Crashnburn80's Supercharged Gladiator Mojave Build

While the products may be different, you can apply the same principles to your Raptor.

Raptors are sweet trucks, but way to wide for wheeling in the PNW mountain trails. Even the Gladiator is a bit long for the purpose.

 

High clearance aluminum armor packages from Artec showed up today.

 

Hope it doesn’t attach via double sided tape

 

Any development on building bed bars for the JT? I loved the Relentless bars on my Tacoma for my RTT, I haven't seen any for a JT from anyone. I'm going to need to pull the trigger on a RTT mounting solution soon for this season but not a fan of the available options. Currently looking at a significantly more expensive aluminum rack that weighs twice the amount of bars that I like much less, as the least bad option.

 

2021 Raptor orders opened yesterday. I wonder how much longer it will be then before I can order its new 37” C-load KO2s.

 

We've been considering adding parts to our lineup for the JT, bed bars or a modular rack like we offer for the Tacoma's would be part of that.
Do you have the bed tie down track system on your JT?

 

I do have the tie down system on my JT. After having that on my Tacoma and using it all the time, there was no way I could live without it.

 

OK perfect, mine did not come with it factory but I purchased the rail system and installed it on my JT since I too like the tie down and mounting options it allows. The initial plan would be to make the bars/rack attach to the rails much like we do on the Tacomas so you're set there. How soon are you looking to add bars/rack to your rig? We've been playing catch up on building bumpers so I'm not positive when I'll get the opportunity to design a compatible mounting bracket just yet.

 

I prefer bars for weight and simplicity. Probably very late summer at this point. I wouldn’t trail the truck in current form with its poor break over angle and factory skids. My high clearance skids require a lift, looks like my back ordered AEV lift might ship late July. Then I just need the new Raptor specific tires, which are still TBD on release date but I’d guess 2 months plus at least. I doubt they’d be available before the trucks are being delivered.

 

Ok that would actually likely be about the time we'd be able to release something anyways. Shoot me a PM before you buy an alternate option if you don't see us advertise something by that time. Sometimes we design products and don't post/release them just yet to manage our workload in the shop and help control lead times from getting out of hand

 

On the JT, Jeep engineers had to make the grill openings larger than the JL for adequate cooling (primarily for towing). The frontal cooling area is pretty constrained on the JL/JT front core support, and adding a massive supercharger intercooler in front isn't doing any favors.

Being supercharged on 37s, plus typically wheeling in hot steep terrain, adequate transmission cooling is a concern. This plug and play improved cooler looks very appealing.
Some testing info here.
https://www.mishimoto.com/jeep-gladiator-performance-transmission-cooler-2020.html

On my supercharged Tacoma I swapped to a CSF FJ performance radiator. I haven't seen anything that extreme for the JL/JT platform, but Cold Case offers this all aluminum performance radiator. It improves over the original with full aluminum construction (no insulating failure prone plastic end tanks), larger tubes and more cooling fin surface area.
https://www.coldcaseradiators.com/product/18-20-jeep-wrangler-jl-aluminum-performance-radiator

I will likely pick up both soon.

 

Awesome! Will do!

 

Are you familiar with Pacific Wheel? They are a supporting vendor on the Raptor forum and also a wheel distributor, OMG that guy is so crazy knowledgeable about wheels. It may not hurt to give the company a call and see what they had in terms of wheels that would meet all the criteria for you. It may surprise you.

justin@pacwheel.com

 

Supercharger back out for coolant leak repair.

Here is the offending hose that did not get the hose clamp transferred from the OEM hose, feeding the driver side heater core tube at the firewall. Hose pulled up to attach OEM hose clamp. You can see how inaccessible the firewall location is.


Hose clamp and hose reattached properly. Fortunately was able to do this without pulling the intercooler and upper intake assembly, even though it was a PITA to get the clamp positioned correctly in tight quarters.


Back up and running leak free.


Thanks for the hand today @Kidwidataco.

 

Hell ya! Running for the win!

 

The Magnuson kit relocated the external temp sensor from the front grill to the top of the fender next to the washer fluid reservoir. It is on the same harness as the horns. However in this location it is reading 20-30 degrees higher than outside ambient and not much use. I’ll need to investigate coming up with a better solution, because this doesn’t work.

 

Did a bit of WOT testing yesterday. Off the line and non-highway speeds the supercharger is exceptionally impressive. It takes concentrated focus to not accidentally spin the 35s, power comes on hard after 2k RPMs, and the Jeep feels like it is being rocket propelled off the line. But what is also surprising is how effortless and low noise the whole event is. It doesn't feel or sound like the truck is making a giant effort, the supercharger is not loud compared to the 2nd Gen Tacoma Magnuson unit, and the 8spd makes quick work of rapidly rowing through the gears so smooth you barely notice.

High RPM highway speeds, the SC doesn't feel like it is reaching its potential though, it won't break the 35s free on the highway in a little wet like my Tacoma would on 32s, despite having ~100hp more. This was similar to the Tacoma 4.0 Magnuson unit, where high RPM performance was lacking. To be fair it is not lacking in the new unit, I just feel it could be better. With how smooth and drama free the power delivery is, it is very easy to not notice how fast you are suddenly going. An enclosed AFE CAI swap with a much larger cone filter opened things up on the top end on the Tacoma 4.0 SC. Since the Tacoma SC kept the throttle body in the stock location after the SC install, a direct swap to any aftermarket intake was feasible. On the JL/JT, the throttle body location has changed, and Magnuson provides a custom intake tube, meaning aftermarket intakes are not very feasible without some additional custom work required for a new custom intake tube, which must make a contoured arc over the electric fan shroud.

After looking through some options, my initial decision was to just use an AFE performance panel filter replacement in the stock air box for the time being, not ideal but should offer noticeable improvement over the stock paper filter. Some how I missed this performance filter replacement from AFE, which puts the largest filter I've seen in the OEM air box. Claims of up to 86% flow improvement over stock, vs the performance panel filter of 67% improvement. Needless to say I'll use one of these instead.

https://afepower.com/afe-power-30-80280-magnum-flow-pro-5r-air-filter

 

your build sounds awesome, and I’m stoked for you...but since when did solid axles become better for high speed offroading than IFS?...(as you mentioned high speed offroading specifically)...Genuinely curious. I know solid axles do very well in the rocks and crawling, but you rarely see it in desert racing anymore. Most class 1 trucks are IFS.


https://www.drivingline.com/articles/solid-axle-vs-ifs-in-ultra4-why-the-debate/

 

Solid axles are not better for high speed desert. They are better for technical off road in general being stronger and more durable, which is what I usually do and the type of 4wheeling most common in the PNW. But I also like the rest of the truck to be designed for performance at speed.

Edit: If you saw my 2nd Gen, the formula is the same. But some of the trails really torqued on the IFS and even at 60k miles I found myself replacing IFS components.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/sold-2015-supercharged-trd-or-pro-clone-for-sale.685662/

 

makes sense. That’s a good looking 2nd gen. Good luck with the build!