Journey to the Desert

[Ratoutahell]

Hello Everyone! I figured I would document my journey to the desert and the world of UTV racing. It has been a much longer journey than I originally thought but here I am still pushing forward! With this thread, I will document my build, show how and why I did certain things, describe the challenges I faced, and showcase the product I used and why. Once the racing begins, I hope to share what I learn so that those following in my footsteps can more easily progress! While I have a good head on my shoulders, I am definitely not an expert and I will try to be as honest as possible with the decisions I made. Real world advice is always appreciated!

Desert racing has held my interest since I was a little boy! I absolutely loved looking at the trophy trucks in magazines as a kid. I would stare at the fabrication genius that made up the trucks with wonder and amazement! Like many people, the evolution of the UTV has allowed my dream of racing the desert to morph into a reality!

I purchased my first UTV in the Polaris XP 1000 September, 2014. The capabilities of this machine amazed me! I was hooked. Not too long after, I started reading online about this class of desert racers that were racing these machines! I knew this opportunity was for me to pursue! With the release of the Polaris XP 1000 Turbo, I was ready.

 

[Ratoutahell]

Ok so September of 2015 I purchase my Polaris XP 1000 Turbo and start the build process. I will be doing pretty much the entire build myself with limited tools. Unlike many who seem to build these cars in a few weeks, this build will take me nearly 2 years! I will say that shortly after starting this project, I met a girl (insert your snarky comments here ) This beautiful woman was the one for me so I married her lol. The weddings and such put a hiccup in my build process but her support for me and my dream quickly put the build back on top of the priority list.

 

[Ratoutahell]

I will start with my fuel cell. When I originally purchased my cell, there was the Harmon fuel cell or the Pyrotec fuel cell to choose from. I opted for the Harmon because it was a bit cheaper and had the option for the Aeromotive Phantom fuel pump. I would later find out that I was apparently the only one who ever ordered the cell with that pump option. It turns out the factory fuel pump is adequate and also draws a lot less power. The Harmon cell does not come with mounting tabs on it. This allows for more flexibility with mounting the cell but it also means that you will have to make and weld on some mounting bungs yourself. If I were to do it again I would probably go with the Pyrotec. However, I have not run a Pyrotec so I am not sure what challenges I would face there. There have been some revisions made to the Harmon I am told but I am not sure what those are.



It is a very tight fit to get the 20 gallon cell in the car. There is not a lot of clearance for the driveshaft so plan on replacing the carrier bearing with a Sandcraft bearing support or similar. In my case, I have access to my CNC machines so I made my own. You can see in the picture below how close the driveshaft is to the cell (maybe 1/2" clearance?)



Take away: Factory fuel pump is fine; make sure you have access to aluminum mounting bungs and TIG aluminum skills for Harmon, get a carrier bearing support

 

[Ratoutahell]

A continuing theme you will find (at least for me) is balancing budget with need. I want to do everything necessary without going overboard. It is a line I decide for myself knowing this is my first desert build and with future builds I will have much more experience and knowledge to make better decisions.

I am an engineer at heart (and for a living) so I always have the tendency to go too far and impractical with my projects. I must constantly remind myself of the above statement so keep myself in check. With that said, I wanted to do a lot more chassis work on this car but opted to keep it simple for this first go around. I figure it would be a while before I could take advantage of better suspension geometry and a slight weight change. I machined these tubing reducers to go from the factory 1.75” tubing to the 1.5” 4130 tubing I was using for the cage.



I used Bend-Tech to plot and program the cage. I had access to a JD model 54 for the tube work so I got started bending the 1.5" .095 wall 4130 tubing. I wanted to keep the spare tire (weight) as low as possible) so I designed the rear tubing to go around the tire and have it easy to access.

 

[JoeyD23]

This is awesome!!! Thank you for sharing!! Keep it rolling!

 

[Ratoutahell]

A watchful eye will notice that I integrated a rear swaybar into the chassis. I have seen some trophy trucks with rear sway bars so I “copied” this for my car. I have since noticed that there are quite a few UTV cars now with rear sway bars. I used a 1 ¼” 49 spline bar setup from Speedway Engineering. They are designed for NASCAR style cars but they are handy in that they offer a ton of bar diameters in both solid and drilled applications so tuning will be much easier! And cost effective at only $170/bar. The bar rides on delrin bushings I got from Jimco Racing. I ordered the aluminum arms and then machined them a bit shorter and drilled some adjustment holes for fine tuning. Now tuning the sway bar will be all new for me so it will be interesting to see what happens here...

 

[BRONCOBOY]

This is a cool thread, always fun to watch these

 

[Matt Martelli - CEO]

Nice!

