert though...
 
DesertCJ said:
I think it would be funny if out of the blue, the race course put them through a narrow canyon without bypasses:laughing:

I'm sure that won't happen because we all know the outcome. Plugged trail, race comes to a stop and then 100 complaints from the racers...lol. It's obviously turned into a rocky desert race more than a fast rock race with desert though...
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I think you'd need to change the format for that to work. Maybe make it hard to qualify, qualify in hard rocks, and only allow 25 cars in the main event. Then start them 5 min apart. You'd still have plugged trails, but maybe less of it.
 
Jeffh555 said:
I think you'd need to change the format for that to work. Maybe make it hard to qualify, qualify in hard rocks, and only allow 25 cars in the main event. Then start them 5 min apart. You'd still have plugged trails, but maybe less of it.
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They could “easily” do something like that using the Prologue format for the desert races.

Long qualifying course, top X number get into the main race, and like usual all former Kings always have a spot to race from.
 
ridered3 said:
They could “easily” do something like that using the Prologue format for the desert races.

Long qualifying course, top X number get into the main race, and like usual all former Kings always have a spot to race from.
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This, 10x this.
 
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