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The Boozecruiser (2007 Jeep JK 2dr) - now Ultra4 4500 Race Build

There’s still a lot of people that use it and do well. It’s definitely something I’ve considered but I think at this stage I’m just going to do this phase 1 of the build with what I have (and what i know works) and then if I end up wanting to change it later I will
 
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Got moved into Tyler’s shop and started stripping down the JK. So nice having AC and so weird not being a sweaty mess. Lol. Started playing around with some lines with painters tape for the cage, I’ll probably do a double B pillar. Dash is getting deleted, and I’ll basically gain 4 inches of visibility which will allow me to drop the seats to make sure I have plenty of headroom. Once I get everything yanked out I’ll be hauling it all back to my house and bringing the tons, LS, th400 etc over to start initial mock-ups.
 
Looking forward to some more updates on this build. Sad to see the Comanche's racing days are over, but excited by the new build and new class of racing. 4500's need all the entries they can get.
 
Yeah I’m excited. Getting to codrive/drive the TMR 4400 car really got me going again, I know this one won’t be quite to that level probably but it shouldn’t be too far off. Finished gettin the rear axle out and started on getting the interior stripped. Next step is to cut the cage out, and pull the body off the chassis with that nifty gantry crane. Then I’ll pull all the drivetrain, cut off all the old link mounts and stuff I won’t need before popping the body back on and getting the new drivetrain in to start getting ideas of fitment and clearance issues. I’m hoping mid next week I can haul my trailer over with the tons and drivetrain and take back all the Rubi stuff to put in my garage to sell.
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My goal is to make this jk as cool looking (and of course functional) as possible. I feel like the Poison Spyder Crispy 4400 car was one of the best examples and what I’ll be taking a lot of inspiration from. It’ll still look quite a bit different with the amount of boatside I have planned
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had a good weekend testing the TMR 4400 car at the local-ish offroad park (hidden falls) and the steering is vastly improved. we did notice the ball joint eliminator worked itself loose again so we'll have to figure out whats going on there. This week I'll be cutting the cage out, and starting on getting the body ready to yank off. I'm not sure how much i'll be able to accomplish this month as we do have to race prep the 4400 for Ultra4 Disney but I figure any spare free time i have will be used on getting everything out and ready to sell. I also did get some good news that the Rock Krawler link mounts that I ordered are way ahead of schedule so I should be seeing those maybe next week and be able to start mocking up some rear suspension and figuring out exactly where i want to cut for the backhalf. I'm also waiting for my new to me 2015 Ram 1500 Ecodiesel to get fixed at the dealership, my dad decided to sell it to me and get himself a new 2023 tacoma so i'm pretty excited about it, as long as everything is properly fixed and reliable again. should be a pretty nice little tow pig for mild trailering (which is exactly what i wanted).
 
tribal4krawler said:
2015 Ram 1500 Ecodiesel to get fixed at the dealership, my dad decided to sell it to me and get himself a new 2023 tacoma so i'm pretty excited about it, as long as everything is properly fixed and reliable again. should be a pretty nice little tow pig for mild trailering (which is exactly what i wanted).
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what is mild towing. i have always wondered how these trucks do with that diesel.
 
chaplinfj60 said:
what is mild towing. i have always wondered how these trucks do with that diesel.
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just pulling the trailer with jeep around. Pops bought that truck from me brand new in 2015 and he's got about 190k miles on it. he's had some issues with it this year (replaced all the fuel system at dealer and then they messed up reinstalling the turbo and now it's leaking everywhere) so he got fed up with it and sold it to me for cheap and i'm just waiting for dealer to repair their mistakes. We've towed with the truck before and it did good, got about 15-18 mpg towing (gets about 25-29 mpg highway).
 
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Made some good progress also over the weekend, we have almost everything unbolted/disconnected to take the body off the chassis. I’ll probably head over to the shop one day this week and finish up the body removal. From there pulling the drivetrain will be super simple and I can start taking off all the old mounts we won’t need. My goal is to have the LS drivetrain mocked in by the end of the month and hopefully the rear suspension too. Then we can start designing and building the cage. Should go pretty quickly once we get to that phase.
 
