Outer Limits 4x4 Board

I spoke to Matt Fenner from ARB Dandy in Vic yesterday and he confirmed what I was thinking and talking about in the 3rz-fe thread about engine swaps available for the sierra that still keep it in the ccda production class.

Matt's words were something like: You can put any engine in the sierra you like as long as you can prove it with a factory brochure or manual that somewhere in the world it was a factory fitted item in a SIERRA body shape either NT or WT.

The list so Far...I'll keep adding as new engines come up:

-G13a carby
-F10a 1.0l Carby
-1.9L Peugot Diesel
-G13BA TBI in US
-G13bb in Gypsy in Maruti India
-F6A in japan?
-K6A in japan?



If anyone cares to add to the list that would be great. Links to factory manuals or brochures stating anything with the peugot deisel (including the engine number assigned to it) would be fantastic.

A G16a,b or G13b,bb will put me into challenge class which means I'm running up against the likes of 300kw GQs and rangy haha

So I now have to make a choice about running either the stock G13a carby and not having enough power for maybe 1 or 2 comps a year that are run to ccda specs in victoria, Or I go a G16b or J20a for the more power option and then have to shell out about 2k for a 6 point cage So I can run those 1 or 2 comps a year against 300kw $200k GQs. As I said previously I'm only in it for the fun of it...but being heaped into challenge category is a bit of a joke I think. they need a suzuki clause in the rules!

Now you know why the comp scene is full of Patrols and Rangies. The rules are basically written around them.

You might want to investigate Santana (Spain) as they are the ones that have put the Peugeot diesel in their version of the Sierra.

The G13BA had TBI in the US.

The G13BB is standard in the Marauti Suzuki Gypsy http://www.marutigypsy.com/specs.asp

Don't forget the F6A and K6A as well.

Thanks CJ. I've added them to the list. for running in comps anyway the g13bb would be good enough as my gearing is sorted which would give me enough power....and still keep me in production class.

Hopefully a website listing is enough proof for the ccda. i'll ring and find out.

Just spoke to Alan McMullen @ ProComp and he said that I can run a g13bb as its essentially the same engine just with the reliability of injection.

just gotta find one now....

Do that and bore the bajesus out of it, 1.3 blocks are cheap cheap

would it be worth the hassle? what about finding suitable pistons?

Vitara pistons are 75mm Standard, so you could just go vitara 1mm over size (equivalent to 2mm over for the g13bb)

I'm pretty sure the pins for the g133bb are 19mm but if they aren't you would need gti rods (but like i said i'm pretty sure)

1298cc -->1369cc

And if you use a g13a crank you go to 1397cc

Santos wrote:Vitara pistons are 75mm Standard, so you could just go vitara 1mm over size (equivalent to 2mm over for the g13bb)

I'm pretty sure the pins for the g133bb are 19mm but if they aren't you would need gti rods (but like i said i'm pretty sure)

1298cc -->1369cc

And if you use a g13a crank you go to 1397cc

And add 6 horsepower, based on the efficiency of a stock G13BB. (61 hp/litre)

digging into cams and tuning might net more, but the $$$ will be pretty prohibitive on a hp/$$ ratio.

Steve.

Depending on your budget, horsepower isn't everything.

To start with, spend some $$ on a winch, plasma, alternator, batteries, shave your zook diffs, run double toughs and you should beat most of them anyway.

6hp winch pulling a 2.5T GQ as opposed to pulling a 1.2T zook. You'll also be able to drive things they have to winch anyway.

Spend the $$ on being light before you spend the $$ on horsepower being regulated in a stock class.

Actually, that's a good point. To the best of my knowledge, the cars aren't weighed or their weight checked.

Get your car sub 1000kg and it will be fine with 80hp- less breakage too.

Steve.

actually for alot of those comps if you can keep the car reliable and finish you are going to beat quite a few vehicles straight away

sierrajim wrote:Depending on your budget, horsepower isn't everything.

