The Road to Mexican 1000- Building a Manxter DualSports

[Brad]

As part of the R&D for the Baja Edition I have been spending a lot of time doing research and checking out products and how they are made. When it came to Brakes, Hubs, Pedals, Shifters etc there are a few options on the market but when it came down to it one company was a clear leader when it came to R&D, In House Manufacture and being 100% USA Owned and Manufactured.

The clear leader was Jamar (Welcome to Jamar Performance Products) and after visiting their manufacturing facility and talking to their guys I am very happy with the choice to go that way. The amount of destructive Dyno testing on their brakes alone helped me understand all the subtle design changes and evolution of their products over the years.

I had never really given much thought to the small bumps and curves, pockets and hollows and bolt placement until I saw some example of what was achieved by slight variations. Anyway, I was impressed with everything that goes into their design and Don is a walking encyclopedia of brake and hub knowledge.

When Jamar claim they make their stuff in house right up the road they definitely mean they make it ALL in house. Very cool ...





Have you ever wondered where stub axles come from ??




Almost done .

How about Master Cylinders





They even make their own Brake Line ends



It was awesome to be able to see where all the Baja Edition Brakes will be coming from and get to better understand the amount of R&D that goes into each product. Jamar have many products out being tested for years before they offer them to the general public and I think all who have seen any of there current range of products will agree the quality and design is top notch.

I was lucky enough to get some of their newer designs and I will show that off once I get the box's unpacked.

Big thumbs up for Jamar and thanks for letting me drool in your factory

[jsturtlebuggy]

I have a set of JaMar rear disc brakes to install on My Manxter DS. The center hub is very beefy and the quality looks good. The only problem I have with JaMar is their website could use help.

[Brad]

Ok so with everything that has been going on it seems we have forgot to start work .....

But hopefully tomorrow morning I have a nice big shinny semi to take the last three turn keys I have built out of the shop and give me some space to start working.

I think the current situation is well summed up by a picture taken a few days ago ...



A Mate of mine then sent me this one as a follow up ...



Although quiet suitable I suspect it would have been better as a fire cracker under my ass

[Brad]

Well it has been a busy couple of days but the Shop is now empty and the real build can begin.

Had a few hours at the local shops



Then these guys rocked up ..


All Packed ..



All done ..



Righto with that sorted, time to build a Manxter and Go Racing !!!

[Brad]

ok so with the shop clean and the days ticking I needed to get cracking. 1st thing I had to do was get the chassis level and get the front beam aligned so I could sling the body on and check how my wheel position and travel would be. Being that this is the 1st time we had used 4" over arms on the Manxter Dual Sports Body I needed to get a starting point.

Not having anything that would let me jig it and cycle the wheels without fowling the table etc I had to start with a new jig to let me get it onto the lift and clear the tires

The angles would be different to my current bench top so I started off in Bend-Tech SM with some rear torsion plates. These where needed as I had to come up with a way to let the chassis sit flat. With the way you draw in Bend-tech it was a pretty easy task to get the measurements right and get some plates sorted.



Of course if you are gunna do it you have to add some bling



Once done I simply export it to Plasma File in the interface and bring it into the software provided with the ArcLight CNC. Give it a tool path ..



Make any changes I want such at cut sequence although the rules set when Arclight ship it means 99% you don't need to clown with it unless you are using the plate marker in the same process. Once you are happy export it to Mach3



The Mach3 config that it comes with means again you are pretty much ready to just go cut cut cut.

So find so space



Next to Mr Bunny looks like a nice patch of steel



Zero her out and Press the go button



Man I love that CNC Plasma, can't recommend one enough and anyone looking at an option I have had a few different brands and the ArcLight CNC ( arclightcnc.com) is by far the best. If you are around Valley center and want to check it out always happy give you an overview. Warning though you will never want to go back to a grinder

Ok anyway

Plates cut, repeat and get moving

With plates done I need to give the it some shape so it won't wobble around.



45 degrees should be fine .

Job done




Almost done . Check fit ...



Damn it my need to round corners has screwed me over, go back change dxf, repeat and cut with square corners.

[Brad]

ok so with the shop clean and the days ticking I needed to get cracking. 1st thing I had to do was get the chassis level and get the front beam aligned so I could sling the body on and check how my wheel position and travel would be. Being that this is the 1st time we had used 4" over arms on the Manxter Dual Sports Body I needed to get a starting point.