 

[Ratoutahell]

For the battery, I chose a Shorai LFX-36L3-BS12 Lithium battery. This thing packs a punch at less than 5 pounds and provides 540CCA. I will admit I am a bit nervous about this battery. I could find virtually no information on people running lithium batteries in the desert other than bikes so I am not really sure how it will hold up. Nevertheless, I machined up my own battery mount and figured I would give it a go. Total weight with the new mount was 6 pounds on the button. This is a substantial weight savings over the 28-pound factory behemoth battery! My first race is V2R where lighting is a must so I have contemplated adding a second battery in as backup. The battery is a bit expensive at $265+ but the weight savings I thought were worth it. Time will tell…

 

[motive]

Lithiums are great when they work. When they go out. They don't take voltage spikes well or other electrical variations for that matter. We had one take us out of the Parker race this year. Billowing smoke and almost caught fire. When the culprit short was found it was something that a lead acid battery would have handled fine for the rest of the race. I know of at least 3 Trick trucks that have had bad experiences with Lithiums as well and have switched back to standard batteries.

 

[Ratoutahell]

Thanks Motive! I really appreciate the feedback! You and your team have always been helpful when I have talked with you guys!

 

[NIKAL]

Several years ago McMillins switched to Lithium batteries to save weight. Luke was still running his 1600 car and the battery failed causing to melt some wires. I believe it was the next race, and Dan who was racing the Jimco class 1 car had a similar issue, but the battery caught fire and could have burn the car down.

After that they went back to the AMG battery. Now this was several years ago, and technology is better, so hopefully that's the case and you don't have any issues.

 

[Ratoutahell]

My UTV Inc parts:

I have used UTV Inc in the past for parts on my “normal” XP’s and have always been pleased with the service and quality of parts. For this car, I will be using their fire extinguishers, skid plate, and motor bar.


Fire Extinguishers:

Many of the fire extinguisher mounts I have used in the past can be hard do operate or rattle a lot! The mounts from UTV Inc are solid, easy to operate, and simple in design....just what I like





UTV Inc's motor bar is made from 4130 chromoly and is a necessary upgrade in my opinion. I have broke the stock ones just in recreation so all my machines get one of these!



I chose the UTV inc skid plate because I like that it is 1-piece. I felt this was less likely to snag and cause damage. I am sure there are pro's and con's to 1-piece vs multiple but I will give this a go and see what I think!

 

[Ratoutahell]

Exhaust:

For me this was a no brainer. I have used multiple exhaust systems throughout my short yet extensive UTV life and nothing has even come close to HMF. While HFM runs a dual can setup like many others, I would consider them leaps and bounds ahead of everything else I have tried. Vibrant sound, simple yet quality construction, measurable power gains, and amazing customer service. HMF gives you everything you want out of an exhaust system and company. HMF Racing is one of those companies that is so hard to find especially in this industry.

For this car, I chose HMF’s Titan exhaust. It gives a good rumple without being loud. Personally, I like aggressive exhaust but I thought after many hours or racing the drone might get to me so this quieter system suits the bill perfectly! This system is coated in their blackout colors which gives good looks on top of everything else. HMF also handled the ECU programming so I can get the HP up a bit to compete with these newer cars lol.

 

[Ratoutahell]

Cooling:

Alright so it is well known that the factory ’16 XPT does not have adequate cooling for desert racing. When I started this build there were no alternate options for radiators so my plan was to run a 25”x13” Ron Davis radiator rear mounted to handle the motor and keep the factory intercooler radiator up front. I had this setup purchased and all installed but when I saw the new race radiator from CBR I had to reconsider. Running the 2 radiators has its disadvantages. First off, the front radiator has the aluminum coolant lines that run under the fuel cell and through the driveshaft tunnel. They put off a lot of heat and I was always a bit hesitant about the durability of the rigid lines after some time in the desert. Electrical power is also limited in the XPT so with the dual setup it meant I would be running two cooling fans as well. All this put together it was a no brainer for me to cough up another $1300 and get the CBR setup. It is a much more simple setup and IMO definitely the way to go. It runs a single fan instead of the two and it is much larger to handle anything I might need. I like it!





In the spirit of keeping everything cool I added the oil cooler kit from Weller Racing. I just purchased the oil filter sandwich adapter and ran a Derale frame mount cooler. It was a pretty cheap add on and gives a bit more oil capacity and hopefully helps keep things cooler.

 

[BiggJim]

mount those fire extinguishers upside down. the powder in them want to compact an alot of times they wont work. If you put them upside down it will compact to the nozzle end. At least thats the theory and the way it has been explained to me.

 

[Ratoutahell]

Thanks for the tip BiggJim!