To start with, spend some $$ on a winch, plasma, alternator, batteries, shave your zook diffs, run double toughs and you should beat most of them anyway.

6hp winch pulling a 2.5T GQ as opposed to pulling a 1.2T zook. You'll also be able to drive things they have to winch anyway.

Spend the $$ on being light before you spend the $$ on horsepower being regulated in a stock class.

yeah good advice...that pretty much what I've been heading for and at this point in time my car sits like this:

Arb front with HD newfields
Locrite rear (calmini hd rear axles to purchase in near future)
34" swamper ltbs
4.9 TT transfer
Spidertrax Transfer mounts
4.57 yukon diff gears
550cca battery
100amp el alternator
2x 240 blitz lights (these may be a cooling issue mounted on my bar)
2x 150 narva 130watt lights
9000lb lowmount with 4.6hp and viking trail line 135 ft of 5/16th plasma (looking to go M6000 with 6hp or 7.8hp motor from nz , or high mount haven't decided yet)

Future Mods:
ccda/cams approved 4 point/6 point cage - depends on funds
3mm aluminum/1mm Steel hardtop over driver passenger for ccda rules
RUF with no chassis extension (it would put me in challenge class)
vitara front disc upgrade
sierra rear discs with a suitable caliper with Handbrake capability or 1ltr transfer handbrake
new seats/harnesses
rearrange spares and tools take/use only whats needed
pop dent out of my fuel tank...


At the moment my zook kills a lot of big 4x4s but I'm more wanting to get into it for the fun of it and not to be competitve...if I do ok then great...but I don't plan on bringing home the wooden spoon...I'm aiming to be ready for VicWinch in august...hopefully might get a Navrun in there to sort out stuff before hand though...Need a decent navvy as well...no one over 60kgs



FUN FUN FUN!!!

Gwagensteve wrote:Actually, that's a good point. To the best of my knowledge, the cars aren't weighed or their weight checked.

Get your car sub 1000kg and it will be fine with 80hp- less breakage too.

Steve.

Any ideas for making the thing lighter? other than me going on a diet?

Replaced the body panels with mesh? Then just wear a wetsuit lol

I'll start t his by saying that I'm totally not interested in competition, especially the winch dominated garbage we have to put up with, but any way, In any rule book you have to look at all the things that aren't mentioned instead of all the things that are.

I've had a quick look though the regs. you will note though that wheelbase must remain standard....

In relation to this and your G13BB swap, bear in mind you will be heavily chellenged if you were to do well. Mostly because you don't drvie a GQ.

There are a couple of areas of contention in the rules that I can see. The rules state that all glass must be retained, however, sierras are legally able to be used on the road with doors and windscreen removed.

There is no mention of interior except to say it must be a safe environment.

I can't see any minimum weight. (like in buggies where 1000kg is mandated)

Here goes:

Find 1.0/drover 1/2 doors. These are super light. gut the trim. You'll loose at least 25kg this way.

Ditch the windscreen. you'll be wearing helmets anyway and I strongly strongly suggest a 6 point cage. that means you can ditch the washer bottle too.

Ditch the heater.
Gut the dash, vents, etc.

Find the lightest seats you can afford and use aluminium side plate mounts. fix the seats. (ditch the rails-they're heavy.)

Bolt the passengers seat straight to the floor as an example. (The lower the co driver, the lower the COG - have a look at WRC)
Ditch the B pillar bar. Mount the belts to the cage. (This will require engineering but is not impossible.
pull all the sound deadening, including all the underbody stuff.
loose the pinchweld strips
stereo, speakers,
coilers have an aluminium radiator
find the lightest alloy wheels you can. Look at redrilling the pattern on old centrelines or convo pros. This will save masses of weight. I think you can groove tyres too. Bingo. Loose weight and improve bite.
No skid plates
No driving lights
the smallest lightest spare you can run- i suggest a 16X4.5 LJ rim and 6.00X16 bartread, best heavily worn (lighter)

Speedhole every piece of non structural metal you can find. Remember inner guards etc are not structural on a Sierra and can legally be modified.