Not having anything that would let me jig it and cycle the wheels without fowling the table etc I had to start with a new jig to let me get it onto the lift and clear the tires

The angles would be different to my current bench top so I started off in Bend-Tech SM with some rear torsion plates. These where needed as I had to come up with a way to let the chassis sit flat. With the way you draw in Bend-tech it was a pretty easy task to get the measurements right and get some plates sorted.



Of course if you are gunna do it you have to add some bling



Once done I simply export it to Plasma File in the interface and bring it into the software provided with the ArcLight CNC. Give it a tool path ..



Make any changes I want such at cut sequence although the rules set when Arclight ship it means 99% you don't need to clown with it unless you are using the plate marker in the same process. Once you are happy export it to Mach3



The Mach3 config that it comes with means again you are pretty much ready to just go cut cut cut.

So find so space



Next to Mr Bunny looks like a nice patch of steel



Zero her out and Press the go button



Man I love that CNC Plasma, can't recommend one enough and anyone looking at an option I have had a few different brands and the ArcLight CNC ( arclightcnc.com) is by far the best. If you are around Valley center and want to check it out always happy give you an overview. Warning though you will never want to go back to a grinder

Ok anyway

Plates cut, repeat and get moving

With plates done I need to give the it some shape so it won't wobble around.



45 degrees should be fine .

Job done




Almost done . Check fit ...



Damn it my need to round corners has screwed me over, go back change dxf, repeat and cut with square corners.

[Brad]

38 Days till tech inspection it is all getting to be a bit of aBlur ....



My fellow Aussie Builders are here in under two weeks ...

[Brad]

Ok as you can imagine trying to build a Buggy to go racing in and also use as a DualSport long after the race there are many areas to cover and getting the chassis sorted is just one of them.

As the wheels and tires are in hand and the chassis I am still thinking about I figured I would start up on the loom as well.

I have been back and forward over what to use and how best to achieve what I want to see and in the end settled on using a Motec PDM and matching KeyPad, a Dash Pro 2 and TefZel wire and deutsch connectors. I will wrap all this up in a loom and seal it from friction and elements.



Joey at ProWire (http://www.prowireusa.com/default.aspx?) was a great source of supplies and information and now I have enough TefZel and stuff to do the job there is no point holding back.

Loom will be done in two sections, Engine and Vehicle

The PDM, KeyPad and Dash will allow me to do some pretty cool stuff with the CANBUS data stream from the ECU as well as the KeyPad etc. This should enable Data Logging with GPS and all engine feeds as well as vehicle loads.



It sounds a bit geeky but it means that I can calibrate and control all the functions from a LapTop and will allow us to use to keep an eye on all the systems and set fail safes in the code to stop anything major killing us. It also means as far as driver briefing goes I can set a big ass red light in the dash and say if it comes on STOP ... if it is not on the GO ..

My Radiator, Fuel Pump and ECU will be down the rear of the vehicle due to not wanting to extend the factory loom. Due to this I will do a few things a bit weird but it will increase liability. By weird I mean moving power from battery to PDM and then back again to ECU, Pump and Radiator Fan. I could put a relay block etc in the back but then I have more failure points and components. The Amp Rating on the TefZel and connector will handle the load so I prefer to keep it all in the one place for fault finding and simplicity.

[Brad]

Ok so after unwrapping my electrical toys I thought about failure points and having cool geeky stuff is great but no point if you can't get it to work. With this in mind I figured I should fire it up, but I had no car to put it in, luckily I had a battery and some clip on's . I just have to hope I don't let the smoke out



The PDM itself is just like a collection of solid state relays and fuses it has a single input which takes in the power it will hand out as required. As this is the budget PDM 15 it has no Autosport Connectors and a single terminals to power up. To get it to work you only need Power, Earth and CANBUS ( High and Low). I wired that up to the Motex UTC which lets me turn CANBUS into a USD Cable I can then plug in and fire up the Motec PDM Software.

The later version of the PDM Software have the Motec KeyPad Controls included so setting should be simple.

This is not a How to config a PDM so if anyone wants more info feel free to contact me. I will be the 1st to admit the documentation on how to make it all work is not the most intuitive. For now I will just breeze over it.

When the PDM fires up you can connect to the PDM with a USB through the UTC and download the Config file and then start building.

Jump ahead a few keystrokes and my shell is under way. All I have done is allocated pins to outputs.



Once I have all the Outputs put in I can either setup inputs to control them, like a dash switch etc or use the KeyPad.