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Some more good progress made this evening. Once we get all the drivetrain out we’ll put the frame on a table so we can start on the cage work. I also worked on stripping down the dash and starting to get all the wiring out. Having a tough time with that aluminum back dash piece but we’re getting there. I really cannot wait to be done pulling shit out and to start putting new shit in. We’re hoping by Saturday night we’ll have the frame completely bare. The more I look at the car I’m seriously considering just chopping the whole Jeep off after the firewall and just doing sheet metal and tube. It’ll make it a lot easier to work on, and clean. If we go that route pretty much all that will be left of the jk will be the firewall, about 3/4 of the frame, and hood/grill. Everything else will be straight racecar.
 
tribal4krawler said:
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Some more good progress made this evening. Once we get all the drivetrain out we’ll put the frame on a table so we can start on the cage work. I also worked on stripping down the dash and starting to get all the wiring out. Having a tough time with that aluminum back dash piece but we’re getting there. I really cannot wait to be done pulling shit out and to start putting new shit in. We’re hoping by Saturday night we’ll have the frame completely bare. The more I look at the car I’m seriously considering just chopping the whole Jeep off after the firewall and just doing sheet metal and tube. It’ll make it a lot easier to work on, and clean. If we go that route pretty much all that will be left of the jk will be the firewall, about 3/4 of the frame, and hood/grill. Everything else will be straight racecar.
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Progress is looking good. Remind me, what’s the frame requirements for 4500?
 
ridered3 said:
Progress is looking good. Remind me, what’s the frame requirements for 4500?
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You must have factory or factory style boxed frame from motor mounts to front of the seat mounts. Our plan is to cut off the crumple zones in the front (basically first foot or two) and tube it. In the back I’m not exactly sure where we’ll end up cutting the frame but it will definitely be backhalfed/ dovetailed. We’ll still have way more factory frame then what we’re required to have.
 
tribal4krawler said:
You must have factory or factory style boxed frame from motor mounts to front of the seat mounts. Our plan is to cut off the crumple zones in the front (basically first foot or two) and tube it. In the back I’m not exactly sure where we’ll end up cutting the frame but it will definitely be backhalfed/ dovetailed. We’ll still have way more factory frame then what we’re required to have.
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Thanks for the clarification. I knew it had to retain factory/factory stlye frame, but couldn't recall where exactly within the chassis.
 
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Got the body completely stripped of wiring and dash. I’m seriously considering chopping the body off basically right at the firewall. This will give us mounting points for the hood and windshield (I’d only use that on the street though). We’ll probably cut the tunnel out completely and sheet metal that part so that we can get easy access to the trans and back of motor at races. I don’t think I’ll move the LS back very much on the frame as we’re going to stretch the front forward anyway and shouldn’t have any clearance issues there. Now I’ve gotta go through the Rubi axles and make sure everything’s good before I sell those off and get to work on stripping everything out of the frame.
 
I went down this path with a TJ racing 4500. My teammate and I were building a rig to support 4500 and TREC racing, and chopped up a TJ tub similar to what you're showing. Years later after rollovers and smashing the cowl off trees, rocks, pedestrians, whatever, it became a maintenance headache. It also added extra weight, but since it was so integrated into the buggy design it was a major tear up to remove it.

If you really want a cowl buggy, I would highly recommend stripping that down to an absolute shell, and make it possible to remove/replace.
 
JohnnyJ said:
I went down this path with a TJ racing 4500. My teammate and I were building a rig to support 4500 and TREC racing, and chopped up a TJ tub similar to what you're showing. Years later after rollovers and smashing the cowl off trees, rocks, pedestrians, whatever, it became a maintenance headache. It also added extra weight, but since it was so integrated into the buggy design it was a major tear up to remove it.

If you really want a cowl buggy, I would highly recommend stripping that down to an absolute shell, and make it possible to remove/replace.
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I’ve had somebody else also recommend doing that, so it’ll definitely be something we keep in mind.
 
What is the benefit of keeping the entire tub intact? Easier to bolt in seats? You’re probably going to cut a lot of the floor to clear the new drivetrain.
 
RunningProblem said:
What is the benefit of keeping the entire tub intact? Easier to bolt in seats? You’re probably going to cut a lot of the floor to clear the new drivetrain.
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Nah that yellow line in the pic above is where I’m thinking we’ll cut, nothing behind that line would stay. We’ll build a new floor out of 1” square tubing, I’m hoping for a nice little center console to mount the winters shifter too, and a storage box to put the impact for tire changes/basic tools.
 
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More good process today. Got drivetrain fully out and started on cutting out old mounts. Also cut out the roll cage and ended up doing something weird to my back or muscle so I didn’t get much more progress accomplished before we called it a day. Shoutout to Lance, Ken and Alex for all helping out and being involved today. It was just like old times.
 
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Getting kinda rowdy now. Kind of in a holding point now until my 3/4 link crossmember comes in next week. Then we start mocking all that stuff up and figuring out where we’re cutting frame. Also ordering 2” .120 this week
 
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Working on getting the fitment of the Artec rear truss dialed. We’ll be cutting the outer parts of the truss to fit the TMR Customs coilover/bypass mounts, those will be in next week. Tube is here, but going to wait until Friday when we go put the 4400 on the dyno to pick it up. This weekend should be fun.
 