Run extractors, much lighter than a cast manifold. Keep the exhaust light by running minimum bends and mufflers, but also choose pipe size carefully - 2" pipe is much lighter than 2.25 as the 2" is also lighter wall.
Guard cutting is permitted... get carried away - you'll be able to loose a lot of weight this way.
Don't run any aftermarket gauges.
LED lights are lighter than stock lights.
Ditch the rear bumper.
run a disc transfer handbrake, a rear disc conversion, heavily drill the brake rotors and run willwood superlights as rear calipers.

Sierras have lots of redundant wiring in their loom. When you're going G13BB, strip the stock loom. You'll loose a lot of wiring. Copper is heavy.

The winch needs to be mounted directly to the chassis - easy in a sierra with a 2" BL, but I'm trying to think of ways to move the battery up closer to the winch so it's lower - maybe on the passenger side chassis rail opposive the steering box - It will have very short cable runs from the alternator to the battery and from the battery to the winch. Cables are HEAVY.

If you MUST run dual batteries, run a tiny oddessy (I think they're 30AH is the smallest) as the starting battery. These have a steel cover that can be removed dropping another few grams (about 100, apparently).

Take some scales with you and weigh things as you are shopping for them - you will find that lots of similar parts have very different weights, especially mufflers.

Let's say your car now weighs 1150kg and has 67HP. It has 17kg/HP.

If you get weight to 900kg (I say this is possible to do in a legal car, and with a decent exhaust etc you have 85 HP = 10.8 kg/HP.

That's like your car now with 106HP, more power than a G16B puts out.

900KG is possible - it's only 30KG lighter than a stock soft top sierra. Maybe even 800KG is possible with very light rims and stuff - that's equivalent to your car now with 122hp.

PS if you REALLY wanted to run light - go K6A. 130HP with a "ECU change" and a free exhaust (legal under your rules) and a much lighter engine and gearbox. (1.0litre size) If a G13BB is legal in production class, then a K6A shoudl be no less legal... but woudl REALLY pi$$ people off. That would get you down to 6.5 Kg/hp... legally for your class, equivalent to a big patrol with 370Hp.

The real challenge is meeting the CCDA rules with a K6A and having a legal car. The best way to achieve this might be with a "commercial" (van) 1.0 hard top. I believe a K6A can be legal in one of these. 1.0's have lighter chassis, unboosted brakes (lighter) and a lighter dash too.

Just something to mull over.....

Steve.

Lots of valuable advice there for all. It's really easy to add weight without even realising just how much it all adds up to. Colin Chapman, the founder of Lotus Cars was a great believer in weight reduction and his secret was to try and save a little everywhere instead of a lot from a few things. You'd be amazed just how much weight can be trimmed if you try. Not only does it improve the kW/kg ratio but it takes a lot of stress out of the vehicle too.

Gordon Murray is a major disciple of Colin Chapmans. I have the coffee table book on the development of the McLaren F1 road car and he was soooo fanatical about weight. He wanted 600hp and 1000kg, but managed 630hp and 1038kg, in a three seater, with room for luggage, air conditioning, and a stereo.

There isn't one aspect of vehicle behaviour that isn't helped by less weight.

One of his battles was trying to get engineers to actually engineer the washers used for the task. If the engineering required a 1.0mm thick washer, he would not permit a 1.6mm "stock" washer to be used.

I think colin chapman's quote was "to make speed first build lightness..." or something like that.

Steve.

You need to:
-buy hid's, loose the driving lights or make a removable light bar
-get a high mount with the 6hp motor. Low mounts should be used only on tow trucks, not winch trucks.
-shave your diffs

As steve said, there's lots of weight to be saved. Now that he's thinking of it he's probably stripping his car.

And re steve's comments.

You WILL need skid plates, reliability is half of the game.

Most comps have some relatively long winches, sometimes you may need a little extra reserve in the battery department.