You simply then build logic statements which can be nested. What this means is you can select an Output and then give it rules.

So I click on Left Hand Indicator and get a rules box.



In the rules box I setup that I want it to Flash for 0.30 seconds when the TurnOnIndicator Condition is True



In this case the TurnOnIndicator Function is another condition I have written because I am using a KeyPad which does not latch it only toggle's



So basically you just nest stuff till you get what you want. You can get it to do pretty much anything as the ECU gives the PDM all the engine stuff and the KeyPad gives it the user inputs and the dash gives it GPS and Data Logging.

End result is a clean dash, minimal wires and a pretty much idiot proof config if you can write a few lines of code and get your head around conditional algorithms.

[Brad]

Righto so to all those who have been racing in Baja Before there seems to be a lot more to getting there and finishing than just building a car and putting gas in.

With that in mind I had a visit yesterday from Bruce and Winnie Meyers who gave us a brief on the logistics side of it. As I said way back at the start I am just one of many who are making it possible and I am lucky enough to have Bruce and Winnie looking after support and logistics.

As some of you maybe aware Bruce was one of the 1st guys to run the Race and set a record in Old Red, some may consider him to be some what of a Baja Pioneer.

Like all good planning groups we seem to have misplaced our map, I gave drawing it a go but was soon related to kicking back in one of the PRP Seats and Bruce at 89 years young jumped up on a chair and started drawing a map for us. As we soon learnt it was good enough for purpose but Winnie did find a few errors when talking about various locations. Having never been south of the Border be fore I was only looking at the Horsepower Ranch bit as that is the day before Tech Inspection which is the only date I can see at the moment.







I must put out a BIG thanks to Bruce and Winnie as without their support, Knowledge and Connections this adventure would not be possible.

For anyone who is interested in coming along for a trip down with us please contact Winnie through www.meyersmanx.com as we are more than happy to have tag alongs to enjoy the trip with us.

[Brad]

hmmm well it seems we have hit a hurdle ..... "someone" forgot to check what length 2.5 10" shocks where as opposed to 2.0 10 " shock ...oops

It seems that the shocks are 3" longer in extended and compression than I was planning on which is gunna cause some issues as I can't cut the body so getting them to cycle under the fibreglass just got a whole lot more complicated .

Good thing I have 35 days or so to sort it out ....

[Brad]

So with the need to get an extra few inches between the suspension bits and the upper mounts which is limited by the Body I decided the best option was going to be to cut the front and the rear off and drop it down the required distance to make it all work.





I could then add the support bars from the rear on top of the rear forks



I would have to open the tunnel up to get theme where I wanted ..



Up front I plated the section where the frame head use to be and dropped the beam location by 3" to allow the 10" 2.5's to get full travel



By cutting the tunnel all the way up to the shifter it would allow me to get the shift tube in and out with ease. To give it some extra strength I decided to go with a set of heavy duty floor pans halves as I had read the Baja could be pretty harsh on the underside of cars so the heavy duty ones would help there.



Once I have it all sorted I am going to run some 1.5" DOM along the sides and anchor it front and rear, that should make up for the few cuts and mods I have done.

Better get moving though as the days are not getting any longer

[Brad]

So with 30 days left till tech inspection I have finally come to the conclusion that I can simply not achieve what I want from the Baja Edition while working within the constraints of both a Fiberglass Body and a Type 1 Floor pan.

With that in mind I sought guidance from a few who no more than myself and the decision was made that if I wanted to achieve what I set out to achieve then I either need to cut the body or start from the ground up and drop the type 1 chassis.

[vincent9993]

Wow, you're not taking the easy road Brad! I applaud your dedication and efforts all the while you actually take the time to document and keep us up to speed. You're calmer than I could ever be. Your build is going to start to look like those "3 day build" TV shows!

I truly wish you all the best and I'm rooting for you!

[Brad]

Wow, you're not taking the easy road Brad! I applaud your dedication and efforts all the while you actually take the time to document and keep us up to speed. You're calmer than I could ever be. Your build is going to start to look like those "3 day build" TV shows!

I truly wish you all the best and I'm rooting for you!

Thanks for the feedback, I have a secret weapon or two and they should be getting on a plane in the next 6 days and tripling my output. Of course that sounds like it might be easy so we will also pick up the Tow'd to pull it down, modify the cage, race prep it and line it up next to use at NORRA.

Never a dull moment ...