Marlin Crawler's New Rock Crawling Long Travel IFS Suspension System (#RCLT)

they only for the cool kids

 

Well no wonder i've never heard of them

 

They're like an air shock on steroids so to speak.

 

Tight tolerances my ass. That side is clearly misaligned to the other side. Tight tolerance would be the bolt is hard to slide in either sleeve or the UCA is hard to get into position. That looks like either welded hot and fast without a jig, taken out too early from jig, or the jig was misaligned. Sounds like they are trying to punt and avoid the actual truth of the matter.

 

My thoughts too. Who cares about the sleeve tolerance, its the cup that's off.

 

They are ok. There are some benefits but I don’t like the idea of having a leak and getting stuck riding bump stops off a trail.

 

By no means am I trying to defend anyone. It is interesting to see the difference in what one thinks is tight tolerances or what a precise fit is. Having the opportunity to visit a number of Nascar shops about a decade ago as a supplier and being shown well beyond what the average person gets to see. One particular team shared what the tolerance was for their crank stroke lengths. From the shortest to longest across all four was (0.00005")

 

For their chassis it's crazy what they are going for and for the body jigs they use at tech inspections and what they allow is nuts. If you think NASCAR has some tight tolerances you should see F1. But you get into any bug league racing and you're doing everything possible to squeak every last .25 HP, oz of downforce, and .01 sec off a lap time. One of my old buddies from my circle track days is an engineer (aka engine builder) for Roush Yates.

 

Back then I had the opportunity to build some springs for McClaren. Springs were what I was doing. Remember the days of coil bind? Ask your buddy if he can get a good deal on RY45?

 

To some extent I can see that but at the same time those engines have short life spans. Even Toyota has tolerances as low as 0.0002 and I think their crank is bout 0.0008. Maybe you have an extra 0 in there.

 

Yes I do, 5 places out. Not a short life span if compared to NHRA. But running a pushrod motor at 8500rpm's for hours is impressive.

 

Funny car and Top fuel they don't last past the burn out heads lift and they have a bladder in the back they pump oil and coolant in and then collect in the bladder. Some of the other classes they actually get punished for engine changes and have to last a race weekend. All depends on what class you're running. It is extremely impressive what they are doing with those NASCAR engines especially since they are getting close to the 1000 hp and touching the 10k rpm range these days and holding it there.

Probably not, pretty sure he had to sign some sort of agreement not to do that kind of thing. There is a used NASCAR parts house out here in Morseville though. Coil bind if they can do it properly is tits it just sucked because the tires were too inconsistent with sidewall deflection. I'm pretty sure a few still will set up with coil bind depending on the track.

 

Yup, ORI struts. They were one of the hardest parts of the build, but so far have been magic. The hard part was getting the remote reservoirs in a happy place. There is about 2 cm of clearance between the remote hose port and the upper control arms. The hoses themselves are 1" OD 3500 psi hydraulic lines, so mounting and positioning them took much trial and error.

Exactly, they are dual chamber nitrogen shocks that allow you to set the spring rate and ride height independently. They also have adjustable rebound and compression. The main reason I wanted to go with them is because they have anti-sway characteristics which seems pretty important on a daily driver with no sway bar.

They are pretty awesome! There are so many points of failure on a rock crawler and they key is to have spare parts and tools to do repairs. The failure rate on these is pretty low and if they are good enough for Ultra4 / KOH races then they must be better than ok. I suppose only time will tell.

I got so much help from Jensen Bros and ORI directly that I have a lot of confidence in them. Their customer service is above and beyond anything I have experienced. Most companies either don't respond at all or basically tell you that you are on your own. These guys will answer the phone, return emails, do research on hydraulic fittings, rush ship fittings, etc.

 

At least if they did fail, and you had a spare, it'd only be two bolts and you're going again vs traditional coilover's 4.

 

They mount exactly like a coilover, except there is no coil.

 

All the ones I saw were two bolt holes, no tophat?

 

Guess you have to use some sort of top hat with them after more google-fu.
Still they claim to eliminate the need for other components like bump stops or limit straps.

 

You need a top hat, they just don't come with them.

 

Yeah, that part is true, unfortunately we still needed both. The CVs would bind without limit or bump before the ORIs hit their limits.

 

dang