Heater and vents are a RWC requirement

Disc transfer brake or Suby calipers that will handle both handbrake and stop brake?

I think you'll also read that "minor" wheelbase extensions are possible.

sierrajim wrote:And re steve's comments.

You WILL need skid plates, reliability is half of the game.

Most comps have some relatively long winches, sometimes you may need a little extra reserve in the battery department.

Heater and vents are a RWC requirement

Disc transfer brake or Suby calipers that will handle both handbrake and stop brake?

I think you'll also read that "minor" wheelbase extensions are possible.

Who calls what's minor? Like I said, if Dank struggles no-one will say anything but if he does well he'll be heavily scrutinised, and the rules say stock wheelbase.

If you don't have a windscreen? Is it not demister only, only if you have a screen?

I've never understood the need for skidplates in a sierra. maybe a mighty kong transfer mount... that's all i'd be running tops... but an alloy one would be even better.

One thing I forgot to mention - keep the car super clean and use RCI mud release, pure& simple.. whatever to make the mud fall off. Mud is heavy. Thats one of the reasons I don't like skid plates - they hold masses of mud.

Personally, knowing I couldn't do that well, I'd subvert the rules a bit and if a winch looked hopelessly long I think I'd dnf myself rather than trash the winch/batteries/charging system/car. Leave the mega lomg winches for the guys with $30K setups.

Steve.

Guys the last 6 posts are ABSOLUTE GOLD!

Man Steve you must have been a man possessed writing that post on weight reduction...I was actually pissing myself laughing as I read it....great work I love it!

An M6000 pulling at 6000lbs with a 4.6hp is faster than a Stock 8274 Pulling at the same capacity...Why would I need to run a High Mount? HM is extra weight....Especially if I throw a 6hp on the M6000...it should pull no worries and duty cycle should be ok as well....running on a parallel 24v system even faster... I think there's something I'm missing about the highmount though...some one can fill me in...

I spoke to Alan McMullen on Wednesday about my car and he said small wheelbase changes like what I have done are fine and track increase is no issue.

In regards to having a K6A motor (interested in the hP gains with an "ecu change")it should be fine and meet ccda specs as it was stated by both Alan McMullen and Matt Fenner that I can use any engine that came in a sierra body shape as long as I can prove it with some evidence e.g. factory website, factory manual/brochure etc. The K6A came out in a sierra in japan?

Anyway...got a couple of ideas floating around...It'll just depend on what becomes available for the right $$$....I love pissing off GQ owners, just thought I'd mention that....

re the winch thing- 6000lb warns are great, and are faster at 6000lb than an 8000@ 6000 lbs... but have a look at the speed at 1500lb, or 3000lb. Many winch stages require a winch assist only or a short winch from a point some distance away. Speed is everything so the car doesn't drive over the cable and moves quickly in these "light winch" scenarios.

Really, you need a highmount. On a sierra, I'd mount a high mount between the rails and level with the bottom of the chassis. This will get it 6" lower than most winches on Sierras. amd set it back against the radiator.

Yes K6A's were used in late model sierras in Japan.

Yes, you might be able to get a K6A past CCDA regs, but not an engineer in a Sierra with a "Passenger" compliance like a WT. I understand CCDA cars need to be engineered.

There's no evidence of ADR emissions compliance on a K6A. On a 1984 or earlier commercial, there's very little pollution control equipment anyway and I am aware than engineers will consider the F6A K6A motors in these cars but not in anything that is a passenger vehicle.

Steve.

fibreglass panels !!
bonnet , screen surround(if needed)
cut the rear off & put flat f/glas sheeting on it , with the flares mounted !
loose the tailgate & run a net !!

A problem with the lowmount winches is the problem of slow no load speed and most have poor freespools. U can loose alot of time running the line out for the winches.
Weight - Try and seal off the chassis rails as much as possible, its amazing how much crap ends up in them and as the others have said it all adds weight.
I was very surprised how heavy the jimny ended up after adding all the necessary bits to it, even after stipping various parts off it.

moose wrote:fibreglass panels !!
bonnet , screen surround(if needed)
cut the rear off & put flat f/glas sheeting on it , with the flares mounted !
loose the tailgate & run a net !!

not permitted in production class, which Dank is aiming for.