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Not a ton to add right now, we’ve been prepping the 187 for Ultra4 Disney. We’ve been waiting on these RockKrawler link mounts so now we can move forward with figuring out link positions and lengths before we chop the frame and start building the chassis. Hoping we’ll be able to make some real progress next week, and then I have to head to Alaska for work for a few days. A couple weeks after that we fly to Cali to prerun JV and go to SEMA. So the odds that we have the Jk as a semi roller are pretty slim. Lol. Luckily after SEMA I won’t have a ton going on so we’ll be able to focus hard on the JK for 3 months. I might end up moving the Jk back to my house at the tail end so I can work on it every single day to wrap up the little things like lights/comms/etc that are time consuming and tedious.
 
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Our fabricator has been MIA for a while now, so we’re scrambling to find a new guy that can help us both with building the 4500 chassis as well as repairing the 4400 chassis damage. I’m about to the point where I’m just going to do it myself but I really wanted a “professional” to do it mainly to minimize waste and time spent and have the peace of mind knowing the car is built right and capable of handling a high speed crash. I’ve managed to sell off pretty much everything I don’t need from the JK so I’ve got the money to get the radflos and build a motor but now I have to wait and see if I’m going to end up having to pay somebody. We’ll see. Ken threw his McNeil Carbon dash that he’s wanting to use for his 4400 car in the JK and it fit almost perfectly. If it’ll take too much to make fit his car he said he’ll sell it to me for a great price. Sure does look pretty.
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tribal4krawler said:
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Our fabricator has been MIA for a while now, so we’re scrambling to find a new guy that can help us both with building the 4500 chassis as well as repairing the 4400 chassis damage. I’m about to the point where I’m just going to do it myself but I really wanted a “professional” to do it mainly to minimize waste and time spent and have the peace of mind knowing the car is built right and capable of handling a high speed crash. I’ve managed to sell off pretty much everything I don’t need from the JK so I’ve got the money to get the radflos and build a motor but now I have to wait and see if I’m going to end up having to pay somebody. We’ll see. Ken threw his McNeil Carbon dash that he’s wanting to use for his 4400 car in the JK and it fit almost perfectly. If it’ll take too much to make fit his car he said he’ll sell it to me for a great price. Sure does look pretty.
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Dash looks killer!
 
Been ridiculously busy with work and life in general. Still been mushing along on the build when I have time. I’ve now got both rocker bars tacked with the stingers, on Friday I’ll lift the body back off so I can get to all the tubes to weld them in permanently. Off of this I’ll be able to build what I’m calling the mid box structure which will include the door bars, rear floor and harness bar. After that I’ll get the backhalf going and once that’s done I’ll be able to get my measurements for the roof bars. It’s a weird inny/outtie cage but I think at the end of the day it’ll be super subtle and most people won’t even notice and I’ll have a lot more interior room than usual with a JK interior rollcage. We’ll see. And yeah I know I need to clean all the rust off the upright tube, I’ll do that before it’s actually welded in. I’m going to do a hoop with 1 3/4 on the end of the firewall that I’ll run all my front end upper structure off of and will also be tied into the primary cage structure but for now I’m just going to focus on getting the primary stuff and backhalf completed before working on the front end stuff.
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Got the rockers mostly burned in and then switched focus to figure out where I want the RockKrawler Rockzilla 4 link crossmember to live. It’s looking like my rear lower link arms will be somewhere between 40-42”. I’m not sure what most long travel JK arms are. My problem is that I want to stretch the front forward so that I don’t have any interference with the motor to axle, but I also don’t want it to be insanely long. I’m wanting to be somewhere around 114-115”. I think that’ll be a good compromise and a wheelbase I’m very familiar with wheeling as the Comanche was also 114. It’ll also do better in the desert which is a primary goal of mine. We spent a lot of the day reorganizing the race shop and getting the tire machines in the back so now all we really need is a lift which we’ll probably do next year.
 
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Rockkrawler mounts are fully welded in but like an idiot I forgot to take pics before I put the cab back on. Oh well.

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Door bars are bent, trying to emulate the look of Jk half doors. You can also see the McNeil carbon dash.

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Start of the lower backhalf. Next step is to bend the upper back half bars from the door bars to the back of the backhalf. I’m hoping maybe this weekend I can finalize my seat heights so that I can go ahead and bend the roof rails and then it’ll sorta look like a racecar. Once all the backhalf stuff is burned in I’ll be lopping the back half of the factory frame off.
 
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