Gwagensteve wrote:re the winch thing- 6000lb warns are great, and are faster at 6000lb than an 8000@ 6000 lbs... but have a look at the speed at 1500lb, or 3000lb. Many winch stages require a winch assist only or a short winch from a point some distance away. Speed is everything so the car doesn't drive over the cable and moves quickly in these "light winch" scenarios.

Really, you need a highmount. On a sierra, I'd mount a high mount between the rails and level with the bottom of the chassis. This will get it 6" lower than most winches on Sierras. amd set it back against the radiator.

Yes K6A's were used in late model sierras in Japan.

Yes, you might be able to get a K6A past CCDA regs, but not an engineer in a Sierra with a "Passenger" compliance like a WT. I understand CCDA cars need to be engineered.

There's no evidence of ADR emissions compliance on a K6A. On a 1984 or earlier commercial, there's very little pollution control equipment anyway and I am aware than engineers will consider the F6A K6A motors in these cars but not in anything that is a passenger vehicle.

Steve.

From the prices that I have seen for K6As plus gearbox they range in the 2-3k mark which is a fair bit more than the g13bb price I have been quoted.

according the the warn website a m6000 is slower ONLY at 0kg load being a 8m per minute slower. With a 6hp or 7.8hp on the M6000 I should close that gap a little... but yeah a high mount seems the go...

Think about taking 30m of rope of a M6000, look at the diameter of thr drum. Then take 30m of rope off a high mount with a much larger capacity. The reduction of drum/rope diameter has reduced less on the highmount making it naturally faster with rope out also. This is one of the reasons people widen drums to fit more rope.

Re skid plates. Sump, transfer and fuel tank protection would be required for long term reliability. If you have a body lift i'd be lifting your transfer case to suit. We used structural alloy on the buggy ($400 or so a sheet) it's as light as hell and super strong. I'm about to do a plate for my car so have some on the floor if you want to drop by and see what it's like.

Skid plates are kinda funny. Generally, I reckon most skid plates are way,way heavier than they need to be, and mounted in a dumb way.

The key is spreading the load out, not making a plate soooo strong it can support the weight of the car without deformation on a point load.

My fuel tank "skid" on the Gwagen is about 1.2mm thick steel. The tank is about the same. There's 8mm of neoprene (wetsuit material) between the two.

My tanks had more hits than elvis, and it's fine anywhere the skid covers it because the neoprene spreads the load.

Imagine a 3mm aluminium mighty kong installed and then the gap between the case and the skid filled with expanding foam. That's the kind of approach that will protect the case but not result in massive mud magnet plates all over the car.

sierrajim wrote:Think about taking 30m of rope of a M6000, look at the diameter of thr drum. Then take 30m of rope off a high mount with a much larger capacity. The reduction of drum/rope diameter has reduced less on the highmount making it naturally faster with rope out also. This is one of the reasons people widen drums to fit more rope.

Re skid plates. Sump, transfer and fuel tank protection would be required for long term reliability. If you have a body lift i'd be lifting your transfer case to suit. We used structural alloy on the buggy ($400 or so a sheet) it's as light as hell and super strong. I'm about to do a plate for my car so have some on the floor if you want to drop by and see what it's like.

I have 2 inch body lift. In terms of the transfer, would you just space out the gap between the transfer mount and the chassis mount enough to be level with chassis rails plus the thickness of a bashplate of sorts? would this cause binding in the unis at all being up higher?

Thanks for the offer of checking out the alloy. PM sent

The last three sierras I've had a hand in have all had the cases lifted 35-50mm. Allows for a flat belly, massively improves jackshaft angle (actually makes them much smoother on the road)

Angles haven't been a problem.

Steve.